i think stewart lee is an incredibly funny guy, it does my head in when people call him elitist or whatever. The difference between him and other mainstream comedians is that he picks deserving targets for his jokes and ridicule instead of picking on disabled people for cheap laughs or poor people like some comedians do in the guise of being 'edgy' or controversial. Americans do do high school massacres and race riots, and are constantly stereotyping us brits in the maddest most innacurate ways. stewart lee has a laugh, calls them thick or whatever, says they're bad at geography and they chuck there toys out the pram! america needs to be more critical of itself instead of constantly insisting they are the best country in the world.
I love that all these Americans comment on this, aggressively displaying their ignorance, and quite literally proving everything he says to be correct. Which is amazing, as I'm fairly sure these aren't even views he genuinely holds, he's simply deconstructing notions of nationalism and stereotypes. Brilliant irony from the US comments. Which is ironic, as irony is something Americans aren't supposed to understand. If you follow the stereotype....
I hold real resentments against the USA for U.S.A. Chanting, fist pumping, high fiving, whooping, love of sh*t comedy, huge ego's, thinking they're the centre of the universe, high school college football teams and cheer leaders, angry superiority complex..... I'll hold my tongue now, before I say something bad about the United States of America. 🙄
Stewart is purposefully pointing out the ridiculous nature of stereotypes by making crass generalizations about Americans and having the Scottish audience bask in humour that is not directed at them and then immediately makes the transition to making crass generalizations about Scottish people that aren't received so well. I agree that the whole thing has to be shown in context to be fully appreciated. I must add that I'm a Glaswegian and found this hilarious, his intention was not to offend.
Everyone getting mad about this clip - and also the people acting smug about it, taking shots at Americans - should be aware that it is presented massively out of context. In the full show, he turns this routine against the audience in order to make fun of their own prejudices and justify going on a long rant which mocks Scottish culture.
s. nich And you're missing the point of this joke. After this he then goes on a tirade against the Scots, showing how they laughed at people they don't know but got butthurt after it was turned against them.
hey wait you had a traitor king, who stepped down for some American action--she may have saved you -tho her politics too were very Mosley--see the irony there?
+ColdChicago ... although way off topic (you have to watch the whole of this set to understand it - he has a go at the English too) I will comment. Edward the 8th was potentially a Nazi sympathiser. So if he had been king at the outset of the war then there would likely have been some constitutional crisis. The irony is that Wallace... although mostly reviled... likely saved the monarchy from such a crisis, although accidental and she was almost certainly unaware of it at the time. Basically her motive was to become queen I doubt her mind concentrated on much else. Although of course David must have loved her.. once the throne was gone the real question is was that love really reciprocated ? if not does that show her in a good light ?
Prejudice is an English lifestyle. They get off on poking fun of the rest of the world. If you are not English then they spend endless hours making fun of you in various degrees of nastiness. Even the Scots, Welsh, Cornish and of course the Irish. Basically the Banty rooster routine. The scrawniest out crowing about how great they are and how terrible everyone else is. Their chests can swell with pride and crow louder. Any deep seated prejudices America has was brought over by English colonists. Same attitude the Greek and Romans had. They are the great intellects and everyone else is a barbarian.
@AndrewSmithJamjar PS - Just occured to me the irony of my previous message on this particular clip. The very things that the brilliant Stewart Lee is criticising Americans for (albeit in a deliberately exaggerated way), things like the intellectual laziness, the desire to never own a passport and go anywhere, to not experience the world as it truly is, the arrogance that comes with thinking your relatively young country is the greatest in the world.....this is what Hicks was railing against.
I was being ironic, as was he. Obviously he is referring to what Americans call '9/11', the day the world trade towers were attacked, which we Brits would have termed 11/9 because we put the day first, then the month, not the month first, then the day, as in America. The actual day we are both referring to would be the 11th day of September, the 9th month.
