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dzhastin t1_je3mblg wrote

Reply to comment by Last-Relationship166 in Only Alcohol Free Bar in Dublin Closes its Doors by patdshaker

So because James Joyce liked to drink it’s okay to paint the Irish as alcoholics? How can you be intelligent enough to read Ulysses yet be so ignorant?

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Last-Relationship166 t1_je3p1c1 wrote

How can you not get the joke that the humor lies in the fact that a non-alcoholic bar in Dublin is an oxymoron?

The culture involves alcohol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholism_in_Ireland#:~:text=Binge%20drinking%20is%20considered%20the,deaths%20a%20day%20in%20Ireland.

Why can't a joke be a joke without everyone getting bent out of shape? Would I assume someone was an alcoholic because the person was Irish? Of course not! That would be stupid. Am I going to feel all offended because someone makes a joke about the very real situation regarding alcohol and Irish culture. No! That would be stupid, as well.

The more one uses humor against tropes, the more those tropes lose power.

Mel Brooks wrote comedies about the Holocaust, The Spanish Inquisition, and racism to combat and to criticize and to mock those very mindsets.

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dzhastin t1_je3pzpy wrote

I got the joke, I understand the cheap stereotype of the Irish all being alcoholics. I just don’t find it amusing or clever. It’s cheap and facile.

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Last-Relationship166 t1_je4g71c wrote

Cheap and facile...because it involves a stereotype....Uh huh....as cheap and facile as assuming that someone who laughs at this post thinks all Irish are drunks?...what reductionist thinking. It's cheap and puerile if you ask me. It saves someone the "hard work" of considering context. You should read Brave New World sometime. I never thought the citizenry would pursue such a society until recently.

I happen to feel that humor is the best lense through which to present stereotypes, because it acknowledges their absurdity.
Would you find Blazing Saddles cheap and facile because it incorporated stereotypes about black people? That movie was written by Richard Pryor. He understood the power of humor.

Also, Ulysses is rife with humor about all sorts of things..including stereotypes. How can you assert it's an intelligent work? Shouldn't you be advocating for its censorship or, if nothing else, condemning it, here?

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