Penn & Teller Bull****!: Family Values, 5-2-05
 

9:00pm CST, Showtime

Looks like a good one.

Next week: Conspiracy Theories. Really looking forward to this one.

Should be fairly predictable where this one will go, but it'll be fun nonetheless.

Should be good.

I will be watching tonight from tivo. Looks ordinary, but even their ordinary is good.

It was okay. rotfl when the ducks joined Penn and the ladies on the bed.

What was their argument in this one? I forgot to Tivo it, will have to grab it later.

That there is no such thing as a 'traditional family.'

I thought it was entertaining while not particularly saying anything new. I was happy to see them show what an asshole Michael Medved has become (I remember when he was a sane and pretty good film critic) and I loved their explanation about why people like him would appear on the show when they have to know they're going to be savaged.

I think the most disgusting guest was the guy who "cures' gays because that ridiculous concept just makes me sick. Was anyone surprised that he had first "cured" himself? I'm waiting for him and that patient he had been "helping" to be found in a love nest at a local motel.

I thought they did a solid job with this one. I wasn't really looking forward to it, but the additions of the married couple and their lovers, as well as the "homosexuality healer" helped to keep it out of the realm of ordinary.

I'm certainly looking forward to next week, if only to squawk about them spending only 30 minutes on what looks to be several conspiracy theories. If any of their shows has required an hour (and I believe that many have), this will be the one.

I agree. The preview on the P&T Showtime site says they are going to cover:
I'm afraid they're going to have to spread themselves way too thin to cover all that.

I would rather they spent the whole show on JFK but that's because it's a minor obsession of mine. On JFK I suspect it won't be much more than debunking the (erroneous) criticisms of the single bullet theory.

Just like the Environmentalism show...they dont debunk the theories as much as they focus on the NEED TO BELIEVE them.

The only problem I had with one of their arguments is the whole monogomany doesn't exist in nature. That's fine and dandy, but animals don't have the same cognitive abilities as humans. Trying to compare monogamy from humans against animals is a pretty far stretch.

I disagree completely. Humans are part of the animal kingdom so it certainly seems like valid comparison to me. Besides there is a long tradition of polygamy as well in human history.

Given the sheer number of differences between the way humans live vs. other animals, pointing out one difference to show that the way humans live is unnatural doesn't seem to be an apt comparison to me.

And I couldn't disagree more. Humans are far more advanced than any other species in the Animal Kingdom. We can create and destroy. We can cure disease. No other species has the same cognitive ability as we do. So, how you can compare us, even to our closest primate relatives, is a bit naive.

Yeah but many those differences mainly do relate to cognative ability. I don't see a relationship btwn cognative ability and how many partners one wants to have sexual relations with. You are also suggesting that any comparison btwn humans and the rest of animal kingdom is pointless since they are different in many areas. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Just because 2 things are so different in certain areas doesn't automatically render comparisons in other areas invalid.

Other animals can create and destroy things. I can see how our cognative ability relates to curing diseases. I don't see how it relates to sex and monogamy.

An animal can creat a '65 mustang? An animal can create a nuclear weapon to anihillate a city? That's what I meant by that statement.

The main problem with comparing animals to humans in this regard, is that humans have created these social constructs of marriage and divorce. You can't compare something like that to animals when they don't have the cognitive ability to create such constructs.

Well sure. Penn & Teller would agree with you too. I agree that is what marriage is - a social constuct. Marriage is artificial. Artificial means not natural. However, that doesn't mean you cannot compare what humans would do by nature to what other animals do by nature. Take away the societal construct (mainly due to religion) of marriage and what you would find? Penn & Teller and I bet you would find something other than monogamy (for the most part) no matter what our cognative ability is.

I was a little disappointed. Last week's had me laughing my ass off, but this one was just average and didn't really prove much beyond the obvious.

Example: While I believe that most families are f'd up, I do believe that a stable male/female parenting dynamic is superior to any other stable dynamic. Am I right? Perhaps, perhaps not, but they didn't do a good job trying to prove me wrong, and I was kind of hoping for that. They showed that lesbians can love their kids (who knows if they're good parents or not), and they showed that male/female families can fail miserably (duh), and they showed some advocates who were complete clowns (always fun), but these are barely surface-scratching issues. If you want to debunk the idea of "family values", show me some good research that indicates that a stable male/female parenting dynamic is not preferable to other. They kind of started to touch on this but then quickly side-stepped it. It also seems like monogamy and parenting are two separate (but potentially related) issues, and they clouded the two together.

I know I sometimes ask too much of this show, and I recognize it's a lot to ask, but I guess I just enjoy it better when they come armed with some real hard facts and completely debunk something than the more vague "live your life how you want" libertarian stuff. I like it best when they throw some fraud against a wall, rip off his clothes, and laugh at him.

I did like how they talked about the evolution of the "family" over time and how the term "traditional" is completely relative, though.

das

Take away the societal construct and there's a whole lot of things people wouldn't do.

To me, arguing about the myth of the traditional family shouldn't include a 'this is how we'd live if we didn't have a societal construct' because we do have a societal construct whether we like it or not.

It makes more sense to talk about how our society really is rather than how it would be if we didn't have society (especially if we aren't going to eliminate the other things we wouldn't have). If you argue that it's only society that keeps us from being polygamous, that makes it too easy to argue that we'd also be raping 13 year-olds if not for societal constructs.

We are different, even in ways relating to sex.

Yeah it would be nice to see good research in this area but that is somewhat unrealistic at this point in time. The 2-gay-parent family is basically in it infancy so research would prove difficult. Also, how does one demonstrate parental success? The highest degree your child earns? The more money your child earns? The fewer crimes your child commits?

I agree that it makes more sense to talk about how society really is. That doesn't automatically render moot what I believe is natural or unnatural behavior.

We are different. We are not completely different.

I thought about that while watching it, and I really couldn't come up with any good answers. I don't really fault them for it; it just made it not very effective for me. They showed that one lady pimping her own study, and then she said, "and others have done studies too!" but they didn't really follow up on any of it. In fairness, though, you're right ... how do you even measure that stuff? For example, it has been my experience that people raised in a single-parent household are more prone to face their own relationship troubles (marry too young/unhealthy fear of commitment/etc) than others, but aside from quoting marriage/divorce numbers (which wouldn't fit with the basic premise of this episode in the first place), how would I ever prove that beyond my personal perception from people I've known.

das

This episode was smiliar to the bible and creationism episode in that if you believe in "family values", you are not going to change and if you don't believe, Penn and Teller prove you right to yourself.