It's hilarious that Americans in this comment section can't take a joke, even worse is they misinterpret jokes to make them insulting to themselves and then get pissy about it, recreational outrage everywhere.
@jul24ian This is actually just a set up for a later part of the routine(which is not at the expense of Americans). If this is the only clip you have seen of him then it would be worth watching more, the first two lines of your comment is actually quite accurate.
It's like those little adult jokes they put in animated children's movies -- it doesn't mean anything to those who don't catch it, but it's hilarious to those that do.
This out of context is absolutely ridiculous. During this set he "has a go" at Americans and that, and then unleashes some incredibly awkward comedy about being Scottish to a Scottish audience. It's fucking amazing to see the tables turn, and worth every sublime minute.
@tattat44 "zero British people were involved in the development of the Internet before Tim berners lee" NOT true. The original Macy cybernetics conferences (1940s) included Gregory Bateson and built on the original research of Watt, Maxwell and W. Ross Ashby. All were British. The Internet would not have existed without this research
@Chairmaneoin I'm an American. Can I agree with you and at the same time say that there are English jingoists that just hate people like me because of my nationality?
Yes and if you saw the entire set you'd see the twist at the end where he twists it and points out the blind ignorance of labelling an entire nation based on stereotypes. I recommend you find the entire set.
And British culture is 3000 years older than Greek culture or have you never heard of Stonehedge or the bronze age where almost 100% of the tin they (the Greeks) used to make bronze came to Cornwall in Britain (then known as the tin isles) to trade for. Or that you say your dates in English or that we invented your country, won more battles in the war of independence (fact) and only left cause we had Napoleon to rid Europe of, like we did all alone against the Germans in ww2 all alone for 2 years and were the only nation that didn't fold in a matter of weeks (the only nation to fight the axis powers all alone) and handed them their firsr two defeats while your nation was still funding them, or that the usa has NEVER won ONE single war single-handed. You got beat by sandle-wearing midgets in Vietnam over a period of years yet the British sailed 12,000 miles, all alone in 1982 to defeat a well dug in much larger Argentine force and did so on foot after we lost all our helicopters on the way, in about 5 weeks. So there is that. Not to mention the amount of times the sas had to bail out your gung ho ill trained forces in Iraq and Afghanistan which of course your news never shows because you live in the greatest country in the world where an ambulance costs $3000 compared to the zero pence it costs here, or that your entire infrastructure, language, justice system etc etc was handed to you on a plate and that the war of independence was actually a civil war between pro monarchy British settlers and anti monarchy British settlers. And the only two nations in history that made their children pledge allegiance to a flag/nation were nazi Germany and the USA. But thanks for single handed winning ww2 for the entire 2 years you were involved in which not one bomb fell on your country. But hey, your free to say what you like on the British invented www on your British invented touchscreen and get fed your daily dose of propaganda and spin on your British invented tv. And hopefully one day you might be smart enough to realise you exist on a diet of chemicals which is why yiunate all so obese or maybe understand the concept of irony and satire. But hey, what did we ever do you for you? the greatest 2 party country the world has ever known that still doesn't understand the idea of ascending incremental dating or the superior metric system while we use both being how we invented the imperial system of measuring. The clue is in the name y'all'
Oh! 1783. That was the end of a series of events which, um, involved the Americans. you know the Americans? you can see them in them movies that are on sometimes. Well the Americans, um, started running around dressed in blue. You know the Americans? They threw some aromatic beverages into the sea, and then started running around in blue. And then turned an old drinking song into an anthem.It was all a laugh really, nothing important rested on it, like peoples rights or anything.
I'm sure you have a source for all these top level stats you have at your fingertips. A man on the inside perhaps. Did it take long to find the percentage sign on your computer?
