Name: Jim Norton on His Debate with Lindy West (from Joe Rogan Experience #383)
Uploaded: 2013-10-16T19:48:29.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jim Norton on His Debate with Lindy West (from Joe Rogan Experience #383)' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2013-10-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jim Norton on His Debate with Lindy West (from Joe Rogan Experience #383)' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2013-10-16. Transcript available.

Jim Norton on His Debate with Lindy West (from Joe Rogan Experience #383)

Joe Rogan experience you're so good at breaking shit down dude you said that
there was not a hint
of bias there you were being completely honest about it that's I really value
that in the way
you talk and that's why I was really happy when I watched that Kamau Bell show
M Kamau Bell
totally biased Kamau Bell yeah which was W Kamau Bell you and Lindy West Lindy
West who's a feminist
blogger for Jezebel which is a feminist website and what I loved about it man
was first of all
you never got upset you you were rational and logical and you had you were you
were talking
about it in a very measured way and you're being really friendly while you're
discussing this and
you know in her in her defense it's a very tricky subject to to breach for a
woman and she was saying
a lot of shit like comedy clubs are filled with rooms filled with angry men and
you didn't you didn't
even flinch you didn't you didn't go after her you know she had like these digs
about like you know
you're allowed to just joke about it but I'm allowed to tell you're a dick yeah
I didn't think it
personally because I didn't think she hadn't the blog wasn't about me it was
about a guy who yeah any
guy making a dick joke or certain rape jokes that put and this is the tricky
part of Lindy West because
a lot of people would say she's against she's for censorship but she really
wasn't she was about
she didn't like the jokes that she thought minimalized the victim in a rape
right now it's
hard to logically say well yeah minimalizing the victim of rape is a good thing
but you know what
people forget they went after Sam Murrell a lot of jokes are just misdirection
he's a comedian in New York
who had done some like domestic violence jokes or whatever but in a misdirection
joke you you go for
the the most obvious uh or opposite thing so sometimes it isn't violent yeah
sometimes it's like I did one
joke and this didn't come up in that show but like I was talking about uh
seeing it a girl now I don't
know if she had a good time or was raped in a porta potty I'm not gonna go
through the whole joke
before but those were it was at a concert an outdoor concert so the two most
opposite things I could
think of if I said I didn't know if she had a good time or not a very good time
who gives a shit
fuck you exactly raped in a porta potty uh you're painting a picture yeah if I
said I didn't know if
she was beaten in a porta potty or raped in a porta potty nobody would have
laughed because they're too
close so the fact I mean I'm explaining this to the audience not yes right the
fact that you take two
things that are such polar opposites sometimes the polar opposite you land on
for the joke is a horrible
thing that minimalizes the victim and every catholic priest joke is somehow
minimalizing the victim
comedy does that and I don't believe that it has to just be speaking truth to
power I think that's
part of it but I think that as long as your intention is genuinely to be funny
and not to humiliate a
person for real I think it's allowable and it has to be because it gets to be
too subjective after that
well it's an art form and if you don't like that art form I completely and
totally understand that you
don't have to participate to participate in the shows you don't have to go but
when you're you're
being like hypercritical about it and trying to get people to stop doing it you're
gonna make it so
that that art form is not available like the really fucked up thing that you
don't mean art form is
not available just like rap music I mean what is going on in rap music are they
really running around
killing people and selling cocaine every day no most of what they're doing is
talking shit about
something it's no different than the movie Scarface nobody really died in that
movie okay you're
painting a picture it's a gross horrific picture but some people like that they
like to watch Scarface
they like to listen to rap music they want to hear a dirty comic say horrendous
inappropriate things
that are fucked up one of my favorites is Otto Otto and George he would say
some of the most fucked up
ridiculous over-the-top shit but the reason why he did it is because that's
like what shocks the shit out of you
and makes you laugh when you least expect it and it was like well crafted in on
top of that he made me
laugh harder than anybody's ever made me laugh in a club we were doing in a pizzeria
in pennsylvania and he said something it was it was barbarism and it made me it
was because the imagery was such it was a it was it was such poetry that he
flew off the top with and it was awful and uh have I ever told you the story
no and it was it was like it was like it was like it was like it was like it
was like it was like it was like it was like real pizzeria bench seats it stunk
right and uh there was a bar next to it and I'm watching it and I was just up
there fucking struggling and hating it and in the middle of this dirty act the
booker's girlfriend walks down the aisle with his her seven-year-old son which
was so inappropriate
and everybody looked and it just derails the show and otto uh just said uh you
know because everyone looked
right at this so the fucking the puppet addressed it right um and said uh oh is
it i make isn't that cute
i'd like to grab him by the ankles and smash his skull onto a fucking sink
and it was a caligula reference to the end of caligula and it made me the the
the the speed at
which he put those words together and the the the violence attached to that uh
and the imagery of
that it may i've never laughed hard or anything anybody's ever said in a comedy
club because i knew
what had just happened is it was just i immediately saw the end of caligula
