Banterwatch: the case of the bothersome builder

Meet Ian Merrett.

Ian is a builder from Worcester. And probably not a very good one, frankly, because, for a month, during time when they clearly should have been working, Ian and his builder buddies wolf-whistled, catcalled and generally harassed 23-year-old Poppy Smart to the point that she had to report them to the police. 

Make no mistake: this was constant misogynist harassment. The builders must have been aware this made Ms Smart uncomfortable: she took to wearing sunglasses and headphones to try and avoid their attentions. They didn't just whistle from a distance, either: on at least one occasion, one of the builders invaded Ms Smart's personal space to intimidate her.

Ian doesn’t see it that way, of course. Ian says that 'no harm was intended' by the month-long campaign of intimidation. Ian says he doesn't understand her comments. Ian says it's been 'blown out of all proportion'. Ian even says that 'if she'd come up to me or one of the other builders and said "I don't like it, can you stop it", I'm sure we'd have taken that into consideration.'

You see what I mean about Ian Merrett being a rubbish builder? This man apparently lacks the common sense to appreciate that a young woman might not feel confident enough to firmly and politely tell a bunch of hod-carrying blokes to stop jeering at her. Do you really want someone that ignorant putting up your load-bearing walls? 

And - oh yes - Ian claims the whole thing was 'just a bit of banter'. 

Well, I have a message for you, Ian Man-without-merit:

And I want you to know that next time I perform this poem, Ian, I'll be thinking of you. Especially on the line 'shoving razor blades up your urethra'.

Just banter, Ian. Just banter.

Update: evolution of a performance

One of the central poems in my show is 'You're fucking dead LOL J/K', a poem which gives the bantzmen a little of their own medicine and invites them to laugh it off. I have, previously, tried doing this in a very angry style, as you can see here. But recently I've been thinking of doing it in something of a...different way. So feast your eyes, if you will, on the new version:

Banterwatch Down Under

Meet John Key. John is the Prime Minister of New Zealand. You know: where the Hobbit movies come from.

John also repeatedly pulled a waitress’ hair. Not just once, not just twice, but on a number of occasions over a prolonged period, until the waitress had to tell him to stop ‘or I will actually hit you’.

Can you guess what John’s excuse for this repeated, creepy, harassing behaviour is? That’s right: JUST BANTER.

What a statesman.

Tinpot Frank Sinatra objectifies woman for teh LULZ. Bantz. 

Apparently it was meant to be 'complimentary and lighthearted'. Say 'it was just banter', Michael, it takes less time and gives us a clearer idea of what you are. 

Devil's Advocate? You can leave out the 'advocate' bit

Bantzmen of a pseudo-intellectual stripe - you know, the guys who've read a listicle of logical fallacies on BuzzFeed in between their constant refreshes of 'A Voice For Men' - like to play a game. They call it 'playing Devil's Advocate'. They claim they do it to open people's minds, maaaaan, but really they only do it because they get off on being total groins. But they will always claim they're speaking hypothetically: that however much they may question rape statistics, or argue that revising our definition of rape is a 'slippery slope', they are only engaging in a thought experiment, being a gadfly, if you will. They'd certainly never actually rape anyone. Of course not.

Here are two stories about a young man called Jeremiah True. He questioned rape statistics. He argued that revising our definition of rape was a 'slippery slope'. So much so, in fact, that his Professor banned him from the discussion portion of his humanities classes, because his going on about rape all the time was intimidating the other students.

'Remember, Keanu...NOT ALL MEN.'

Can you guess what he did next, this Devil's Advocate, this courageous hypothesizer, this fearless thinker of the unthinkable?  Yep. He just got arrested for sexual abuse and harassment.

Gee, I wonder why he was so invested in minimising rape?

...and that's why I'm doing this show.

Lad Culture = Banter Culture?

So, today, as research for the show, I attended the Tackling Lad Culture summit at Northumbria University. I'll have more detailed stuff to say about this tomorrow, but for now I want to make a very simple point.

For anyone wondering whether this show is just me having a personal whinge because I'm a humourless left-wing harpy, some statistics. According to the National Union of Students' 'Hidden Marks' survey in 2010:

1 in 3 respondents felt unsafe going back to university or college buildings after dark

2 in 3 respondents had experienced either verbal or non-verbal harassment

1 in 7 had experienced serious physical or sexual assault

A 2014 follow-up survey found that:

37% of female students and 12% of male students had experienced unwanted sexual advances

2/3 of respondents said they had seen students put up with unwanted sexual comments

2/3 of respondents said they had heard rape or sexual assault jokes on campus

But hey - it's all just banter, right?