Dogmatic nationalism and mindless consumerism is the real target and I found it very cathartic to listen to when the DVD was first released. There was a much more tangible sense of adversity towards the US under the Bush administration and for me Stew brought some much craved levity to the situation. (thanks)
That section of the set was really quite painful at times. :) The whole thing is available on UA-cam in one go if anyone is interested, in fact I can see it FEATURED over on the right.
hi, contrary to the other posters (whom I suspect are american perhaps?) I found this hillarious. The man is brilliant, but then it is understandable if you don't get it ;)
@AndrewSmithJamjar I do love you. This is why I hope your sense of humour, and indeed you, evolve to the necessary level needed to appreciate the great Bill Hicks in all his revelatory, truthful, undiluted glory. I applaud you for having a view, but I also retain the right to make my own personal assessment of your comedic taste, and the validity of said taste, based on that view.
No the Japanese never invented anything they merely took other inventions and worked on them, like the British invented Walkman for example. And the fact that the lifespan of most Japanese houses is less than 30 years
It's great because as a scotch man I see this hypocritical attitude every day. Generalise everybody by their country then get pissed off when a scotch character in a movie plays the bagpipes.
I'm American. I laughed. Though I do tend to do more drugs than the average person so I have already thought about all this xD. And the people arguing in the comments down there....You missed the point.
@NPjazzsaxmusic I thought that I maybe I was watching this out of context. I'll buy the DVD and watch it in the correct context. But just by looking at other comments on this video, it seems that everyone else has taken this out of context as well, it seems to have served as fuel for hating Americans when I'd say that most of these people had probably hardly left England.
@popjoeandco I should probably rescind my comment... I've looked at other videos on youtube and read some interviews, it seems as though I watched this video out of context...
You know, he's really just pointing out how stupid smug British people are for thinking that all Americans are stupid - it's us Brits who are at fault for laughing at him making stereotypes and the rest of this set goes on to highlight that further. This is kind of cut so that you only get the set up to the wider joke...which is a problem with giving people the ability to edit out just their favourite bits on youtube, it's a work of art only half finished.
Thank you for the being the 14th person to "explain" that to me. Humor works on multiple levels-he's getting laughs out of the same jokes, however he intends them. The audience may well be laughing at the jokes themselves, not the satire.
Except that this is from a long show in which he makes the satire very clear by turning the attack on the audience and forcing them to confront the difference between their responses to that and the previous stuff. That's sort of the point of the whole bit. Yes, he's getting laughs out of the jokes. He has to make an audience actually laugh at them in order to show that they do actually laugh at lazy stereotypes. Just telling them they do isn't going to be effective.
@pmanngw Agree completley, if you think this is racist you need to see the entire routine - its probably in the links on the right. He builds up a satire for over 40mins or so along the lines that pmanngw states - he does the same things he says about the U.S about Scotland too.
Being Welsh, I totally agree with your comments regarding the English. As do the Scots and Irish. The irony, of course, is that since America's Civil War caused more deaths of American troops than all the other wars they've fought in since, they would appear to be as self-cannibalistic and nihilist as those darn English.
Right, I'll explain how this works for the Americans cause they seem to struggle with the concept of incremental advancement. You begin with the smallest unit... the day, then you move up to the next smallest unit, the month and end on the largest unit the year. The US way is no better than saying it is the 2024th of the 8th 29
Hi Norm. I understand why you are annoyed - the way this video has been cut it looks like he is hating on America. But what he actually does in this stand up is he makes a load of crass generalisations about other cultures (he does American, the English etc) to a Scottish audience, and then he turns the tables on them and does the Scottish right to there faces. He exposes how ridiculous these generalisations are - his actual target was never Americans, it was ignorance. watch?v=tHA1ufmLZQY
It's not ridiculous out of context. Just because he is subverting the stereotypes of national identity, doesn't mean he isn't also using them. A lot of his material is playing on this I believe- we are laughing at the comedy, while we are simultaneously enjoying Lee satirising our own assumptions that the success of the comedy relies on. To say that we are not enjoying the face value of the joke, *is* smug.
