Mondays are no fun, amirite? Well, I’m going to try to make them more fun. Mondays at this blog are now Sketch Comedy Mondays. I’m going to link to sketch comedy bits that I think are funny, and then tell you why I think they’re funny. If there are feminist/social justice issues present, well, by gum, I’m going to talk about that, too!
The first sketch I’m linking to is from the new Comedy Central show Key & Peele, called “I Said Bitch,” though it really should be called, “I Said Biiiiiiitch.”
Summary: Two men complain to each other about their wives and pretend to be really tough and macho, describing the times that they told off their wives and called them “biiiiitch” – but every time they say the word, they have to look around to make sure that their wives aren’t listening. Their attempts to avoid their wives gets more and more over-the-top until they’re floating in outer space.
Why I Like It: These guys are ridiculous. I love the use of heightening, both with the change of locations (started off in the basement and then ends up in outer space, hee!) and with the descriptions of “looking her in the eye.” “I looked at her in the eye socket.” “I looked at her in the optic stem!” “Da. Ryl. I looked right into the windows of her soul!”
The funniest part of the sketch, though, is the fact that both of these men are full of shit and they know it, but they each allow and encourage the other to believe that the other guy is tough and can stand up to his hen-pecking wife by calling her biiiiiitch.
But I did have this one feminist friend who thought it was a little sexist to imply that all men secretly want to call their wives bitches, or that the wives themselves are implied to be unreasonable and demanding. But I looked at that friend, right through the cornea, past the anterior chamber, through the pupil and the iris, and right deep into the retinal blood vessels, and I said…
*looks around nervously*
I said “Biiiiiiiiitch…I respectfully disagree. And also I mean Biiiiiiiiitch as a compliment.”
For bonus fun, watch Key & Peele’s “Obama Anger Translator” sketch. I wish Obama would do this in real life.
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My issue with the sketch clip, though I agree with your assessment of its absurdity, is that it is premised upon very toxic and hegemonic discourses about heterosexual relationships – it’s an old and still very circulated trope: women are “crazy” and “sensitive” and men are emasculated by them, and secretly desire to rebel. I don’t really see even the degree of absurdity to which they go as challenging that narrative at all.
Challenging the narrative – no, definitely not, but I think they were making fun of themselves for being so ridiculous.
I wouldn’t say this sketch is particularly feminist but I do find it funny in spite of that.
When you mentioned the Obama sketch I thought of the first sketch but replace husband with Obama and replace wife with Republican party.
“So I looked right into Mitch McConnell’s eye, and I said (looks around nervously) biiiiiiiiiitch…”
With the first sketch, I might normally be offended, but the thing i like about it that you never actually see the wives do anything wrong. You get the idea that the husbands are afriad of their wives but, as an audience, we never get any specific reason why, so it just makes the husbands look more ridiculous and seems more like it’s poking fun at the concept of masculinity in our culture and how that ties into relationships. And that’s something I can definitely laugh at. Plus, the end was just phenomenal. It seems like it just shows the lengths to which people will go to keep up appearances with each other, especially when it comes to being ‘Macho.’
The second sketch was amazing. The ending slayed me. “And I said Biiiiiiitch.”