Greetings. This is Brittani’s Video Party, where I bring some of the “best” videos from all over my internet together so we can clap, cry or deconstruct. Have you ever gotten to a video and it already has 33 million views and you wonder where the heck have you been? Well I’m here to help you so that you see it when it only has 32 million views. Aim low, world. Aim low.
Header by Rory Midhani
Back to the real world, faces. This week Tegan and Sara put out their cutest video to date in my not ever humble opinion so thanks Carmen for stealing that from me. BUT in other gay video news, some ladies came up with a counter to College Humor’s video about gay guys marrying girlfriends. Obvs you should check it out immediately. Omg here it is.
If you think that was funny, like Cards Against Humanity, and hate Black Friday, you should find this next video of shoppers being trolled on Black Friday hilarious. Unless you take Black Friday very serious. Then you’ll still find it hilarious.
Now that THAT holiday season is over, THE holiday season is in full swing which means the trailers for holiday movies will start dropping like absolutely no one’s weight. Here’s the video for This is 40 which focuses on Pete and Debbie, the married couple from Knocked Up. Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segel, Megan Fox, Melissa McCarthy, Lena Dunham, and Charlyne Yi are all in this movie written and directed by Judd Apatow. There’s really only two options for how that cast makes you feel. Extreme brownies and pizza for dinner excited or supremely only douches like those movies annoyed. Since I love anything in the vein of Wedding Crashers, Knocked Up, etc. I am very excited to actually spend money to see this one. The other movie I plan on seeing in theaters this holiday season? You’ll find out next week. But it shouldn’t be that hard to guess.
If you haven’t found the Pete to your Debbie, then maybe you’re on the prowl. It’s starting to get pretty frigid outside which can only mean one thing: it’s cuffing season. Just watch out for the toothbrush ambush. If you’ve ever walked into your bathroom to find a surprise toothbrush then you’ll be able to relate to this music video by Wax. If you’ve found a surprise toothbrush AND toothpaste, hold onto that one. She’s obviously extremely considerate which totally overrides the surprise element to her tooth cleaning utensils.
If you have a video you think everyone should see, tweet it to @bishilarious for consideration. And of course feel free to post your favorite videos from the week below.
Tegan and Sara behind the scenes of the “Closer” music video. Made my day.
http://stereogum.com/1209691/tegan-and-sara-closer-video/video/
…I was wondering when you would catch up.
These last 2 hours since I found out about the response meme, I was like…when will AS get on the train and gab about it?
“turn the lights off and we can’t tell the difference”
I’m sorry what? I’m supposed to find this funny?
Apart from that i still found it reasonably amusing, not perfect by a long shot but still pretty good.
Yeah, that part I was like, “Wha?” But then the woman closed her eyes at 2:05 and whispered “Rachel Maddow.” and I kinda had to watch that part five times and then I forgot the weird premise.
I didn’t even get that far and I found it highly problematic/obnoxious.
For all of those calling the “gay women will marry your boyfriends” video problematic: I don’t understand why you would expect a well-rounded presentation of lesbians and lesbian culture from a video called GAY WOMEN WILL MARRY YOUR BOYFRIENDS. As a humor video in the vein of the male original, the creators of this video took a premise based solely in stereotypes and ran with it. If you have a problem with enjoying stereotypes for humor, then obviously you’re not going to like this video and there’s no point fighting it. I mean honestly, I don’t think the video is that funny but that doesn’t mean that something that speaks directly to our community shouldn’t be included because of my opinion. This column is first and foremost about popular, new, and/or buzzed about videos and from there feel free to form your own opinion. So think it’s not funny all you want but to accuse these women of being sexist for it just seems absurd.
Sure you could say that the reason a lesbian version isn’t the original is because the premise doesn’t work as well but I think we all know it’s just because no one gives a shit. Had the lesbian version been the original and gone viral, there would have been a dozen gay male responses in the next week. The fact that they took the time to try and let us be in on the joke as we rarely are is at least worth mentioning. The original version had the name recognition of College Humor whereas I’m sure this was thrown together hurriedly to capitalize on the other videos popularity. So no, I’m not surprised that this one was lacking certain levels of quality.