The posts that are defensive make the point Stuart Lee (who is a comedian and references that the bit is satire) is making. I have heard him live and seen Jerry Springer the Opera. He is brilliant and America and Americans have a sadly misplaced arrogance.
You don't get it. Watch his clip entitled 'Stewart Lee Osama Bin Laden' and watch it until the end. He does things based on exposing people's anti-american prejudices.....this one is slightly out of context. If you're American, you're not doing much for the stereotype of Americans not getting stuff.
Hey, if they had of given birth to Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Leonardo Di Vinci or Charles Babbage they may have lasted longer still. But I guess we should all thank America for giving the rest of the world everything.
I know, right? It's just not fair how some countries have all the luck. If only the Romans had mastered integrated circuitry or given birth to Henry Ford or Thomas Edison, maybe they would have lasted a little longer.
The only thing funnier than this video is the stupidity of people commenting on it who are taking what Lee says at face value. He prefaces this by talking about people's smugness in their criticisms of America - consider the possibility that he's taking the piss out of that standup comedy staple of making 'stupid American' jokes. The audience plays into his hands by chortling at every one!
It's not really about America, though. It's more of an examination of prejudice and, let's face it, Americans are faced with prejudice the world over. If anything, it was that prejudice he was going after.
About the English brining up 9/11. This doesn't really happen, remember that we are on the internet - people say things online that they would never say in real life. It's internet culture.
"The events of the 9th of November" Brilliant!
That got a giggle out of me -- it wasn't even the main joke but I know for a fact Stu put that in there on purpose.
Of course he did!
Slipped in "9th November" seamlessly … genius!
Calm down people, it’s just a joke, like on Top Gear
"ignorant prelapsarian bliss"... How beautifully put!
the shot of the guy in a beanie hat after the tea cosy punchline is genius
Really? I thought his reaction was pedestrian at best
i think stewart lee is an incredibly funny guy, it does my head in when people call him elitist or whatever. The difference between him and other mainstream comedians is that he picks deserving targets for his jokes and ridicule instead of picking on disabled people for cheap laughs or poor people like some comedians do in the guise of being 'edgy' or controversial. Americans do do high school massacres and race riots, and are constantly stereotyping us brits in the maddest most innacurate ways. stewart lee has a laugh, calls them thick or whatever, says they're bad at geography and they chuck there toys out the pram! america needs to be more critical of itself instead of constantly insisting they are the best country in the world.
Jim jeffries does a good job of destroying American exceptionalism, have a search for it
I love that all these Americans comment on this, aggressively displaying their ignorance, and quite literally proving everything he says to be correct.
Which is amazing, as I'm fairly sure these aren't even views he genuinely holds, he's simply deconstructing notions of nationalism and stereotypes.
Brilliant irony from the US comments. Which is ironic, as irony is something Americans aren't supposed to understand. If you follow the stereotype....
I hold real resentments against the USA for U.S.A. Chanting, fist pumping, high fiving, whooping, love of sh*t comedy, huge ego's, thinking they're the centre of the universe, high school college football teams and cheer leaders, angry superiority complex..... I'll hold my tongue now, before I say something bad about the United States of America. 🙄
i like the way they cut to the guy in the beanie during the tea cosy bit.
From the beginning of the video I loved it! "The events of the ninth of November"
Stewart is purposefully pointing out the ridiculous nature of stereotypes by making crass generalizations about Americans and having the Scottish audience bask in humour that is not directed at them and then immediately makes the transition to making crass generalizations about Scottish people that aren't received so well. I agree that the whole thing has to be shown in context to be fully appreciated. I must add that I'm a Glaswegian and found this hilarious, his intention was not to offend.
Indeed, the way he switches it is masterful and the contrast in reception goes to highlight our foolishness!
@@alexstorr5511 hell yeah - everyone should be able to laugh at themself
Superb narration
This might be the best bit of stand-up i've ever seen. Thank you for uploading.
