The final frontier for gay rights? Comedy.
Good luck with that punch line. (Source: Tickld.com website)
(Warning: This blog post includes a frank discussion of sex and homosexuality, including a couple of euphemisms for gay sex.)
This weekend, as the rest of the country chewed over a pair of landmark Supreme Court decisions establishing broader legal and civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans, I was watching old stand-up comedy specials on Netflix and humor bits on Youtube.
I know, I know. Pretty highbrow stuff.
The reason I went back to the gag reel was that I had this sort of queasy after-image in my mind of a hell of a lot of stupid anti-gay humor flowing from comedians who are supposed to be liberal, enlightened, aware.
Guys calling each other faggot. Guys making “ick” jokes about anal sex. Guys slobbering over the idea of women having sex with each other.
And sadly I found my memory pretty much confirmed.
While five gray-haired Supreme Court justices — and most of the American public — have moved past the idea that gay people are, you know, kind of gross-funny, “faggot” schticks are still a staple for humorists who want us to think of them as cutting edge.
There aren’t the fringe guys. I’m talking the A-list of American comedy here. Louis CK, Zach Galifianakis, Daniel Tosh, Seth Rogen, and on and on. Need a cheap laugh? Default to the queer jokes.
This clip, illustrating my point, is NSFW in a big way. If you’re offended by sexual references and profanity, please don’t play it.
The premise of these jokes — the underlying tension that supposedly makes them “funny” — is the same premise that drives the homophobia and intolerance that have shaped our public debate over the last decade or so.
Gayness is gross. The word “faggot” is transgressive and thrilling, because being a faggot is transgressive and scary.
The dodge — the reason these guys think it’s okay — is that they fly under a flag of cool irony. Everybody knows they’re not really homophobic, right?
They’re just pretending to be a couple of dudes tossing around incredibly stupid gay cliches. And they’re so self-aware, so politically correct that their political incorrectness gets a pass.
Louis CK in particular has tried to sort of own this material. “I would never call a gay guy a faggot, unless he was being a faggot,” he says.
The suggestion is that it’s fine for him to draw some funky deep-cool comedian’s line between acceptable gayness and Minstrel-show faggotness. Sorry, bro. That stuff won’t age well.
I went back and watched Dean Martin roasting Sammy Davis Jr., joking that as a baby the black comedian slept in a hollowed out watermelon and joshing him about being on the Ku Klux Klan’s hit list.
I watched the forced smiles on the faces of the other black comedians in the room. Yuk-yuk.
I suspect that a lot of this residual gay-is-funny stuff is a bit of a hangover. Not so long ago, being gay was kind of weird and different and exotic to most Americans — and that’s a great formula for jokes.
We’ve always made people who are different from us out to be laughable. I grew up in the 1960s hearing “Polack” and “n-word” and “wop” jokes. Now it’s like “Why exactly would that crap be funny?”
I’m guessing this will turn pretty quickly. A comedian will be on stage making his usual “pop-nob-in-fanny” queer jokes and the mood in the room will turn. People won’t laugh, they’ll cringe.
The laugh-line will give way to silence. And good comedians will get busy flushing out their material, moving on to stuff that’s actually, you know, funny.
The sad irony is that it looks like these cool, hep, liberal cutting-edge guys will be the last ones to truly touch down in the new America.
Social conservatives and Baptist preachers and people in Oklahoma are learning new and better ways to talk about their gay neighbors — by which I mean they’ve mostly stopped caring much one way or another about two gay people shopping in Wal-Mart, or getting married, or having a kid.
Meanwhile, these sad, middle-aged white dude comedians will still be snickering and whoofing and nervously questioning each other’s claim to straightness.
How profoundly unfunny is that?
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Comedians frequently try to be offensive as part of their humor. George Carlin and the Seven Words etc. What is offensive changes over time. Also it doesnt always work. Sometimes it is just offensive.
I’ve always felt just the opposite. That when we can all finally relax and laugh and joke about these things is when we know we’ve evolved and moved on from them.
Humor that is based on divisions and distinctions between people is humor that rapidly becomes dated as those divisions and distinctions change and disappear. You point out several examples of that above. Oh happy day that being gay has joined being black, being Polish, being Italian, etc., as an offensive basis for a joke. Now we have to get to work on the dumb blonde jokes.
