Exploring the Problematic and Subversive Shit People Say [Meme-ology]

So all this started with “Shit Girls Say,” which now has over 11 million views:

Created by Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey (and boosted by the star power of Juliette Lewis), “Shit Girls Say” went viral by taking a male perspective on common things “women” do and presenting it as humor. Internet forums filled with comments like “Omigod, all my friends do that” or “that is so me.” The sketch proved to be so popular, there are now three episodes, probably with more in the pipeline.

However, everyone wasn’t laughing at “Shit Girls Say.” Quite a few people noticed that the “girls” referred to in the top video were a certain type of woman, an experience that was not shared by all. Others noted that the humor that made the video funny was actually rooted in sexist stereotypes. Over at Feministing, Samhita explains:

While, I usually applaud men in drag, I can’t help but be critical of these characterizations of women. Are some of these stereotypes uncannily true? I’m sure they can be. But that’s the problem with stereotypes, it’s not about whether they are true or not, it’s that they are used to disempower people or deny them certain privileges. And I get that it is comedy, but it’s like the most boring and lazy comedy possible. You know, let’s make fun of girls cuz we already know everyone thinks they are dumb and annoying tee hee. These videos might as well be beer ads.

And Lynn Crosbie, writing for the Globe and Mail, notes:

Girls, or young women, who already speak largely in the interrogative and treat the world of men as another, completely inscrutable species, have enough on their minds already. They are already sexualized to the maximum. Must their every word be a potential joke?

Girls speak casually about inane things. Girls speak, too, about sexual violence and quantum physics. They talk about fear and art, children, murder and opera; philosophy, blood, sex and mathematics.

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing is also some stuff a girl said.

In an interview with the Onion A/V Club, the two creators explain their reasoning:

AVC: Formally, the videos are great because they work like the Twitter feed—they’re just little one-liners stitched together. The obvious precedent would be something like Shit My Dad Says, and the TV show, which spins these sayings into 22-minute episodes. Were you trying to keep things a bit more rapid-fire, in the spirit of the Twitter feed?

GS: I think we were aware of Shit My Dad Says, and we wanted something that would live in the same Internet world as the Twitter feed. In a way, with Shit My Dad Says, it makes sense to do something longer and more anecdotal, because that was Justin [Halpern]’s story: his life with his dad. It was biographical, and there was a lot more material. But [our] tweets aren’t necessarily a single character. They’re not one woman. They’re a specific kind of woman. We don’t in any way purport to represent all women, and I think people understand that. I think our next video goes a little further than the tweets. It’s not a narrative, necessarily, but it’s a little more abstract.

AVC: Some of the criticism your project has received seems to miss this “certain kind of woman” concept that you mention. Something that refers to “girls” as an idea is essentializing, but it doesn’t seem like the concept would work if it were called Shit A Certain Kind Of Woman Who Has Been Socialized To Behave A Certain Way Says. How are you responding to criticism suggesting that the project is sexist or misogynist?

GS: You can’t really respond to it, other than positively. We respect women; we love women; we grew up around women; the people who helped us on the project were women. Obviously we can’t critique anyone for critiquing us in this way. Everyone has the right to critique it. It’s a really interesting dialogue that has come up because of the people criticizing it. It’s tricky territory. It’s sensitive territory. But people have the right to be offended. It’s par for the course, especially if something goes this big, which we never thought it would.

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