Everyone getting mad about this clip - and also the people acting smug about it, taking shots at Americans - should be aware that it is presented massively out of context. In the full show, he turns this routine against the audience in order to make fun of their own prejudices and justify going on a long rant which mocks Scottish culture.
Genius ... as always
The triple-redundant automatic lawn sprinkler system at St Andrews Golf Course has let itself go.
Americans are too literal-minded to get this comedy. Irony is beyond them.
As an American, British people confuse me. And I'm not sure if this comment.......
s. nich And you're missing the point of this joke. After this he then goes on a tirade against the Scots, showing how they laughed at people they don't know but got butthurt after it was turned against them.
hey wait you had a traitor king, who stepped down for some American action--she may have saved you -tho her politics too were very Mosley--see the irony there?
+ColdChicago ... although way off topic (you have to watch the whole of this set to understand it - he has a go at the English too) I will comment.
Edward the 8th was potentially a Nazi sympathiser. So if he had been king at the outset of the war then there would likely have been some constitutional crisis.
The irony is that Wallace... although mostly reviled... likely saved the monarchy from such a crisis, although accidental and she was almost certainly unaware of it at the time.
Basically her motive was to become queen I doubt her mind concentrated on much else. Although of course David must have loved her.. once the throne was gone the real question is was that love really reciprocated ?
if not does that show her in a good light ?
Prejudice is an English lifestyle. They get off on poking fun of the rest of the world. If you are not English then they spend endless hours making fun of you in various degrees of nastiness. Even the Scots, Welsh, Cornish and of course the Irish. Basically the Banty rooster routine. The scrawniest out crowing about how great they are and how terrible everyone else is. Their chests can swell with pride and crow louder. Any deep seated prejudices America has was brought over by English colonists. Same attitude the Greek and Romans had. They are the great intellects and everyone else is a barbarian.
...a theme park, a shopping mall, a race riot or a high school massacre.
perfect !
The natural habitat.
Thankfully a lot has changed since 2009, and race riots and high school massacres no longer happen.
@Robin Williams: Yes, thankfully the US has learned from its past mistakes and these things no longer happen.
@AndrewSmithJamjar PS - Just occured to me the irony of my previous message on this particular clip. The very things that the brilliant Stewart Lee is criticising Americans for (albeit in a deliberately exaggerated way), things like the intellectual laziness, the desire to never own a passport and go anywhere, to not experience the world as it truly is, the arrogance that comes with thinking your relatively young country is the greatest in the world.....this is what Hicks was railing against.
He called william wallace a paedo in glasgow immediately after this and you call him a coward?
No, I didn't call him a coward.
I was being ironic, as was he. Obviously he is referring to what Americans call '9/11', the day the world trade towers were attacked, which we Brits would have termed 11/9 because we put the day first, then the month, not the month first, then the day, as in America. The actual day we are both referring to would be the 11th day of September, the 9th month.
It's hilarious that Americans in this comment section can't take a joke, even worse is they misinterpret jokes to make them insulting to themselves and then get pissy about it, recreational outrage everywhere.
Yeh, not like Brits, eh?
Wow, a country that has only been around for 237 years was the first to harness everything? That's amazing.
9th of november... never forget.
Little wonder James Cordon made the transition to the other side of the pond without any trouble.
"and the metaphysical concept of shame" - AMEN! AMEN, STEWART!! Americans have no idea what the word means.
He wasn't actually taking the piss out of America. He was satirising blind prejudice.
Pure genius!
@jul24ian This is actually just a set up for a later part of the routine(which is not at the expense of Americans). If this is the only clip you have seen of him then it would be worth watching more, the first two lines of your comment is actually quite accurate.
@popjoeandco number of referendums held for a start?
I'm sad that nobody got the 9th of November bit at the start.
It's like those little adult jokes they put in animated children's movies -- it doesn't mean anything to those who don't catch it, but it's hilarious to those that do.
