Sometimes something which should be a non-news, non-story becomes a huge story solely because of the ridiculously over-the-top reaction which it generates, a phenomenon which seems to be magnified by the instant networked communication made possible by the internet.
Such is the case with a recent Playboy article by Guy Cimbalo which was basically a "hate fuck" list of conservative women with commentary on why he found them physically attractive despite finding their views intellectually abhorrent. The article was clearly written as satire and has some intentionally offensive descriptions of the women and acts he'd like to perform, but nothing one wouldn't have expected to see in similar satirical articles in outlets like National Lampoon when I was in college.
Cimbalo's remarkable achievement is that his weak attempt at biting sarcasm was rapidly transformed into something so toxic that not only was the article removed from the Playboy website, but other articles discussing it or even highly critical of it have been purged from the internet. One site which posted snapshots of the article seems to have been taken completely offline, and an AOL writer who covered it was fired by AOL.
The progress of events was that the Playboy website published Cimbalo's article "So Wrong It's Right" on the Monday. Almost immediately two normally antithetical groups — right wing moralists and left wing feminists — began twittering and blogging about it. Pretty soon, the internet was ringing with complaints that it objectified women, that it advocated rape, that it was grossly sexist, that it was politically biased (duh), and so on. But the second generation of bitching about it really passed over into the surreal, as feminists complained that fellow feminist Anne Schroeder Mullins of Politico was a thought criminal just for reprinting the names from Cimbalo's list with none of the commentary. And then the reaction went beyond ridiculous when AOL's Politics Daily fired Tommy Christopher for writing an article highly critical of Cimbalo's work, and possibly also for his role in blowing up the whole situation on Twitter. By Thursday, sites which quoted or even referred to the article were being shut down and articles were being taken offline, though for the time being the content of the article is still cached on Google.
Cimbalo has achieved a sort of trifecta of online journalism. He offended liberals and conservatives, he wrote something you could get slagged on for supporting or criticizing, and he managed to create a discussion so provocative it became toxic and started tumbling web pages like dominoes. Even if he's not particularly good at satire, Cimbalo proved that he was a master of creating controversy, though he certainly had a lot of help from self-righteous twitterheads and moralistic buffoons all over the net.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Bryan
I've seen bits of the article here and there, but maybe not enough to get context. What exactly about this was satire? What was Cimbalo trying to satirize?
2 - Maurice
Iron my shirt, bitch!
3 - Clavos
5...4...3...2...1...
4 - Dr Dreadful
It's Playboy. Did that not give anybody a clue?
No, Dave, Cimbalo's article was not satire. It was a RILF list, plain and simple.
Oy, oy, oy.
5 - Dave Nalle
I think it was intended to be satire, just very badly written. Mean satire, perhaps, but these types of lists are inherently satirical in nature, because they are entirely speculative and intended to be humorous.
Dave
6 - Bryan
If it's satire, it's meant to poke fun & comment critically on something. You still haven't really clarified what you think it's meant to satirize.
7 - zingzing
bryan, i think it's meant to satirize lists of sexy women. it features conservative women. whose idea of fun is it to fuck a conservative?
it's like a list of bad movies. or an ice cream store that only sells vanilla.
8 - Bryan
zinging, if that's the case, it really doesn't make it any less offensive. There are plenty of ways to satirize lists of sexy women without resorting to the kind of stuff you find in this article. That makes it not just failed satire, but also needlessly offensive, which I think would undermine Dave's argument.
Which means Dave must think it's satirizing something else which for some reason he's not telling us.
9 - Clavos
My take on Dave's article is that he is simply reporting that the article was published and spotlighting the silly overreactions by everyone on both sides of the aisle.
He said it was badly written, mean satire.
10 - Bryan
I got the impression that he was arguing that because it was satire, people shouldn't have taken it seriously. Even though it was bad satire, it was obviously intended as humor, right?
But I think the outrage is justified. Sexism is sexism, whether or not it's funny. Dave admits it was bad satire, but he seems to say it should get the same free pass for satire that other, "no less offensive" articles in Hustler and the National Lampoon get.
And then in the last paragraph, Dave says that it should have been more outrageous to work as good satire. I'm still not convinced though that it was satire at all. Dave seems to be evaluating it as just a bad piece of humor writing that people are overreacting to, rather than a symptom (not a cause, but clearly a symptom) of a major problem with sexism in our culture.
11 - zingzing
bryan, it's playboy. don't take it too seriously. really, republicans (and women) are just bitching because it makes fun of republicans (and women).
if you pick up playboy looking for something that portrays women in a good light (other than good lighting), you need to have your head examined. i mean, what are you expecting from playboy?