I think whether stereotypes were employed better or more offensively is a slippery slope. I would expect anyone who feels a stereotype could be applied to them would be more sensitive to its usage than one that does not. The point of the exercise is to craft the lesbian most palatable for a straight male. So if you’re going to complain about how ‘this is not how lesbians are’ also maybe consider that that the original video is not how all gay males are either. Or that some straight women fit this caricature much more than some lesbians. And that some straight males could have zero interest in a woman with these interests. The video isn’t making harsh generalities about lesbians, it’s making them about everyone for the sake of humor. This wasn’t a video made for the queer community. It was made about us for our mutual enjoyment with the rest of the world.
As for the whole “can’t tell the difference line,” COME ON. This. video. is. a. joke. It is no way trying to belittle your sexuality or what you do in the bedroom. It is handling an aspect of marriage that has to be spoken to in the video to sell the premise. I think that line was better than what we usually are thrown because when the dildo/penis debate is waged in front of a non-queer community, it’s stressed how superior the penis is. So to say that there is no difference between them is doing something that these comparisons usually don’t do which is to hold the penis up to the standard of the dildo. Saying that you think these women actually expect you to sleep with a man and not notice the difference is as believable as you marrying a man because you’re denied the opportunity to marry a woman.
i want to hug you so hard right now.
what Carrie said, but with my legs.
What Bren said but also with my mouth.
Wow, just wow. That’s your answer? “Lighten up and stop being offended by everything”? I’m so fucking done with Autostraddle.
That is in no way what was said so if at any point you’d like to actually read it and respond I would be glad to have a conversation. However I’m not going to lay down and die when people show up, point fingers, and complain without adding anything to the conversation or put any thought into their response other than, “I don’t like this, I am mad.” It’s juvenile and well below the expectations I have for anyone who chooses to continually engage with this website.
To be fair, I hated the original too.
Meh! I like the “Gay guys will marry your girlfriends” a LOT more. The original seemed to use the stereotypes a lot better and much less offensively. Plus the gay guys seemed a lot more likable.
I think another reason that it didn’t work as well is because everyone knows about the straight girl who wants the gay guy best friend and the stereotypes about how they treat these friends; straight guys don’t generally tend to lament their lack of lesbian friends, and there are no stereotypes about how they treat those friends (or if there are, they aren’t mainstream).
Agree! Exactly.
As someone who formerly pretended to be a guy, guys talk about lesbians a lot, and most of the stuff was bang on the mark, especially when going in to ‘lesbians know other lesbians, lipstick lesbians’
The idea of having sex with a lesbian is still highly prized by guys.
Yeah. There is a stereotype about how lesbians relate to straight guys, it’s just different from the stereotype of how gay guys relate to straight women (although, is this particular to straight women though? I’m a queer lady and I’ve been affectionately referred to as a “fag hag” for having a lot of gay guy friends).
It’s actually really creepy looking back at it, But at the time knowing that actually, a queer girl would be a really sensible choice for me it kinda skipped over my head.
You know, when I saw the gay guys will marry your girlfriends video I remember thinking, “you’ll never see the equivalent of this for lesbians cause it doesn’t work.” That video just confirmed what I thought, cause I know there’s no way in hell I’d take one for the team(and by one I mean a dick).
As a big queerbo who enjoys shopping and doesn’t give a fuck about sports that aren’t cricket… ehh. The gay dudes one was more patronising than funny, and this one was even worse. Also just the thought of making out for the benefit of a straight dude makes me want to throw up. I make out for the benefit of ME.
I agree. The general sentiment I can understand, and parts of it were even funny, but for the most part it was pretty bad.
P.S. I enjoy your picture. “Ain’t give a damn!”
That hideous video about marrying your boyfriend kept my attention for a whole 20 seconds… and then I started getting involuntary reactions involving bile when they mentioned having actual sex with a guy. as if it’s “Like a dildo” “Can’t tell the difference” ???
Are they TRYING to sound like hetero assholes?
Now I’m all hate-hate-hate, looooathe entirely.
Blecch. Not even mentionable.
So is the “lez” response video better or worse than the straight guy response video?
Better if you’re referring to the “bros” one, which I think kind of missed the point of the original video.
Ok, nope, I realized you were talking about a different one. Yeah, this video is way way better than than the one you’re referring to.
So in response to that “wax” video. . .
If I wanted to sexist commentary and stereotypes about women in straight relationships, I could go on reddit.
I come to autostraddle to get away from that stuff? help?
wow, that “Gay women will marry your boyfriends” is the most disgustingly sexist thing I’ve seen in a while. why does autostraddle think it’s funny? also, I’d like to note that one of the stars, Sarah Rotella, tweeted (TRIGGER WARNING FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE JOKES): “#Rihanna could have stood up for women’s rights after her assault instead of supporting #ChrisBrown – it almost make you want to beat her up.” YAY FUNNY LADIES, RIGHT???