They already did get it... several times. He is half way through the routine
Lots of people got it, what are you talking about
This out of context is absolutely ridiculous. During this set he "has a go" at Americans and that, and then unleashes some incredibly awkward comedy about being Scottish to a Scottish audience. It's fucking amazing to see the tables turn, and worth every sublime minute.
@tattat44 "zero British people were involved in the development of the Internet before Tim berners lee" NOT true. The original Macy cybernetics conferences (1940s) included Gregory Bateson and built on the original research of Watt, Maxwell and W. Ross Ashby. All were British. The Internet would not have existed without this research
@quimsolls Please specify that percentile and cite your source. That would be a fascinating ethnographic study.
@Chairmaneoin I'm an American. Can I agree with you and at the same time say that there are English jingoists that just hate people like me because of my nationality?
Yes and if you saw the entire set you'd see the twist at the end where he twists it and points out the blind ignorance of labelling an entire nation based on stereotypes. I recommend you find the entire set.
Christ, ouch. And it hurts more because he's obviously such a good comedian.
@hiukltd15 Do you mean the Greek month system? That's the one we American's use.
Yeah when you say it in English
And British culture is 3000 years older than Greek culture or have you never heard of Stonehedge or the bronze age where almost 100% of the tin they (the Greeks) used to make bronze came to Cornwall in Britain (then known as the tin isles) to trade for. Or that you say your dates in English or that we invented your country, won more battles in the war of independence (fact) and only left cause we had Napoleon to rid Europe of, like we did all alone against the Germans in ww2 all alone for 2 years and were the only nation that didn't fold in a matter of weeks (the only nation to fight the axis powers all alone) and handed them their firsr two defeats while your nation was still funding them, or that the usa has NEVER won ONE single war single-handed. You got beat by sandle-wearing midgets in Vietnam over a period of years yet the British sailed 12,000 miles, all alone in 1982 to defeat a well dug in much larger Argentine force and did so on foot after we lost all our helicopters on the way, in about 5 weeks. So there is that. Not to mention the amount of times the sas had to bail out your gung ho ill trained forces in Iraq and Afghanistan which of course your news never shows because you live in the greatest country in the world where an ambulance costs $3000 compared to the zero pence it costs here, or that your entire infrastructure, language, justice system etc etc was handed to you on a plate and that the war of independence was actually a civil war between pro monarchy British settlers and anti monarchy British settlers. And the only two nations in history that made their children pledge allegiance to a flag/nation were nazi Germany and the USA. But thanks for single handed winning ww2 for the entire 2 years you were involved in which not one bomb fell on your country. But hey, your free to say what you like on the British invented www on your British invented touchscreen and get fed your daily dose of propaganda and spin on your British invented tv. And hopefully one day you might be smart enough to realise you exist on a diet of chemicals which is why yiunate all so obese or maybe understand the concept of irony and satire. But hey, what did we ever do you for you? the greatest 2 party country the world has ever known that still doesn't understand the idea of ascending incremental dating or the superior metric system while we use both being how we invented the imperial system of measuring. The clue is in the name y'all'
Good to see a mention for the high school massacre.
At the start he said 9th of november not 11th of september.
Or was this a joke because for us 9/11 is the 9th of november?
Oh! 1783. That was the end of a series of events which, um, involved the Americans. you know the Americans? you can see them in them movies that are on sometimes. Well the Americans, um, started running around dressed in blue. You know the Americans? They threw some aromatic beverages into the sea, and then started running around in blue. And then turned an old drinking song into an anthem.It was all a laugh really, nothing important rested on it, like peoples rights or anything.
@millard27 You mean the German import know as the burger?
LMAO tea cosy. this is fucking hilarious
I'm sure you have a source for all these top level stats you have at your fingertips. A man on the inside perhaps. Did it take long to find the percentage sign on your computer?
was actually only a few names being called, most of the ridicule was insinuated... such elevated listening skills u have
I liked the '9th of November' remark.
does he say shops that don't have the word 'barn' in their name?