12 - Glenn Contrarian
Just to make some political hay out of the article, I have to mention this reminded me of far-right talk-show host Mark Levin's comment to Hannity: "It's not the National Organization of Liberal Women. It's the National Organization of Ugly Women."
Then there was G. Gordon Liddy who recently opined that Sotomeyer would not be able to be fair, firm, and impartial due to her monthly period (or words to that effect). I'm fairly certain that - with a bit of effort - I could find similar insults against 'liberal women' by Limbaugh and Coulter.
The sad part is, Dave points out that the author whose article led to the controversy above did seem to be making a weak attempt at satire. While I understand that the talk-show hosts I listed above are entertainers, I don't think it can be said that they were in any way being satirical about their insults.
13 - Dr Dreadful
if you pick up playboy looking for something that portrays women in a good light (other than good lighting), you need to have your head examined. i mean, what are you expecting from playboy?
Yes, it's a bit like walking into a maximum security prison and complaining that the prisoners are locked up 24 hours a day...
14 - El Bicho
After having read the article, it is definitely not satire. It's just a mean and nasty list written by a left-wing idiot with a piss-poor sense of humor who thought he could get away it because they are conservative women.
Please point to the article in National Lampoon, Hustler, or The Onion that is comparable. And what was the "mildly funny" part?
While it doesn't advocate rape, his use of the term "hate fuck" understandably has that connotation, and is another example of what a bad writer he is.
I can see why Playboy fired the guy. I wouldn't pay someone to write garbage like that.
15 - Dave Nalle
it's like a list of bad movies. or an ice cream store that only sells vanilla.
Go to cracked.com -- the whole site is composed of this kind of article, almost all of them more funny than this one from Playboy. They consist of lists of "Top 10" whatever accompanied by amusing commentary on each of the picks. It's such an established format that it's immedeiately recognized, like the "redneck" jokes.
Dave
16 - Dave Nalle
Bryan, it can be bad satire AND a symptom of a problem in society at the same time. And in general I think people should lighten up and that this overreaction is an example of why. It's satire written for teenage boys with their hands in their pants, what the hell did people expect, George Plimpton?
And no, I have no deeper message than that. Just that most people take this and themselves way too fucking seriously as demonstrated by the firing of Christopher and the various other sites which were taken offline. And did I mention that Playboy has no spine?
Dave
17 - Dave Nalle
I can see why Playboy fired the guy. I wouldn't pay someone to write garbage like that.
For the $1 a word which Playboy pays I'll gladly rewrite the article so it's actually funny.
Dave
18 - Baronius
Remember those Muhammad cartoons that brought the world to a standstill? They became a far bigger story because no one saw them. Once they were posted online, everyone realized how innocuous they were. This Playboy story is probably similar.
19 - Cindy
It's satire written for teenage boys...
Teenage frat boys apparently. I thought it was stupidity written for adult idiots. But when Dave puts it as...it's only aimed at teens who are developing their sexuality and their views of women...I can completely see how it's not a problem.
I sure hope you only have girls Dave.
20 - USpace
.
Neo-Liberalism is a mental disease. Conservative women are HOTter! But it's not hard to imagine the justified 'Liberal' outrage if say, Hustler Magazine ran a disgusting parody where Rush, Hannity, Beck, Savage and Ann Coulter gang-rape and tickle-torture Katie Couric, the PIAPS, and then Nancy Pelosi.
Imagine. The outrage would last for months in the MSM. There would be calls for firings and boycotts. NOW would be apoplectic. Poor little outraged, hypocritical Libs.
:)
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
joke about raping women
if they are conservative
EVIL freedom lovers...
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
sex is the height of evil
so is photography
but not pornography
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
always rape women...
who are conservative
they're just gender traitors
.
21 - Jordan Richardson
What?
22 - Jeannie Danna
# 20 was that supposed to be a poem or did you drop acid last night? You are not a Conservative at all and the Liberals don't want you either...
23 - Jeannie Danna
What Jordan said (What?)
24 - Arch Conservative
What's bigger news than the Playboy article itself is that self proclaimed feminists aka leftist hacks actually condemened the article.
Was it just independent bloggers or did someone like NOW, the Feminist Majority etc come out against the article. Let's face it, these are not women's groups. The are left wing special interest groups that use the guise of equality for women to advance their leftist political agenda. Even zing knows that.
25 - Christine Lakatos
Hey Dave, I must have missed this one, I was too busy watching spongebob! Where can I find this article?