The NUS are on to that. Alison Phipps, in her NUS report 'That's What She Said', described laddism as a 'pack mentality', evident in activities such as sport, heavy alcohol consumption and "'banter' which was often sexist, misogynist and homophobic" and which, at extremes, involves "rape supportive attitudes".

And the culture of banter is something students clearly feel afraid to speak out against, as evidenced by a response which Newcastle University Student Union representative Olivia Jeffery received to a survey she carried out for the summit, and which she shared with us:

"If you stand up to banter, you face further ridicule, and either don't have a sense of humour or don't have any balls."

Well, my show is going to stand up to banter, and my show is going to have both.

It seems a little cheesy to say this, but...if you're a student, and have been affected by any of the issues discussed in this post, you may want to look at the Hidden Marks website, set up in response to the 2010 NUS report referred to above. 

Banter: Why It has to Die

Via to the manslator!

Banter Culture at work: the laughter of the entitled

Regarding this Paul Mason article - I can't help but be reminded of how much my rage at Banter Culture relates to things I've seen and experienced in workplaces. People I've worked with,  and for, customers I've dealt with. The laughter of the entitled.

And thinking of laughter makes me think about that Stewart Lee line about comedy and status, how most mainstream comedy these days is millionaires in suits giggling about their class inferiors. And who can afford to spend money on tickets to those big comedy gigs anyway? A safe bet you'll see no maids there, no-one left out of the charmed circle of the McIntyre set. But.

There are a LOT of us on the outside of that charmed circle, outside of the banter, the laughter you share. And one day, we'll show you OUR idea of fun.

Switch off the laugh-track. Listen. And you WILL hear us howl.

Today in Bantz

Hordak  upset that Electoral Commission won't let his party keep its jolly sexist name: blames She-Ra.

So, how's the show going?

It occurs to me that I ought to be using this blog to provide updates on how the show is developing, as well as continually beating you about the head with my opinions on how David Cameron is the Generalissimo Maximo of Banterstan, and needs to be deposed forthwith. So...

Things are developing. I have the introduction and the first four poems of the show pretty much memorised. Memorising stuff for this show is interesting, because of the way I've structured it. I'm trying something I've seen Buddy Wakefield do in his live shows: nesting one poem inside another inside another. In the case of my show, this primarily means that 'You're fucking dead lol j/k' is used as a framing sequence to nest the other poems, so I keep moving away from and then returning to that poem at points throughout the show. Also, because this IS going to be a show, and not just a long set, I'm being very strict about how I plan the movements which accompany each poem. This means that, after each rehearsal, I have been writing down notes of moves in lists like this, written for the moves accompanying 'A Common Assault':

hook hand, darting in on 'went in'
cocky stance, laughing head move
stroll
cocky stance, open up chest
pull down hem of top
hand sweeps back hair
cocky stroll
four fingers, right hand
index finger, left hand
mime unpeeling top
muscleman pose, both arms up
right fist to left palm
...
fists up, boxer-style
lean forward, break boxer pose
right hand grabs left tit
cocky stance
shlub stance
left finger point
shh gesture
gun point w/left hand
sweeping gesture w/left hand
Harley Quinn pose
lean forward, brazen tit-grab, both
jiggle boobs with both hands
pelvic thrusts
beckoning gesture
hands by tits

etc etc...when not grabbing my tits I've been trying to keep up the social media side of this project. But I'm increasingly gripped by the icy terror of knowing I need to get to grips with the traditional media aspects of this as well: flyers, posters, all that. I have a pretty strong idea of what I want: an EC Comics, tales from the crypt layout vibe - strong colours, powerful imagery, something that looks visually arresting, and which hints at the lurid, overblown, gothic aspect of the show (of which more later).

I've given myself a deadline of having flyers etc sorted by May, so that all I need to worry about then is rehearsing, scratching and previewing the show. Only time will tell if that's a realistic goal or the delusion of a wild romantic. We shall see.

