27 killed in afghanistan- The Onion's autistic reporter explains
Just awesome.
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Sheriff John Bunnell https://twitter.com/thewonderfulgam, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 19:29,
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He's always good for a laugh...
There was one a while back where he covered a train wreck and was more obsessed with the condition of the train...
(, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 19:35, Reply)
his interview with the guy in prison is marvellous
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D04wb7P_v-4
*edit - damn that clip misses the bit after where he's wanting a gun or a knife to stab someone up :D
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HappyToast Groat froth, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 19:46,
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my name is jacob dyer and i live in bristol. it is fantastic. i sound like barnaby bear. i like barnaby bear. one time he went to france. i went to france. but some kid burnt my neck. i didnt like it.
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spesh., Fri 27 Apr 2012, 19:57,
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my name is jacob dyer and i live in bristol. it is fantastic. i sound like barnaby bear. i like barnaby bear. one time he went to france. i went to france. but some kid burnt my neck. i didnt like it.
(, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 20:43, Reply)
Yes.
Another victim of Herbs' volumous man-eating gash.
4EVA IN R HARTZ
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 21:31,
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Still haven't seen Teeth
Is it any good?
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Extinct Jesus Dossier "...I think it counteracts Hitler's magic...", Fri 27 Apr 2012, 22:09,
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La la la not listening la la la
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Fri 27 Apr 2012, 23:28,
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ok, what am I missing here....
what's this Jacob Dyer all about?
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--- ---, Sat 28 Apr 2012, 0:53,
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well you see it's like this:
my name is jacob dyer and i live in bristol. it is fantastic. i sound like barnaby bear. i like barnaby bear. one time he went to france. i went to france. but some kid burnt my neck. i didnt like it.
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Paster of Muppets is an incredible screen name, Sat 28 Apr 2012, 2:23,
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..is this....is this ok? This is very explicitly mocking the disabled. It seems a little uncomfortable to me. Watch the recent Louis Theroux documentary where he meets autistic kids like I did, then watch this.
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Kung_Fu_Russ ran out of amusing signatures on, Sat 28 Apr 2012, 0:44,
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They seems to use the character to mock absurd situations
I don't see autism as being the punchline here. They had another report from him where he was reporting from a scene where somebody died and he didn't get why the victim's family were hugging his body (or something like that) as he was already gone.
The actor who plays the reporter is himself autistic. That doesn't immunise it from being offensive, but it makes it a bit less likely to be so in my mind.
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RadioElectric, Sat 28 Apr 2012, 10:02,
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feel I should respond to this, even little belatedly
Firstly, "the disabled" should be no more immune from mockery than the rest of us. Second, the point of the sketch is to use the device of an autistic viewpoint to satirise war and the differing viewpoints about death/victory/patriotism. Thirdly, although you have watched a documentary, I work with autistic people regularly. The ones with high functioning are able to laugh at their quirks etc, what they really struggle with is the public's ignorance of their condition (assuming they have rain man style 'special powers' etc). Something like this highlights how they view the world and so increases people's understanding of autism and why they react 'oddly' in certain situations.
So yes, it is ok.
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Sheriff John Bunnell https://twitter.com/thewonderfulgam, Sat 28 Apr 2012, 22:48,
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What is the difference
Between this and a comedy sketch featuring our Downs Syndrome reporter, our spastic reporter, or our mentally retarded reporter.
A comedy character explicitly based on popular misconceptions about disability. Tasteful...
It seems that while it would be considered a hate crime to mock some disabilities, there are a list of other disabilities that it's ok to make fun of:
Autism
Tourette's
Epilepsy
Stammering
Schizophrenia, interestingly is slowly moving from the latter category to the former. I wonder what the criteria is that makes certain disabilites "ok" to make fun of. It's the same for race - comedy at the expense of different races is frowned upon on a sliding scale through black / South Asians / Middle Easterns / East Asians / whites
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B3tan Housewife, Fri 4 May 2012, 15:12,
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I'm OK with it
War is a horrible nasty business. Far too often politicians and the media try to sanitise war by taking the guts and the emotions out of it, reducing everything to studiously neutral language. This piece is funny and thought provoking because it shows how absurd such attempts to dehumanise killing would be if done assiduously.
So yes, if you want to unpack attempts to remove emotion from a situation, use an autistic reporter. If you want to unpack attempts to add humour to inherently unfunny situations, use a reporter with Downs.
(, Fri 4 May 2012, 17:52, Reply)
I'm autistic
And these pieces use the tabula rasa of our logic in a way that makes other people seem abnormal.
If you're viewing them thinking they're mocking autism, it's only because you find odd speech patterns uncomfortable to deal with so you relegate them to parody instead of just ignoring and listening to the content.
(, Sat 5 May 2012, 6:24, Reply)