I read rave reviews of that sketch, then was so disappointed when I watched it. They undercut the entire thing by having the woman captain they were all scared of at the end. Up until then it was “hey, enlightened pirates who actually respect women! Awesome!” But at the end, it was “Oh, they’re only saying that because they’re afraid of getting killed. Ha ha, a man can’t respect women except because he’s scared of retribution if he doesn’t.”
“Sorry, but this video is unavailable from your location”
How…progressive.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
all pirates only respect their Kaptin cuz kap will kill donchano. pirates are all bloodthirsty thug crims so it takes a strong fist to rulez them. rite?? get it?
yada yada yada
maybe the point is satirizing the usual (repub’s) portrayal of “progressive” as “fearmongering”
but I’m talking out my hat as I tend to avoid K&P
The ending ruined it for me,too. It always ends up being about a power imbalance – if the men aren’t dominant, women will be, and of course, the women will be murderous, castrating b!tches.
rqsays
I was ready to cheer the end, what with the menfolk pirates enforcing the no-sexist-talk rule within the group, amongst themselves – you know, saying to each other ‘Don’t do that!’ … Annnnd yeah.
But the rest of it was good!
Autoloading videos on web sites are evil. No matter how funny or worthwhile.
consciousness razorsays
I was ready to cheer the end, what with the menfolk pirates enforcing the no-sexist-talk rule within the group, amongst themselves – you know, saying to each other ‘Don’t do that!’ … Annnnd yeah.
But the rest of it was good!
Well, there was the guy who was killed accidentally, with just an awkward little moment before the singing continued as if nothing happened. That wasn’t good either. Something seems a little off, if I’m supposed to think these pirates have nothing in common with actual pirates, who in reality tended to be a bunch of violent assholes. I mean, the ending wasn’t the only place where it’s obvious that they’re not good role models or whatever. It’s also odd that there’s only one woman, which doesn’t lend itself to the interpretation that it’s meant to be a representation of how our actual society is. So, it’s not obvious to me that the message is supposed to be anything like “feminists are violent” because of the silly ending. Maybe I’m wrong, but it could be more like “feminists aren’t like a bunch of violent pirates, because consider how unrealistic and absurd this whole scene looks from beginning to end.”
I thought it was fantastic. She is the Captain of her pirate crew. They are SUPPOSED to fear her.
AlexanderZsays
PZ, could you please place autoplay videos below the fold?
Nemosays
I’ve always heard that pirate culture was progressive, in many ways — equal shares of booty, elected captains, racially integrated — in stark contrast to the authoritarian culture of traditional navies.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
re @12:
I agree. I too always had the same impression as part of pirates being “rebels” who did the opposite of the current regimes.
your nym is kinda suspicious, a veiled clue that you are a major player in such a pirate culture. ;-D
12 &13
While that’s true, gender was not an area that they were notably egalitarian in. Also, it depends somewhat on which pirates, specifically, you’re speaking of, although considerable egalitarianism is the norm. The Buccaneers* of the Caribbean, who provide most of the currently popular archetypes of the pirate in the West, were entirely egalitarian on matters of race and religion, and had broad tolerance for homosexuality, but weren’t notably less misogynistic than average for the time and place. Women were generally not allowed aboard buccaneer ships except when taken prisoner from prizes, for instance (notable exceptions such as Anne Bonney and Mary Read had to pull a Polly Oliver to get started).
* and it amuses me greatly that a word that originally meant ‘one who prepares smoked meat’ has become synonymous with ‘seagoing armed robber’.
I’ll never forget (and I still love), their blasting of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, which they correctly identified as “a little rapey” and then took off on this sketch that turned that song around completely in a hilarious and glorious way.
It’s possible they missed the mark on this one (perhaps what seemed like a pro-feminist message in their heads/on paper didn’t translate as such to the screen), or they were in fact being anti-feminist, or they just didn’t care and thought it’d be funny. With Key & Peele, it’s hard to tell. I like them for their race stuff, though. They seem like they’d be wonderful with a podcast on the TWiBularity, to be honest. They seem to take after Dave Chappelle a bit in that sense (man I miss him).
Ragutissays
I forget which travel show I heard this on*, but I believe there was a quite successful female buccaneer from Haiti. She was actually, in charge and stuff, unlike Bonny, Read, or some of the others you hear of.
There’s also the interesting story of Sadie the Goat. But that’s 1800’s New York.
*I want to say it was Globetrekker. Maybe.
Dauphnisays
Count me as one of the people who was disappointed by the ending. Of course, it was kind of foreshadowed by the lack of women in the crowd. Had there been a significant female presence throughout the sketch, that would have already shifted the implication towards the song being driven by genuine respect for women, rather than fear of a brutal authority. I even think that had that been the case, the gender of the captain wouldn’t have mattered nearly as much.
Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thoughtsays
Thanks for pointing that out Dauphni, and I agree.
A couple of women in the crew being treated as equals would have changed the whole atmosphere and the implications of that ending. I think they tried, with the captain belting into song together with other pirates and the (obvious) fear disappearing immediately, but they didn’t quite manage not the somewhat undermine their own point.
toskasays
I agree with others about the ending being disappointing and undermining the message, but most of the sketch worked for me as it was intended (as comedy). I cracked up at the part where the one guy says after a story(paraphrasing), “The scary part is that I bet you thought the doctor was a man!” It genuinely caught me off guard a bit, as I was searching for the point of his story. Well done on that part of the song.