I agree that some of the jokes fell flat in that lesbian response video, but I did think that some of them were spot on. The one boyfriend I actually had…..we watched all of the NBA playoffs. And never went to the mall. And checked out the waitresses together. And discussed Skyrim. And his *was* literally the biggest dick I’d ever seen (albeit, the only one). So yeah….this video hit kind of close to home for me and I laughed pretty hard.
Also, that Kristen Stewart line…hilarious, right? Come on, you know it made you at least smile.
Yes, parts of the video where mildly offensive, but other parts were hilarious! (Kstew line anyone?) Let’s not be so quick to get offended and instead remember: if we can’t first laugh at ourselves, then who CAN we laugh at?
We *should* be able to laugh at ourselves, but there’s a difference between good natured humor coming from an inside view and reiterating harmful cliches that have been imposed on lesbians. Have you seen the Big Gay Sketch Show? To me that’s the way this kind of thing should work. They play around with stereotypes and exaggerate a lot of common behaviors, but it’s clear that none of it is meant to appeal to straight people or affirm their views.
As someone who thinks like a guy pretty much 95% of the time, I actually found that to be hilarious. While there were some pretty atrocious lines like the one about the dick, it was all in good fun. Everyone knows that we would never actually fuck a guy seeing as how a lot of lesbians won’t even use dildos but it was meant to be funny. Besides the KStew line was hilarious…
I don’t understand this post. Why are all these videos presented with positive commentary? Are sexism and heteronormativity things Autostraddle likes now?
Yes.
I hated the line about not being able to tell it’s a cock when the light’s off too, but they won me back with “I mean, look at Kristen Stewart, she already scored Robert Pattinson.”
Gaystew forevaaa
Yeah, that part was pretty perfect.
I thought it was pretty hilarious. I think you guys are taking it too seriously.
Nah, just thought it was stupid. We’re all entitled to our opinions.
since I work in retail I kinda knew the Black Friday troll video would make me cringe… I thought part of the point of protesting was to help the employees who have to work that day, not make their job harder/make customers complain about the employees there.
I was glad to see a lesbian response video to the Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends video… in theory? But I felt like the male version was done much better and made a lot more sense. The lesbian one seemed mostly more confusing and problematic.
That aside, I like the idea of a Video Party column.
Are the people in the we’ll marry your boyfriends video actually gay? Straight women have no business making fun of lesbian stereotypes, I don’t care if it’s for a ~higher cause~.
I’m curious about what gay guys think of the original collegehumor video.
The only whoa-wait-a-minute line for me was the ‘can’t tell the difference’ one, but I definitely found this one less funny overall, and I can’t tell you why. Humor is an odd thing. It probably has to do with some sort of sexism. Sigh- sexism is why we can’t have nice things.
As an update, in my highly unscientific survey of 6 not-straight male facebook friends, 4 found the original not funny. 3 found it offensive. One thinks that, while there were stereotypes, they were turned around in such a way to make them positive.
I feel like the original college humor video catered to straight girls who fetishize gay guys.
So when replicating this and trying to make jokes the other way around, in a lot of ways you cater to straight guy’s fetishization of lesbians, which is sometimes violent and harmful. so no.
Yeah, I think that’s why I was at least able to tolerate the entire original video but shut off the lesbian response 30 seconds in.
I can see how it was meant to be poking fun of that fetishization, but let’s be honest, privileged people can be really bad at detecting that kind of satire. That’s why I’m uncomfortable with it.
http://feministing.com/2012/11/30/feminists-will-probably-not-marry-any-of-you/
I don’t always agree with Feministing but they’re spot on here. You done fucked up, Autostraddle. Admit and move on.
All this did was make the points I made above and then go on to take them to task for demonizing straight women? So really the difference is just that at the end of the day, they don’t like the premise. If you want to opine that this is not “campy enactment” but rather a reinforcement of stereotypes, fine. I don’t give a shit enough about this piece to argue that. But to state your opinion as law and then accuse those that do not agree as not being feminists (which is the undertone of the article) is bullshit. So no, I didn’t fuck up.
