TooLowBrow
09-24-2007, 08:58 AM
this is such crap!
http://media.www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2007/09/24/EditorialOpinion/Poorly.Executed.Jokes-2985569.shtml
The glory days of politically incorrect humor have come and gone. No longer are we graced with perceptive skewerings of the unspoken cultural divides, as executed by Dave Chappelle, but instead we must put up with the regurgitated faux-humor of Comedy Central's vastly inferior Carlos Mencia. This change of hands illustrates the very heart of the problem with politically incorrect humor - the unfunny think they can pull it off too.
Last year we saw countless celebrities pierced by the gaff of trying to be that edgy sort of funny they see get laughs on a regular basis. Who could forget Michael Richards flipping out in a racist tantrum, Don Imus reaching back to the seventies for descriptive words, or John Kerry effectively calling soldiers stupid (as if he had actually attempted the Mencia trademark dee-dee-dee joke.)
The oft made argument that an offensive brand of humor forces society to confront suppressed prejudice crumbles when the very people it tries to reach are too dumb to follow the argument. Instead, it works to trivialize different cultural experiences, promoting truly formed stereotypes without highlighting the asterisk of "except for when it isn't true." In a world suffering from pandemic map shortages, is it really safe to leave this as a given? And is it really fair to argue that centuries of ethnic persecution and prejudice can be understood vis-à-vis a poop joke? Even the best poop jokes can't cleanse the smear made by affirming that the worst aspects of each culture are on par with the best.
For every Bill Maher deftly handling a Heather Mills joke, there's a Rush Limbaugh mocking Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's. Every socially conscious Howard Stern gives way to a socially unconscious Opie and Anthony. For every Dave Chappelle proudly stepping back and forth across the line of sensibility, there's a Carlos Mencia senselessly spilling over it. And it has nothing to do with the fragility of the audience. This is not a concern that someone somewhere might be offended somehow, while I get to be surrogate offended for the day.
http://media.www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2007/09/24/EditorialOpinion/Poorly.Executed.Jokes-2985569.shtml
The glory days of politically incorrect humor have come and gone. No longer are we graced with perceptive skewerings of the unspoken cultural divides, as executed by Dave Chappelle, but instead we must put up with the regurgitated faux-humor of Comedy Central's vastly inferior Carlos Mencia. This change of hands illustrates the very heart of the problem with politically incorrect humor - the unfunny think they can pull it off too.
Last year we saw countless celebrities pierced by the gaff of trying to be that edgy sort of funny they see get laughs on a regular basis. Who could forget Michael Richards flipping out in a racist tantrum, Don Imus reaching back to the seventies for descriptive words, or John Kerry effectively calling soldiers stupid (as if he had actually attempted the Mencia trademark dee-dee-dee joke.)
The oft made argument that an offensive brand of humor forces society to confront suppressed prejudice crumbles when the very people it tries to reach are too dumb to follow the argument. Instead, it works to trivialize different cultural experiences, promoting truly formed stereotypes without highlighting the asterisk of "except for when it isn't true." In a world suffering from pandemic map shortages, is it really safe to leave this as a given? And is it really fair to argue that centuries of ethnic persecution and prejudice can be understood vis-à-vis a poop joke? Even the best poop jokes can't cleanse the smear made by affirming that the worst aspects of each culture are on par with the best.
For every Bill Maher deftly handling a Heather Mills joke, there's a Rush Limbaugh mocking Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's. Every socially conscious Howard Stern gives way to a socially unconscious Opie and Anthony. For every Dave Chappelle proudly stepping back and forth across the line of sensibility, there's a Carlos Mencia senselessly spilling over it. And it has nothing to do with the fragility of the audience. This is not a concern that someone somewhere might be offended somehow, while I get to be surrogate offended for the day.