I read rave reviews of that sketch, then was so disappointed when I watched it. They undercut the entire thing by having the woman captain they were all scared of at the end. Up until then it was “hey, enlightened pirates who actually respect women! Awesome!” But at the end, it was “Oh, they’re only saying that because they’re afraid of getting killed. Ha ha, a man can’t respect women except because he’s scared of retribution if he doesn’t.”
“Sorry, but this video is unavailable from your location”
How…progressive.
all pirates only respect their Kaptin cuz kap will kill donchano. pirates are all bloodthirsty thug crims so it takes a strong fist to rulez them. rite?? get it?
yada yada yada
maybe the point is satirizing the usual (repub’s) portrayal of “progressive” as “fearmongering”
but I’m talking out my hat as I tend to avoid K&P
Yep. Better watch them SJW radical feminists. They’ll blow yer brains out if you step out of line. Even if you were just joking.
I couldn’t help but think about the classic Monty Python “Dennis Moore” sketch. “Blimey, this redistribution of wealth is trickier than I thought!”
The ending ruined it for me,too. It always ends up being about a power imbalance – if the men aren’t dominant, women will be, and of course, the women will be murderous, castrating b!tches.
I was ready to cheer the end, what with the menfolk pirates enforcing the no-sexist-talk rule within the group, amongst themselves – you know, saying to each other ‘Don’t do that!’ … Annnnd yeah.
But the rest of it was good!
Autoloading videos on web sites are evil. No matter how funny or worthwhile.
Well, there was the guy who was killed accidentally, with just an awkward little moment before the singing continued as if nothing happened. That wasn’t good either. Something seems a little off, if I’m supposed to think these pirates have nothing in common with actual pirates, who in reality tended to be a bunch of violent assholes. I mean, the ending wasn’t the only place where it’s obvious that they’re not good role models or whatever. It’s also odd that there’s only one woman, which doesn’t lend itself to the interpretation that it’s meant to be a representation of how our actual society is. So, it’s not obvious to me that the message is supposed to be anything like “feminists are violent” because of the silly ending. Maybe I’m wrong, but it could be more like “feminists aren’t like a bunch of violent pirates, because consider how unrealistic and absurd this whole scene looks from beginning to end.”
I thought it was fantastic. She is the Captain of her pirate crew. They are SUPPOSED to fear her.
PZ, could you please place autoplay videos below the fold?
I’ve always heard that pirate culture was progressive, in many ways — equal shares of booty, elected captains, racially integrated — in stark contrast to the authoritarian culture of traditional navies.
re @12:
I agree. I too always had the same impression as part of pirates being “rebels” who did the opposite of the current regimes.
your nym is kinda suspicious, a veiled clue that you are a major player in such a pirate culture. ;-D
12 &13
While that’s true, gender was not an area that they were notably egalitarian in. Also, it depends somewhat on which pirates, specifically, you’re speaking of, although considerable egalitarianism is the norm. The Buccaneers* of the Caribbean, who provide most of the currently popular archetypes of the pirate in the West, were entirely egalitarian on matters of race and religion, and had broad tolerance for homosexuality, but weren’t notably less misogynistic than average for the time and place. Women were generally not allowed aboard buccaneer ships except when taken prisoner from prizes, for instance (notable exceptions such as Anne Bonney and Mary Read had to pull a Polly Oliver to get started).
* and it amuses me greatly that a word that originally meant ‘one who prepares smoked meat’ has become synonymous with ‘seagoing armed robber’.
I’ll never forget (and I still love), their blasting of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, which they correctly identified as “a little rapey” and then took off on this sketch that turned that song around completely in a hilarious and glorious way.
It’s possible they missed the mark on this one (perhaps what seemed like a pro-feminist message in their heads/on paper didn’t translate as such to the screen), or they were in fact being anti-feminist, or they just didn’t care and thought it’d be funny. With Key & Peele, it’s hard to tell. I like them for their race stuff, though. They seem like they’d be wonderful with a podcast on the TWiBularity, to be honest. They seem to take after Dave Chappelle a bit in that sense (man I miss him).
I forget which travel show I heard this on*, but I believe there was a quite successful female buccaneer from Haiti. She was actually, in charge and stuff, unlike Bonny, Read, or some of the others you hear of.
There’s also the interesting story of Sadie the Goat. But that’s 1800’s New York.
*I want to say it was Globetrekker. Maybe.
Count me as one of the people who was disappointed by the ending. Of course, it was kind of foreshadowed by the lack of women in the crowd. Had there been a significant female presence throughout the sketch, that would have already shifted the implication towards the song being driven by genuine respect for women, rather than fear of a brutal authority. I even think that had that been the case, the gender of the captain wouldn’t have mattered nearly as much.
Thanks for pointing that out Dauphni, and I agree.
A couple of women in the crew being treated as equals would have changed the whole atmosphere and the implications of that ending. I think they tried, with the captain belting into song together with other pirates and the (obvious) fear disappearing immediately, but they didn’t quite manage not the somewhat undermine their own point.
I agree with others about the ending being disappointing and undermining the message, but most of the sketch worked for me as it was intended (as comedy). I cracked up at the part where the one guy says after a story(paraphrasing), “The scary part is that I bet you thought the doctor was a man!” It genuinely caught me off guard a bit, as I was searching for the point of his story. Well done on that part of the song.