And to the whole ‘agree with Feministing, you done fucked up, Autostraddle’ thing. I hope you understand that Autostraddle is not one collective super brain and you can disagree with one author without condemning the entire site. We have our pictures and names by the articles for a reason. Because you can communicate with us directly and we will respond and talk about these issues. We do not always agree with each other so I see no reason to expect you to always agree with us. I respect your opinion; I see where you are coming from. And I think we all see what can be problematic with all of the “marry your girlfriend videos.” I also understand that when you see someone else’s viewpoint as sexist and not feminist that you don’t want to necessarily say that you respect it because ultimately that could be giving agency to sexism and whatever else. But to go off the rails and try to strip any individual and an entire website of their feminism because we disagree over a humor video is shortsighted and utterly ridiculous.
Yup. As much as I dislike the videos, I think there has been some ridiculous behavior in this comment thread.
Relevant video (second time I’ve linked it today!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0la5DBtOVNI
I laughed at that video for longer than I dare say. Relevant and useful. Saving for personal use.
Ok, so… Judge away! haha!
Gay Men will Marry your Girlfriends:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6846855/gay-men-will-marry-your-girlfriends
Straight Men Respond to: “Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSX0vGnjkws&feature=player_embedded
Straight Women Respond to: “Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoMb40HHH7o
Gay Women will Marry your Boyfriends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0Be8LnuG3U&feature=player_embedded
Gay Women Will Marry / Bang Your Girlfriends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoMb40HHH7o
For some reason, I still like ALL other responses more than the “Gay Women will Marry your Boyfriends”. I don’t want to hate it, but I think there can be a better version (or maybe there just can’t be… becaaause… maybe we would just never marry a man! ew! lol! our payback would just be to convert the straight women instead! muaahahaha!)
I’ve noticed all other responses accept the stereotypes of the one they’re responding to. While the “Gay Women will Marry your Boyfriends” just bashes on straight women with things that are not even exclusive to them (meaning: lesbian do share some of them). I don’t know, it still just rubs me the wrong way…
The “Straight Men Respond…” one was pretty awful too. Jam-packed full of negative stereotypes about women. (which often weren’t even funny. “Gay weddings will be full of drunk sluts! Yay!” Just cringeworthy. And as much as it would be convenient if all women were closet lesbians, I wish the ‘no, but you’re *really*’ trope would just go away.)
That’s why I’m really curious what gay men think of the original video. I found it the funniest of the bunch, but maybe that’s just me being insensitive because I’m not a gay man. I’ll go survey some, or something.
To be a little more clear, that’s the ‘let me explain to you why I know more about your own sexuality than you do’ trope. (Which I’d call ‘mansplaining’, except I’ve heard it equally from all genders.) It needs to go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpnaVvmYGHU
Here’s the actual link for Gay Women Will Marry/Bang Your Girlfriends, the other redirects wrong (nbd).
This one I think was kinda funny.
…They all have perfect hair. Why can’t I have hair like that?
Yeah okay the straight man response is definitely the worst thing ever.
I’m not a lesbian, so I can’t really speak to that specific aspect of the video. And this is the only version that I watched- and after watching it, I’m not about to go off and watch the others.
I don’t know- are we really at the point where we can joke about gay people “turning straight”? Gay marriage is finally becoming a viable political reality, but in some parts of the US, as well as *most of the rest of the world*, conversion therapy, corrective rape and a whole bunch of other tortures designed to turn people straight are all too real as well. Even more real, in fact. I don’t think we can really joke about these things without somehow also raising the specter of that continued assumption that gay people can turn straight, and the violence implicated in it.
When it comes to straight people—and assuming a privileged standpoint—resorting to lesbian stereotypes to make someone laugh: I only have a problem with it when it’s done with malicious intent.
My main social circle consists of 15 straight women who’ve been close friends for over a decade, who happen to love their lesbian friend (me) and have fervently defended my gay rights over the years. At other times, they poke fun at my lesbianism and everyone—including myself—roars in laughter, because life is too short to make a big fuss out of everything and some things are funny because they are true and it’s not done out of spite or hatred!
Never mind the few off-hand comments in there; it’s not in there to hurt us. Life is exhausting when you see maliciousness in everything.
How do we know that any of the women in the video are straight, though?
Just for the record: I maybe kind of have a little crush or whaever on Paul Rudd or so.
I thought it was funny because it was so stereotypical. that was the point. Not to enlighten the masses about lesbian sexuality or the morality of gay marriage. Thanks for posting it!
I want to see “This is 40”!!! Everytime I see clip after they eat the magic cookies I laugh so hard… EVERY. TIME. “There! Just saw it!!” HAHAHAHA I think I’ve seen it at least 30 times… Damn, now I want a magic cookie….