“Meanwhile, these sad, middle-aged white dude comedians will still be snickering and whoofing and nervously questioning each other’s claim to straightness ”
black dudes don’t do gay jokes? is this another terrible thing the middle aged white dudes are solely responsible for?
nice way to lump middle aged white guys into one group , brian.
stop picking on the new minority, straight white dudes, funny ones, or not
Yeah, but lots of comedians say it’s the routine — specifically the name calling — that shines a light on bigotry and makes hate speech (and the people who use it) the butt of the joke.
More than anyone, Lenny Bruce broke this trail. And this short set — which is horribly offensive (until you get Bruce’s point at the end) — is one reason why so many comedians use hate speech in their act:
http://youtu.be/SOnkv76rNL4
(It’s from the movie “Lenny” starring Dustin Hoffman)
FWIW, I don’t think this excuses Louis CK’s punchline in the graphic Brian included in his post. Sometimes comedians are just offensive and they need to be called on it.
I don’t understand being offended.
Never subscribed to political correctness.
The biggest joke of all is when people talk about the N word or the F word. I always wonder which N word or F word they are talking about.
Spit it out or shut up.
If you don’t like what a comedian says, don’t listen to them and don’t go to their shows.
A-list of comedians. Tells me nothing other than it is probably stuff I don’t need to hear. Be careful regarding Oklahomans, why not replace that state with any town or county in northern New York-same joke-right? Who is the real low brow?
Taint funny Magee…
Louis CK has made a career out of “I can’t believe you just said that!” humor. It is the same vein that 7th graders mine but Louis does it very well in that the whole self-aware irony thing is big right now. I think you could find incredibly offensive things that Louis says on any number of subjects – that’s his schtick. But there is a certain seriousness to it in the same way Carlin or Bruce made their audience squirm with observations of our culture. I think Louis CK humour works because he is playing against our current culture of political correctness and teasing apart strands from threads that are typically considered beyond the bounds of discussion.
Seth Rogan, I dunno, his humor just seems dumb to me. It doesn’t seem like he is playing to your inner 7th grader, just an actual 7th grader.
I’ve heard of none of the list of A-list of comedians but the idea made me think of Rachel Jeantel and comments I’d read or heard about her. Essentially the comments were about her culturally. The narrow circles in which she lived have given her the essence of being a foreigner in her home country. She’s different than most people-no fault of her own. (maybe most is too broad) But then what about people who intentionally alienate themselves from a broader culture? Why are differences the butt of jokes and put downs?
We’re told 80% of people now live in cities and that alone creates a separate culture. We’re the rubes to the “elite.” Of course there is reverse humor as the folks out here make fun of them who are afraid of bears and guns in the pickup window.
For decades the mantra of celebrate diversity has been heard and now that we are more aware of the diversity we have, we cannot communicate and lack common understanding and will continue to laugh at and make fun of those who are not like “us” as a means of self-affirmation or team building or tribe building. We’re cool and they are not. Are we united? ” E Pluribus Unum”, not!
“Social conservatives” and “middle-aged white…”? The beat goes on….
Maybe its shining a light on something else that indeed does make us uncomfortable.
I think you need to lighten up a tad Brian. First Zombies are racist and now this. Isn’t white nose syndrome still happening or something?
I suppose we could start accusing these comedians of hate speech.
I wonder if I need to get rid of all my Irish jokes.
I looked (and listened to) that clip pretty carefully. I think they threaded the needle. We could parse/deconstruct their act but it seemed like large parts of the routine were from the perspective of actually being gay. Its sort of ok to use ethnic humor if you are from that ethnic group.
I also watched and listened to that clip. I think its appeal is primarily towards fourth-graders and not particularly intelligent ones at that. If that’s hate speech gays have nothing to worry about.
wakeup says:
July 1, 2013 at 8:36 am
I think you need to lighten up a tad Brian. First Zombies are racist and now this. Isn’t white nose syndrome still happening or something?
Yeah, Brian sometimes reminds of this: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offended/
Do gay people say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?