The Angry Exile: YouTube's sense of humour failure

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Thursday, 14 July 2011

YouTube's sense of humour failure

The Go The Fuck To Sleep book is probably pretty well known by now what with the press it got when it came out and especially with the Samuel L Jackson reading. So it's slightly surprising that when Noni Hazlehurst, who I'd never heard of but apparently was on the Aussie Play School for twenty years or so, put up a clip of herself reading the book Play School style, and which amused me enough to blog and embed it here, YouTube pulled it.

Noni, to her credit, has promptly put it back up again, and bloody right too since other versions of it were never taken down.

Former Playschool presenter Noni Hazlehurst says the decision to remove a recording of her reading mock children’s book Go The F--- to Sleep from YouTube was ‘‘laughable’’ and ‘‘absolutely ridiculous’’.
The video was pulled late last night only to be posted again about 5am today.
[...]Her video was removed, but others including those read by German arthouse film director Werner Herzog and American actor Samuel L. Jackson stayed online.
‘‘It’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, and to leave all the others up there is even more ridiculous,’’ Hazlehurst said.
‘‘The hypocrisy just makes me laugh.’’
[...]
‘‘Anyone with a tenth of a brain would realise this is not meant for kids,’’ she said.

The trouble is, Noni, that some people who look at YouTube probably have less than a tenth of a brain.

A YouTube spokesman said no comment would be made about individual videos, but they could be removed because a user had flagged them as offensive or because the person who had posed (sic) the video was underage.

Since Noni Hazlehurst is in her fifties it sounds like the latter. I'm speculating here, but I reckon some softcock, and sadly it's probably an Aussie who saw her name and thought 'Oh, this will be sweet and harmless', got offended by it and complained to YouTube rather than take the more practical option of turning it (the fuck) off. Samuel L. Jackson's version? Well, he's an actor who says bad words in lots of his films so our mystery whinger(s) may never have come across his version. Werner Herzog? Arthouse film director? Hmmm, ditto I expect. But sweet Noni Hazlehurst who used to - she's not presented the show for a decade - sing songs down the TV at toddlers and make stories with teddy bears and dolls, that Noni Hazlehurst going all potty mouthed? Oh no, the childhood of some 30-somethings is irrevocably shattered. It can't be borne, so it must be banned.

And of course SupineTube caved in.

Fellas, it's aimed at adults. It's humour for adults who can laugh at the frustrations an adult may feel when trying to get a noisy baby to shut the fuck up and give them a little peace. And maybe, according to Noni Hazlehurst herself, a bit of a warning.

The book and her reading are a bit of fun, she says, ''but there's a serious underlying issue. People need to understand when they're talking about how nice it would be to have a baby that it's a huge undertaking.''
[...]
''Many of the kids I entertained are parents themselves now, and I think it's pointless saying, 'Make sure your child has a lovely environment to sleep in'. I think we have to speak in a language people understand.''

This subtle distinction is apparently lost on YouTube, who'd rather pull something not meant for a general audience because someone's had a whine about it, even though other versions remain on their site. It's a little tempting to go trawling through the place looking for any overtly religious damnation-to-sinners type videos and flag as offensive as many as I can just to see whether or not they pull any of those, but that'd be unfair to anyone who actually did get their video removed. Instead I think I might make and put up a video myself and then log in as someone else with some bullshit complaint about how it offends me, and then we'll see what they do.

In the meantime, here's Noni Hazlehurst hosted by EyeTube...

Complaints may be addressed to gothefuckaway@tellsomeonewhogivesashit.com