#anyway Intrigued to see whose gonna hate on this post first >:) George girls or Paul girls? We'll Wait And See lol

[phoneybeatlemania]

Sorry to discourse at you, you can ignore this if you want. Regarding George's humor, this is a big area where I struggle to like George. Particularly in his relationship to Paul, but also just overall. Like, my sisters and I will make some pretty mean jokes about each other, but we would never make them in front of our extended family. There's a public/private divide with that kind of humor. If that makes sense? And I try not to be too hard on George, because maybe when you're that famous (2/2)

Anon Ask 2: ...it stops being fair to ask someone to censor the sense of humor. But I just get uncomfortable knowing that George knows that some portion of the audience will take the joke seriously and telling it anyway. And I feel like this is particularly prominant with Paul, who he has also said bad stuff about publicly in a non-joking way. I don't actually know what I'm asking here. I'm just blurting this out to you because engaging with how George's humor interacts with his celebrity is hard for me.

Reference to my post and original gif set which sparked this discussion

Hiya anon! No worries about sending an ask, Im happy to talk about this topic in a little more depth :) 

So something I didn’t really touch upon in my last post was that I do actually believe there were some Bitchy (for lack of a better term) things George said to Paul, particularly throughout the early 70s, which I think clearly went beyond harmless joking and were legitimately Mean Things to do or say. It’s not that I think these moments between George and Paul should be looked at in isolation, because there obviously was a long history between the two (and as well, the early 70s was just Complicated in general for everybody), so that should be accounted for if were going to criticise George for this. But despite the long history, I still think a lot of these things were unnecessary, and we should recognise that (and to be honest, not feel like we Always Have To Justify Everything? Sometimes people just do shitty things, and we can say that, and not have to victimise or vilify them for that). 

I feel like this is the type of point where George fans are gonna read it and think “okay so she *hates* George” and vice-versa with Paul fans—but to be honest, this isn’t really an area where I feel like its necessary to take sides. I feel like there can be a tendency to forget, especially when we’re trying to Psychoanalyse or Understand [or whatever you wanna call it] celebrities, that they’re all just human beings. Like everyone has said nasty things to other people, and everyones had nasty things said to them—but a period of hostility between two friends isn’t necessarily representative of what their relationship is really like, if you catch my meaning. My point I guess is kind of that, 50 or so years on, we should be able to recognise that Sure That Was Kind Of A Shitty Thing To Do, but theres a difference between recognising and critiquing something, and then actually passing judgement on an individual and Taking Sides, which often leads us to trying to justify Everything one person did while critiquing the other to excess. And real judgement seems fairly pointless to me in the case between George and Paul, because I think at the end of the day, they both just did Shitty Things to one another—but try being friends with someone for 15+ years without that happening. Im not saying that it means we should ignore aspect to their relationship or that it makes it licit, but I suppose what seems to be of more importance to me is that I think they both eventually tried change an adapt for one another.

I see what you mean as well when it comes to a public and private divide with humour; there are jokes you’d make in front of your closest friends/family, but wouldn’t make in front of other people. In this specific case though (with the “Paul has no good songs of his own” comment), I honestly just think this was Something Funny that came to Georges mind in the moment, and he wasn’t taking into the wider contexts, i.e music critics. And while I don’t want to Project or anything, just speaking from my own perspective I can say that irl Im the type of person who will say just about anything that comes to mind for me in the moment if I think its funny—and I get that impression from George too. I just feel like me and (probably) George are the types who just like to joke a lot, and are always looking to make other people laugh (as well as ourselves)—which kind of leads me to believe that when George makes a joke like “Paul has no good songs of his own left”, I think his expectation is that Paul is in on the joke, rather then just the butt of the joke. I guess thats really up for your own interpretation though (and as aforementioned, I think there were jokes in other periods of their lives where I wouldn’t feel this really rings true). 

I think as well, George must have known the music industry well enough by this point to be aware that sure, there were music critics and people sitting at home watching who genuinely would have Thought That. But again, if we’re speaking about intentions, I don’t get the impression that this was it, because as I mentioned before, I don’t feel like there was even any real intention behind the joke; I really just think it was a funny thing that came to mind for him; whether that makes it okay or not is up for debate (and to be honest, its your call really). Lowkey as well, I actually kind of think the people who Actually Believe Paul had no good songs of his own left (and so was Practically Forced to use some of Johns 😩) are really the butt of the joke? Like it rubs of as very dry, sarcastic commentary on those types of critics to me. 

I guess also if you look at most British comedians, a lot of humour relies on deprecating other people—especially on things like panel shows. Again thats obviously a different situation to the one George was in, but I think the general point is that when you have a very dry and sardonic sense of humour, you’re very prone to mocking other people, and that can be malicious—but at the same time, for a lot of people it really is just their way of telling jokes, and no Actual Offence is intended. 

But to return to the original point, I do hear what you’re saying in that ‘he has also said bad stuff about publicly in a non-joking way’, and I don’t really disagree. But what I was thinking with my response to that post specifically was like, there are genuinely mean things he said to Paul that I think are very-much worth discussing, but this imo just isn’t one of them? Like the way Im seeing other people respond [and this goes out to both the Staunch Paul Defendants AND the people saying “George was telling the truth!!” btw] just feels like an overreaction to me. So yeah—obviously I have no idea who you are anon, but tbh, I think if you wanted to get a discussion going about Georges treatment of Paul, theres a lot of room for that and Id be interested to read it! I just don’t feel that the joke we’re discussing here today greatly exemplifies your overarching point. 

But thats just my thoughts on this :) and tbh, I think I feel especially defensive of George in this specific instance just because Im Well Aware that his joke is the exact sort of thing I would say to people irl. Maybe its just a Sibling Thing, if you see what I mean—I think if you have a big family, everyones always trying to get the last laugh in also feel like this is an Irish Catholic Family thing but maybe thats a talk for another day lol.