The Week in Bantz: Electoral Dysfunction, UKIP, & The Man Who Capes For Sexists

I watched the Leaders' Debate this week, hoping that we might see either Cameron or Farage engage in some cringeworthy bantzmanship in an attempt to court the 'Boris is a LEGEND!!!!' demographic, but sadly banter came there none. Cameron looked on the verge of going full Flashman at times but held back, and Farage's interventions were more straightforward fascist bastard than his usual jolly pint-quaffing media persona. Fortunately, you can always rely on the Sun to come up with some inappropriate, insensitive, phallocentric crap to cheapen the election campaign further, and they duly obliged:

Yep, that's the Scum suggesting that a left-leaning male is lacking in sexual potency compared to the steaming hunk of virility that is...David Cameron. Stay classy there, boys.

Farage's disgraceful attempt to fan the flames of HIV panic was evidence of the dog-whistle racism and homophobia of his party. More of this came out on Twitter as Hope Not Hate exposed homophobic tweets from the party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Banbury:

Banbury? BANTER-bury, more like, eh? Amirite?

But the best illustration of Banter Culture this week came in the form of this Shakesville article which reveals that Jon Ronson (author of 'The Men Who Stare At Goats' and a journalist I had previously respected) smarmed his way through an interview with Adria Richards, who was horrendously victimized by Internet douchebros for daring to expose the sexist banter she was exposed to at a tech conference, while all the while planning to present the man whose sexist jokes she was exposed to as 'the real victim'. This 'real victim' quickly walked back into another tech job, while Adria Richards still struggles to repair a life destroyed by constant, vicious online and IRL harassment - but it isn't her story Jon Ronson is interested in. This is Banter Culture: a man who makes sexist jokes is defended, not just by the kind of half-human scum who inhabit the lower reaches of the Internet, but by a successful mainstream journalist, while a woman who has suffered appallingly is painted as the villain. It's vile. It's unfair. It's grotesque. Howl it down. 

Election Special: 100 Rich and Largely White, Cis , Straight People Support Cameron: No-one Surprised

The UK political landscape was plunged into a state of utterly uninterested torpor this morning, as 100 comfortably-remunerated mainstream arseholes in management positions declared they felt more comfortable with a man who sneers 'calm down dear' at women than with a man whose wife has a life of her own and doesn't just stand around in the kitchen looking pretty while her husband is interviewed.

In a letter published in the Daily Telegraph today, the 100 corporate pisspuddles threw their support behind Cameron because, fundamentally, they identify with him.

'David Cameron reassures me,' said 49-year-old golf-playing prick Harrison Shitwizard.'Like me, he likes Jeremy Clarkson, unlike those Guardian-reading lesbians at the BBC who let him get away with making racist and ablist remarks for nearly a decade. If Labour get in, they'll probably make it illegal for heterosexual men to even say the word 'car'! I bet Miliband lets his wife do the driving, if you know what I mean.'

Other fatcat parasite moneysuckers agreed.  'In an age of political correctness gone mad, when you can't even make a joke about your graphic fantasies of raping a young left-wing blogger without having to preface it with a trigger warning in case some queer gets upset, it's great to see a leader who isn't afraid to send out racist vans telling people to report foreigners, and who isn't afraid to describe a woman criticising a man as what she is - sexually frustrated,' said self-described 'gaming visionary' and 'tribune of the testicle' Norman Codswallop, another signatory. 'Frankly I'm not even sure Justine Miliband IS even a real woman, if you get my drift. Sounds a LOT like 'Justin', doesn't it? Eh? Eh? You notice how we never see her hands, do we? Eh? Unlike SamCam. Lovely SamCam. Silent and yielding, as all women should be. But aren't. Fucking DYKES.'

Other signatories praised the difficult course Cameron has had to steer on LGBT rights. 'Like my company, David Cameron has had to ensure that he sends the right messages about 'diversity' and 'respecting people's identities' and the rest of that wank,' commented Stonewall award-winning CEO Sir Anderson Gufftruncheon. 'But I feel confident that, behind closed doors, Cameron is as happy as I and the rest of my inner circle to get rat-arsed on Bollinger, abuse waitresses,  and swap Dapper Laughs quotes and jokes about how Ed Miliband's wife is DEFINITELY a transgender and anyway, even if she isn't, he probably wishes she was and gets her to fuck him with a strap-on. Hang on, are you recording this?'

Reaction from the general public was varied, with responses including 'well, colour me surprised', 'who gives a shit?', 'eat the rich' and 'who even reads the fucking Telegraph anyway?'

The UK General Election takes place on May 7th. Samantha Cameron is a replicant, and has seen things you wouldn't believe. At country suppers.