***** didn't know that about shop names in the US, cheers
Dogmatic nationalism and mindless consumerism is the real target and I found it very cathartic to listen to when the DVD was first released. There was a much more tangible sense of adversity towards the US under the Bush administration and for me Stew brought some much craved levity to the situation. (thanks)
That section of the set was really quite painful at times. :) The whole thing is available on UA-cam in one go if anyone is interested, in fact I can see it FEATURED over on the right.
Tea cosy tea cozy
im American and i agree, we are all arrogant, delinquent, idiots as a general populous..
we need to start respecting other people and countries.
No. You are not all like that or you wouldn't be aware of it
@jul24ian
Sorry you don't understand what he's doing here.
People slagging off Stewart Lee as a comedian & bringing Michael McIntyre in to the argument.
Oh dear!!!
That said he's certainly no Joe Pasquale
I liked how he said 9th of November. v funny
Please don't mistake my nastiness towards this subject as anything serious. It is all in good fun. Thanks for the kind explanation though : )
@AndrewSmithJamjar Hicks had a message, you just missed that message. Two entirely different things.
No, a British guy invented the World Wide Web, which isn't the same thing as the internet. (google it)
Google it... did you seriously say that lol. Omg. You're beyond hope
hi, contrary to the other posters (whom I suspect are american perhaps?) I found this hillarious. The man is brilliant, but then it is understandable if you don't get it ;)
I'd never wear a hat in my bunker.
@AndrewSmithJamjar I do love you. This is why I hope your sense of humour, and indeed you, evolve to the necessary level needed to appreciate the great Bill Hicks in all his revelatory, truthful, undiluted glory.
I applaud you for having a view, but I also retain the right to make my own personal assessment of your comedic taste, and the validity of said taste, based on that view.
'The inventors of most modern technology'
The Japanese?
No the Japanese never invented anything they merely took other inventions and worked on them, like the British invented Walkman for example. And the fact that the lifespan of most Japanese houses is less than 30 years
It's great because as a scotch man I see this hypocritical attitude every day. Generalise everybody by their country then get pissed off when a scotch character in a movie plays the bagpipes.
Scottish
I'm American. I laughed. Though I do tend to do more drugs than the average person so I have already thought about all this xD.
And the people arguing in the comments down there....You missed the point.
9th November. I see what he did there :)
@BraceAbound Exactly.
@NPjazzsaxmusic I thought that I maybe I was watching this out of context. I'll buy the DVD and watch it in the correct context. But just by looking at other comments on this video, it seems that everyone else has taken this out of context as well, it seems to have served as fuel for hating Americans when I'd say that most of these people had probably hardly left England.
@popjoeandco I should probably rescind my comment... I've looked at other videos on youtube and read some interviews, it seems as though I watched this video out of context...
You know, he's really just pointing out how stupid smug British people are for thinking that all Americans are stupid - it's us Brits who are at fault for laughing at him making stereotypes and the rest of this set goes on to highlight that further. This is kind of cut so that you only get the set up to the wider joke...which is a problem with giving people the ability to edit out just their favourite bits on youtube, it's a work of art only half finished.
The old tea cosy gag...
I love the Americans.
@AndrewSmithJamjar No, you patently are NOT catching on to this yet...
Thank you for the being the 14th person to "explain" that to me. Humor works on multiple levels-he's getting laughs out of the same jokes, however he intends them. The audience may well be laughing at the jokes themselves, not the satire.
Except that this is from a long show in which he makes the satire very clear by turning the attack on the audience and forcing them to confront the difference between their responses to that and the previous stuff. That's sort of the point of the whole bit. Yes, he's getting laughs out of the jokes. He has to make an audience actually laugh at them in order to show that they do actually laugh at lazy stereotypes. Just telling them they do isn't going to be effective.
@pmanngw Agree completley, if you think this is racist you need to see the entire routine - its probably in the links on the right. He builds up a satire for over 40mins or so along the lines that pmanngw states - he does the same things he says about the U.S about Scotland too.
