Actually I think it really did. 2020 makes it clear how much everyone should have absolutely appreciated how good 2018 was, and how silly many of the “oh God this is all terrible!” comments were at the time.  

Aha but the “squirm” factor often is crucial to comedy.  The Office is a great example. That which discomfits us often is that which amuses us.  So the idea to me that you can’t punch down because it’s not funny is categorically untrue.  Maybe it’s wrong to people morally (“you are on the side of the bullied”) but…

Well hold on before you insult The Simpsons!

But point being, you can laugh at a fictional character’s misfortune - you can laugh down at him, as it were

But we are able to laugh at a character’s misfortune. So it stands to reason that you can laugh down at someone: We don’t resent the Simpsons for mocking poor Gil, we delight in it. And sure Gil’s fictional, but so are most movie characters.

It seems odd to suggest otherwise. You might not like, say, ethnic jokes, but…

Well no, because bullying is done to actual people. The Simpsons isn’t bullying poor Gil -- he doesn’t exist -- but they extract humor out of his miserable, pitiful existence.

See but I find this interesting. You’re attaching a moral component to comedy and assuming that “good” people wouldn’t find something funny if it reinforces the existing power structure. I find this silly. Anyone who studies humor knows that what makes us uncomfortable is often funny (dead baby jokes take this to…

Isn’t Gil in the Simpsons funny?

Do you just have this post copied and pasted by now? 

I more or less see your point, but this is clearly a fairly new belief.  Ethnic humor, for instance, could mainly be termed punching down and people happily told (and still tell, I imagine) such jokes for probably hundreds of years

YES

I find the idea that comedy must “punch up” to be a strange one.  I guess it makes sense if you view comedy as a tool for social justice, in which case the punching up shows truth to power and such.  But if you view comedy as an expression of humor, it’s an odd requirement.  

Did It’s Always Sunny feature copious uses of the n-word?

Ehhhhh I think that’s overstated. Dances with Wolves, say, gives viewers a great “in” to a foreign culture via John Dunbar’s character.  It’s an effective storytelling device, and I don’t think it’s pandering or condescending 

But it wasn’t a “lazy trope”, it’s what actually happened in his life.  Should we criticize Holocaust movies for that tired old “liberated by the allies” thing when it would be so much more ideologically satisfying if they liberated themselves?  

Ahhhhh that was a delightful bit of self-hating whiteness. All the white people who complained about Brad Pitt’s true-to-real-life character because they worried it would make other white people feel that not all white people were bad. Stupid history being so inconvenient for self-loathing!  Couldn’t the filmmakers…

It’s funny because he, like me for years, misheard that quote from Aliens.  It’s not “Marines we are leaving,” it’s “DRAKE we are leaving,” as Hicks calls to the tail man.  Way less quotable than the misheard version though :(

I bet some of these soldiers mansplain AND manspread. Monsters. 

“The ’00s will be remembered as the decade of snark, a period where being smart and funny also meant being witheringly condescending towards everyone and everything that wasn’t in on the joke.”

And this website was (is?) one of the biggest participants in this trend

Interesting article, thanks

Nah The Martian was excellent