Ms. Gendercentric is NOT Amused
(posted by Mona)
This is where I just lose all sense of connectedness to feminists. So Bernie Mac told this joke at an Obama fundraiser:
“My little nephew came to me and he said, ‘Uncle, what’s the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?’” Mac said. “I said, I don’t know, but I said, ‘Go upstairs and ask your mother if she’d make love to the mailman for $50,000.’”
As the joke continued, the punchline evoked an angry response from at least one person in the audience, who said it was offensive to women.
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville headlines that segment of the stand-up routine as “Unbelievable,” and then goes on to denounce it as “misogynistic.” Separate from this event, McEwan says Mac has in the past made jokes about “hoes.” (Obama was upset because the routine was “off color.”)
Everybody needs to get a goddam grip, as well as a funny bone. My gal pals and I tell jokes at the expense of males with some frequency, including the “he won’t stop to ask for directions variety” and much else, some of it rather blue.
Geez, of all the shit in the world to get (faux) outraged about. . . .
July 12th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
You would think that of all the people in the world who should be exempt from being held up for public shaming for their speech, people who make their living on comedy should be last on that list (I exempt Michael Richards from this since he wasn’t trying to be funny when he said what he said). Especially since good comedy and humor by their very nature require an element of understood absurdity and ridiculousness.
You would think…. I’ll file this in the ever-expanding folder labeled “First they came for the comics and shock jocks.”
(As an added note, I fully expect to hear the howls of laughter from the conservative set about how liberals have no sense of humor because their so concerned about political correctness. Of course, in so doing, they will as usual ignore their own political correctness and complete lack of a sense of humor when it comes to their own faux-outrage over sexual innuendo and plenty of other things.)
July 12th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Mona, I had a similar reaction as you, until I read the complete joke.
“The joke continued with the mother saying she’d sleep “with anyone” for $50,000 — and then continuing to include Mac’s daughter hypothetically answering the question in the same way.
“Hypothetically speaking, we should have $100,000. But realistically speaking we live with two hos,” Mac said delivering the punch line that solicited a few hecklers in the political crowd.”
Not quite in the same league as “he won’t stop to ask for directions”, no? Not to mention this wasn’t a joke between pals, this was at a *Presidential fund raiser*.
As for Obama being upset, hardly. This is what he said.
“We can’t afford to be divided by race. We can’t afford to be divided by religion, or by region or class. Or by gender. That means, by the way, Bernie you got to clean up your act. This is a family affair. … I’m just messing with you,” Obama said.
“I’m just messing with you.” Yep, unbelievable.
July 12th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Elle: Do not doubt you, but before I weigh in further, links?
July 12th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I think Michael Richards was trying to be funny, he was just failing horribly at it (and had apparently been doing so for much of his set).
July 12th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Comedians make politically incorrect jokes constantly. But what seems to make the difference between “being caught” and being “let go” is perceived credibility among those likely to sound the alarm. Michael Richards and Don Imus are on the outs, so fuggedaboutit.
Just a theory. I’ve got nothing more off hand.
July 12th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
“We can’t afford to be divided by race. We can’t afford to be divided by religion, or by region or class. Or by gender…”
This is offensive to those who believe their religions are comprehensive world views, btw.
July 12th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Bernie Mac was being kinda stupid for that environment. I say “kinda” cuz I got the joke.
Since Kramer got brought up: I could imagine an alternate scenario where immediately after Richards’ “fork up your ass” remark and the 1st N-bomb he said “now that I have you crackas’ attention…” and started riffing on white people. THAT would’ve been funny.
July 12th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Mona - I was going to include the link originally, but am a newbie to commenting (on any blogs), so I don’t know the proper formatting. I’ll just have to just make a text link (sorry):
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/bernie-mac-make.html
July 12th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Dain:
I’m not sure I’d agree with you. The Richards event was a big deal for, I think, entirely different reasons than the Imus brouhaha. The Richards event was unique in its tone and it exhibited a personal rage that is rarely seen.
As for Imus, I noticed that the “outrage” was largely contained to politicians, Rev. Al and Jesse Jackson, and white liberals (remember that Media Matters broke the story). I remember looking at state-level internet polling data and finding that the higher percentage of African-Americans that were in a given state, the fewer people who were calling for Imus’ head. Admittedly not the best form of analysis, but there was a surprising lack of polling on the issue as a whole. Had Media Matters not sent press releases on it to everyone they could find, I suspect no one would have noticed.
On another note, it’s worth pointing out that a lot of people benefitted from the timing of that story. It literally knocked the attorney firing scandal off the front page just as it was becoming an actual, real problem for the Bushies. Lest we forget, the Duke Lax case dismissal also occured just a few days later, with relatively little fanfare from the media because the Imus story was all that anyone cared about….let’s just say that Sharpton & Co., as well as the media that had already convicted the Lax players, were probably grateful that story didn’t get much play. I’m not saying that there was some sort of a conspiracy, but the fact that so many benefitted so much from the Imus fiasco suggests that certain quarters may have had pretty strong motivation to push the Imus story once it became apparent that it had legs. I have long felt that liberals who took their eye off the attorney firing scandal in order to focus on Imus did themselves a tremendous disservice, since the firing scandal briefly looked like it was going to have some severe consequences for the Bushies.
July 13th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Thanks for the link Elle. Mac’s routine is peculiar fare for a political fundraiser, but it isn’t sexist.
July 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
The number of blacks in a state and a broad poll is certainly not a good indicator of the opinion of blacks more broadly.
Blacker states tend to be more Republican: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/01/whistling-past-dixie-auth_n_110167.html
Places with very few blacks are more likely to elect a black politician than ones with an intermediate (between 15% and 50%) amount: http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-published-articles-are-archived-at.html
July 13th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I remember looking at state-level internet polling data and finding that the higher percentage of African-Americans that were in a given state, the fewer people who were calling for Imus’ head.
How did you find information about the number of people calling for Imus’ head by state?
July 14th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Dain:
The answer to that question is that the poll I used was ESPN’s Sportsnation, which breaks down everything by state. Admittedly, and as I said, this is not the most reliable basis for looking at this, but the amount of scientific polling on the question was virtually non-existent. Also, as TGGP pointed out, there is a reliability problem given that states with a lot of blacks tend to be in the Republican South. But I also noticed that the theory seemed to hold true even in more liberal states like NY, NJ. Similarly, the states most vehemently in favor of firing Imus were the most lily-white states. This was before my blogging days, so I never took the time to put it all in a spreadsheet and analyze it.
Still- in general it’s a good idea to question the extent to which Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson speak for black people more generally - no one ever elected them. And I’ll admit that I could well be wrong- maybe there was a poll that tried to measure feelings on the Imus fiasco by demographic group. But if there was, I never found it- and believe me, I looked, because I was really curious about it.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
[...] Mark: Dain: The answer to that question is that the poll I used was ESPN’s Sportsnation, which breaks down everything by state. Admittedly, and as I said,… [...]