Being Welsh, I totally agree with your comments regarding the English. As do the Scots and Irish. The irony, of course, is that since America's Civil War caused more deaths of American troops than all the other wars they've fought in since, they would appear to be as self-cannibalistic and nihilist as those darn English.
best 3 comedians ever:
Stuart Lee
Bill Hicks
Woody Allen
In no order.
"...the events of 9th November..." ?
Oh...
I now see a most unfortunate typo.
And the crabs.
the high school massacre HAHAHA
9th of November is the 9th day of the 11th month in a year, 9/11.
Right, I'll explain how this works for the Americans cause they seem to struggle with the concept of incremental advancement. You begin with the smallest unit... the day, then you move up to the next smallest unit, the month and end on the largest unit the year. The US way is no better than saying it is the 2024th of the 8th 29
Hi Norm. I understand why you are annoyed - the way this video has been cut it looks like he is hating on America. But what he actually does in this stand up is he makes a load of crass generalisations about other cultures (he does American, the English etc) to a Scottish audience, and then he turns the tables on them and does the Scottish right to there faces. He exposes how ridiculous these generalisations are - his actual target was never Americans, it was ignorance.
watch?v=tHA1ufmLZQY
@gaelicscots apparently not. Before this video I thought I had...
Hasn't Herb Alpert let himself go?
This is the best comment on youtube.
Precisely. :)
Nevermind, I was thinking of Turing.
It's not ridiculous out of context. Just because he is subverting the stereotypes of national identity, doesn't mean he isn't also using them. A lot of his material is playing on this I believe- we are laughing at the comedy, while we are simultaneously enjoying Lee satirising our own assumptions that the success of the comedy relies on.
To say that we are not enjoying the face value of the joke, *is* smug.
The posts that are defensive make the point Stuart Lee (who is a comedian and references that the bit is satire) is making. I have heard him live and seen Jerry Springer the Opera. He is brilliant and America and Americans have a sadly misplaced arrogance.
You don't get it. Watch his clip entitled 'Stewart Lee Osama Bin Laden' and watch it until the end. He does things based on exposing people's anti-american prejudices.....this one is slightly out of context. If you're American, you're not doing much for the stereotype of Americans not getting stuff.
@Chairmaneoin well...the fact you hate anyone negates your opinion....or should I just say "fair enough"
@AndrewSmithJamjar When the opposable thumbs arrive you'll really be in business.
Or maybe all of us are having a good laugh, and you're the only one that can't handle the banter.
Ever thought of that?
Hey, if they had of given birth to Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Leonardo Di Vinci or Charles Babbage they may have lasted longer still. But I guess we should all thank America for giving the rest of the world everything.
I never said I disliked Stewart Lee. I said I hate these jokes. He's still using them for laughs.
The U.K actually has better dental hygiene than the U.S.
ROFL!!!!!!!!!
@williamwilson666 Ahh! Gotta see that! : )
@popjoeandco One of the few intelligent comments on this video.
I know, right? It's just not fair how some countries have all the luck.
If only the Romans had mastered integrated circuitry or given birth to Henry Ford or Thomas Edison, maybe they would have lasted a little longer.
Задорнов оценил
The only thing funnier than this video is the stupidity of people commenting on it who are taking what Lee says at face value. He prefaces this by talking about people's smugness in their criticisms of America - consider the possibility that he's taking the piss out of that standup comedy staple of making 'stupid American' jokes. The audience plays into his hands by chortling at every one!
@Aliceonarubycloud Yeah but you're telling me that when really you should be telling me that....
It's not really about America, though. It's more of an examination of prejudice and, let's face it, Americans are faced with prejudice the world over. If anything, it was that prejudice he was going after.
About the English brining up 9/11. This doesn't really happen, remember that we are on the internet - people say things online that they would never say in real life. It's internet culture.