That isn't a typo for "know".
No Jokes.
And Afro-American Eugene Robinson explains:
Barack Obama's election victory may have been good for the country, but it's been awful for comedians. Just ask poor Don Rickles.
He was absolutely killing the audience on David Letterman's show the other night with his trademark scorched-earth put-downs. Rickles seemed at the top of his game -- until he tried to tell a joke about the new president-elect. Not even a well-timed rimshot from the band could have saved him.
It was just a quick bit in which he imagined Obama, faced with his first international crisis, telling his advisers he couldn't be interrupted because he was busy playing basketball. The joke bombed.
...As I said, poor Don Rickles. After all, he practically invented the in-your-face, politically incorrect style of humor that is so many comedians' meal tickets these days. It must have been galling to have to sheepishly disavow a joke that was so inoffensive compared with the rest of his oeuvre.
And what was wrong with the joke, anyway?
"Wrong" is too strong a word; "anachronistic" and "off-center" might be closer to the mark. It is a fact that Obama (like George W. Bush) is something of a gym rat, and it is a fact that Obama (unlike Bush) likes to spend his time in the gym playing basketball. His sinking a three-pointer during his trip to Kuwait was one of the indelible moments of the long campaign.
So why didn't the audience laugh? The main reason, I think, is that "black men playing basketball" is a stereotype, and the audience probably felt this was an inappropriate way to talk about the first black president-elect. Even though, as I noted, he does love to play basketball. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
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5 comments:
A successful joke about Obama on the Letterman show is as likely as a joke about Mohammed in a mosque.
The frightening thing is how few Obama supporters understand and agree with his avowed policies and how many simply and blindly believe in the man.
Jokes are therefore blasphemy.
I congratulate the US on electing one of the formerly despised and oppressed minorities to the Presidency. America has elected a smoker. So now, can we eliminate the 'segregation squares' outside buildings where we force that oppressed minority to congregate?
After all, the 'science' of damage of bystanders from second hand smoke has no more validity than the 'science' of racism.
Comics are in for a very hard time. Joe Biden will be their only source, unless they want to do stale stuff about Bush the Moron.
But, I thought of a possible joke: It's the beginning of an Alabama football game. Obama walks up to the bandstand, grabs the mike and says, "I thank the many thousands of you for coming to hear my voice, and thank you for naming your university after me."
Ta-Dum
great....
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