Too Many Dicks on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

An episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is interrupted by a remixed critique of the show's gender imbalance and "boys' locker room" comedy stylings. The remix takeover was created with clips borrowed from over 100 episodes of The Daily Show combined with the Flight of the Conchords song "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor" in order to subvert both sources.

NOTE: This remix was made well before TDS hired Jessica Williams as a regular correspondent in January 2012. The addition of Williams to the TDS staff is definitely a step in the right direction. However the ridiculous number of dick jokes on the show has only grown worse.

I am a fan of The Daily Show about 50% of the time but I often find myself disappointed with the overwhelmingly male-centered style, jokes, segments and guests. I can't help but feel that there are, in fact, just too many dicks on the dance floor.

So I thought a little critical commentary done in the style of the Daily Show itself would be appropriate.

The serious lack of women in on-screen or leading creative roles on The Daily Show and other late-night comedy shows has been well documented and discussed in recent years. But here's a quick recap: Only 3 of the 12 regular correspondences/contributors on The Daily Show are women. Only 2 of the 16 writers are women. And so far barely 15% of the guests in 2011 have been women.

To be absolutely clear I'm not saying that Jon Stewart or his team are personally sexists. i don't know them. But as host and Executive Producer Jon is largely responsible for the messaging, tone and culture of the Daily Show as a comedy institution. He could get creative in addressing the boys' club comedy culture on the show -- and, as a start, hire more women in leading creative roles. As Wyatt Cenac has pointed out, talented female comedians are not hard to find.

The original Flight of the Conchords song, while humorous, is in no way meant to be critical of sexism -- in fact its very heteronormative and even a little bit homophobic -- but when it is combined with any male-centered media source it instantly becomes a subversive critical commentary. Try remixing it and see for yourself!

More about this video (plus more links) on my site:
http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2011/...

INSPIRATION:
This remix was inspired by the practice of fan vidding and specifically by the vid Star Trek Dance Floor created by Sloane. She used the same song to point out the lack of female characters in J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek reboot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deQuFc...

In 2010 Feminist Frequency video blogger mashed-up the same song in order to highlight the violent phallic imagery in modern video games.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=...

ON COMMENTING:
I welcome good comments but I've decided to hold all comments for approval on this one (for obvious reasons) in an attempt to provide a space for a somewhat productive conversation. Sexist comments will not ever be approved. Any variation of the "women just aren't funny" or the "there aren't many funny women" nonsense will also not be approved so don't even try. The old "its just comedy" defense will be denied as well because comedy is one of the primary ways that sexism and sexist messages are normalized and reinforced in our culture.


FAIR USE NOTICE:
This transformative remix work constitutes a fair use of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. "Too Many Dicks on The Daily Show" by Jonathan McIntosh is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 License permitting non-commercial sharing and remixing with attribution.

More on Fair Use:
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/f...

• Category

  Film & Animation

[rebelliouspixels]

Perhaps "hetero-normative" is a slightly more appropriate word to describe the original FotC song.

[OddballTube]

Men being disappointed that there are too many men around to effectively pick up women - homophobia?

[rebelliouspixels]

- While perhaps unintentional what I think ads to the larger culture of homophobia is that the song reenforces the idea that straight men getting "too close to each other" is somehow funny. Its not funny that straight men are terrified of dancing near each other, its a tragic result of our homophobic culture.

[rebelliouspixels]

- Really? Seriously? You watch a video critical of institutional sexism + heteronormativity in tv comedy and you automatically think it must have been created by a Fox News Tea Partier? That's just mindboggling. Both Lizz and Madeleine left TDS before Jon took over when the format and skits were changed dramatically. FYI the gender disparity data for the show over the past 10 years is linked in the description. Only 2 out of 16 writers are women etc etc etc.

[FaSinPato]

Everyone like this, repost it and spread it. Let's see if we can get "Too Many Dicks" actually ON the Daily show! :D

[NowIsOurTime]

Hey dude thanks so much for the solidarity! Unfortunately I think it helps validate women's critiques of sexism/patriarchy to other men, and even other women, if men say the same thing. Thanks so much for spreading the word and helping out and making the world a better place! I so appreciate you, and I'm sure many/all of my sisters and mothers do as well :-))) <3

"A better world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." - Arundhati Roy

<3

[ParisPedant]

More Transvaginal ultrasounds?

[SevaVideo]

John Steward is funny, and sometimes actually doesn't stand out as a big liberal covering every democrat who comes on his show. I believe as long as you do not watch MSNBC you are a fine lad. Oh and did everyone know than democrats started way more wars than republicans? Yeah talk about the truth. Although, the democrats are better at justifying them- genocide, freedom, etc. Republicans are just plain stupid and mess up with cover ups.

[TheMervill]

I disagree with the point you are attempting to make in the video, but the video is really well done.

[kateofcalifornia]

Jon Stewart, are you listening? This is an excellent point, and it's time the show stopped reinforcing sexist, unbalanced perspectives. Enough penis jokes, Stewart!

[HPGal3ify]

Yes.

[TheGroovyJones]

One or two individuals are not evidence that an institutionalized system has changed. (We got a black President, is racism fixed?) The difference between the spirit of TDS and who they satire is in NOT holding bias, including when you have to admit something about your own "team". In writing and presentation TDS is wildly over representative of men and you have to be honest about that, or become what they mock.

[iwantfreepopcorn]

Very well made, although I haven't seen as many episodes with d*ck jokes used as cited here. Guess I'll look out for it? (or maybe they saw the video and are cutting back a bit...)

[CJ May]

This is hilarious and very well made!

[yougosquishnow]

Well true, but not unique (not that you said it was I know). The only well known female writer/comedian out there right now is Tina Fey and even shows she head writes/has writen for (SNL, 30 Rock) feature quite a few dick jokes. I gotta admit though, Daily Show could beat anyone in a dick joke-off (they tell a LOT of dick jokes is what I'm saying lol). I still like it though :)