where they go they grab the
ankles and they smash the fucking head into the steps and i'm like the genius
to pull that out in this
moment and word it that quickly it just it was it was it was beauty it was
beauty but it was a horrible
thing and nobody laughed because of course they didn't this is a philly pizzeria
nobody understood
how funny that was if he had just said that and i hadn't seen caligula i might
not have laughed as
hard but the fact that i immediately saw what he did with it i was just i
wanted to hug him
for that i'm like you brilliant brilliant guy he's a brilliant fuck man he's a
very funny guy and his
style of comedy much like dice's style of comedy is ridiculous over the top
things they don't really
mean like dice has a some bit about about how a woman gets pregnant and it's it's
it's one of the
most hilarious ridiculous bits because it goes into like this medical or how
you can make a gay kid
like how you know like it's so fucking ridiculous idiocy it's complete it but
it's hilarious and
for people to say that that's a homophobic joke or that's like you know he
doesn't believe he doesn't
mean a word he's saying do you understand that this is this is like an art
piece that you're watching
this is just a ridiculous over-the-top art piece and for you to say that it's
not if you say that i
shouldn't be enjoying it well then we have to go with a fine-tooth comb over
virtually all of pop
culture every song we have to find out what the true meaning behind movies are
what's the implication
on society because it can't just be humor it's it's a dumb way of looking at it
because you know
it's a joke if it's a stand-up comedy show you know it's a fucking joke at
least in that sense
there's no excuse with a rap music with a rap song like no it's not a joke
maybe he's being serious
with a movie maybe they're trying to promote that lifestyle maybe that's real
it's a stand-up comedy
show the only reason why people are laughing is because it's a joke well people
do know that but
it's unfunny people attempting to influence people trying to influence what you
say it's like the same
mentality and i don't mean individually like let's just say the same mentality
that would target dice
or that would say um you should get in trouble for a gay joke are the exact
same people who would
stand up and defend maplethorpe they're the same people who would defend piss
christ and say that
the national endowment of the arts should have paid for piss christ because who
cares tell people what
that is it's it's it's it's it's the nea and i think paid for it was an artist
who pissed into a
jar and he put a crucifix in it and he called it piss christ now i don't think
that that's
particularly clever but it doesn't offend me on any level and here's more
inconsistencies the same
people clever yeah i mean it was you know look i wouldn't mind if i wish i
would have thought of
that i mean i just i couldn't fill a jar with my piss it would have been like
you know took weeks
yeah it really would it's a big jar too it's very impressive yeah it's a very
it's a two kegger
but uh the fact that he they support that and they're the same people who would
have attacked
giuliani for going after the fucking brooklyn museum of art because a guy an african
artist painted uh
the virgin mary and dung so it's it they they would call him a fascist for that
um you're you're you're
you don't understand art if you attack maplethorpe and you don't understand art
if you attack piss
christ however if you attack a comic well that comic is insensitive and he's
saying something racial
racially insensitive or gender insensitive and he should be it's inconsistent
so you can't fucking
respect it you can't acknowledge any of it with respect it's people have to you
have to leave room
for art and that sounds ridiculous when you're talking about dick jokes or any
kind of jokes but
you have to leave room for art because that's what it is it's just an art and
if you don't appreciate
that style of art it's no different than you deciding to go to a metallica show
and not liking the
lyrics right if you don't like it you don't have to like it there's jody mitchell's
playing down the
block go see that go go you know go see cheryl crowe or go see dave matthews
there's a lot of
variety out there but at the end of the day it's something that someone creates
and when otto says you know i'd like to pick him up by his fucking ankles and
slam his head into a sink
and you're laughing that means he delivered art to the person who likes that
art and i feel the same
way when i when i see look when i saw dice or when i saw you in austin same
feeling i enjoy ridiculous
over-the-top humor it's my one of my favorite things to watch so when someone
comes along and says
you can't do jokes about violence against children because it's fucked up yes
you can yes you can you
can even if your kid had been killed it do you well unfortunately for you this
one hit home yeah and
it's not fun to you but everybody else who doesn't have a kid that was killed
by slamming their head
into a sink it becomes fun for them and it sucks but you can't just stop the
art form because it's
going to hit you and that's one of the things that came up in that conversation
with lindy lindy lindy west
lindy west yeah one of the things that came up in the conversation with her was
that she was talking
about rape jokes and meanwhile she had a photo on her twitter of jeff goldblum
right who was in
death wish with a and who he had enacted a really horrific rape scene yeah
barbaric rape scene yeah
scary terrifying no joke there was no jokes involved there was no he he ha ha
no double entendres
and yet an actor doing that in that piece of art somehow or another is exonerated
from the impact
and this idea that you should know that one third of the audience i think is
those the current thing
they're they're enjoying banding about when people talk about i shouldn't say
they're enjoying i don't
want to dismiss it but the people who really believe this believe that one
third of all women
have been either sexually assaulted or raped and there's people that dispute
that and there's
it's a lot of it is based on a certain study from i believe it was 1987 and
there's a lot of
questions that are very cont