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Like many of us, I can find a thread of humor in just about anything, no matter how horrible. For instance, I was in awe of the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode in which Larry David got away with a 9/11 joke, a Holocaust joke, and a glass eye joke, all within the same hour.
But here’s the thing. Although those jokes dealt with very sensitive topics, they were not mean or disrespectful. And the extreme discomfort created by the topic is part of what made them funny. The 9/11 joke involved a surreal cocktail party argument over whether a guy killed in a bicycle accident uptown on 9/11 “counted” as a 9/11 death. The Holocaust joke involved “survivors” invited to a dinner party, except that through a miscommunication, one of them was a concentration camp survivor while the other was a contestant on the TV show “Survivor.” They then get into an insane disagreement over who had it worse. The glass eye joke involved Larry in a car with his Holocaust survivor uncle (who had been at the dinner) and struggling with the reflection from the eye.
You know, the kind of uncomfortable stuff we feel guilty for laughing at, which is often the core of good comedy. But here’s the thing: It’s not mean. The real butt of the jokes is Larry himself for being so insensitive.
My real point, and I do have one somewhere, is this: I’m more than okay with being edgy. All of the best comedians (Carlin, Chappelle, Kinison, Hedberg, Rock, and so on) are or were edgy. Sunday night, though, a UFC fighter named Josh Hokit made a comment in a post-fight interview on the White House lawn about Michelle Obama being a man. I guess he was trying to get a laugh. (UFC President Dana White has since condemned the comment.)
I don’t care whether or not you think the Obamas are evil incarnate. (I don’t. I just disagree with them about a lot of things.) I don’t care what you think about Michelle Obama’s looks. That sort of insult is just not funny at any level. It’s not funny because it’s mean. And to me, it’s not enough to defend this sort of thing by saying “well, look at what the left says about conservatives.” Who cares? If you’re in the gutter because the other guy dragged you there…you’re still in the gutter.
What really troubled me was that no one (including Joe Rogan, who was conducting the interview) said, “Hey man, come on, that’s out of line.” I like to think that if I were in a similar situation, I would have the guts to stand up to it. I hope that’s not wishful thinking. Maybe Rogan was worried about losing his UFC gig. But as Larry Donnithorne said in his wonderful book “The West Point Way of Leadership,” be prepared to give up your career tomorrow to do the right thing.
The intent of these comments is not to be preachy or sanctimonious. It’s just to point out that if we continue to tolerate crass comments and meanness, this country will continue on its downward slide. I don’t care who started it. I think we should somehow figure out a way to rise above it.
And now I will step down from my soapbox. :)
Discussion (14)
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The best glass eye joke was told by the Danish-British comedian Sandi Toksvig, about her one-eyed uncle who kept a second glass eye on the mantle piece. This eye was painted to look as if it were bloodshot and before a night of drinking he would swap out his eye. “I'm going to the pub,” he would announce, “and I shan't come back till both eyes match!"
But you’re absolutely correct about the Obama comment. But, there is no line that can’t be crossed as long as you support the correct politics. And that goes for both sides.
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First of all, it was a stupid comment. This thing that went around at some point about Michelle Obama being a man was just beyond stupid. I think she is pretty, she was our First Lady and deserves some respect for that. No, I was not a fan of the Obamas but that is past history. Their policies didn't work out well and still don't. Let's leave it at that.
Getting back to humor. Larry David, I believe is Jewish. Jews make Jewish jokes all the time - my gosh.....it's like blacks using the N-word and no one bats an eye - they just laugh. Woody Allen was a master at it. So was Joan Rivers, and how about all the great sitcoms starting with All in the Family. Some humor is bad, but if it is in context, we grown-ups can take it as just humor, laugh and move on.
Now we have so many words and language no-no's that it is hard to find that old harmless humor anymore, where everyone was a target. Trump maybe needs to have a comedy night at the White House (or not). We all need to find something to laugh about in Washington lately........
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I'm far from being an Obama fan, but it was just plain gross.
Last weekend we went to see Jimmy Failla live in Hagerstown Maryland (where, you might say?!?) and he was crude, foul-mouthed, and funny as all get out for 90 minutes. He ended his show as he does his 10PM Saturday night show on Fox with "You can be a Republican, or you can be a Democrat, just don't be a di*k."
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Bad taste can be okay if it is actually funny. I hate it when people laugh really hard and then through their laughter say, “That’s terrible. You can’t say that.”
From all I have seen of Mrs. Obama, I do not see much to like. But simply calling her a man, out of the blue with no context, wasn’t funny. I’m thinking maybe guys who take blows to the head for a living might not be the most clever people out there.
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Unfortunately this has not been limited to guys with rattled noggins. It has been advanced throughout the years by Trump’s more controversial supporters such as Alex Jones and Candace Owens, and surprisingly (at least to me) Jason Whitlock of the Daily Wire.
It originated in 2011 by anonymous folks on the web but got a boost in 2014 when the late Joan Rivers was asked by a reporter if the United States would ever see a gay president, Rivers jokingly responded, "We already have it with Obama," and then followed up by claiming that Michelle Obama was transgender.
She got a lot of backlash and refused to apologize. In a statement to CNN she said:
Within two months, Rivers was dead. In early 2025 Elon Musk’s father got involved in an interview on the All In podcast by saying, "Joan Rivers mentioned it publicly, and she was dead two weeks later, by the way... They axed her, yeah. So that's common knowledge. You can look it up anywhere."
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