Modified On April 15, 2007
That’s what Gwen Ifill said to NYT columnist David Brooks on Meet The Press a few minutes ago as Brooks tried to make a distinction between truly odious speech and that which might reasonably be considered humor. Ifill would have none of it.
She calmly said, “Comedy has to be funny, David.”
So, there you have it.
If Ifill– or someone like her (and there are way too many people like her)– find your humorous comments to be offensive, you are screwed.
Bill Maher is screwed, Rosie O’Donnell is screwed, Rush Limbaugh is screwed, we’re screwed, you’re all screwed.
Gwen Ifill and the Army of the Earnest– humorless scolds, dour, politically correct reverends, ambitious politicians looking to pick up X-number of votes in this demographic or that demographic– are on a mission. The first victim was Imus.
Weenies like Tim Russert, Sam Tanenhaus, David Gregory are all now parading across our TV screens, sweating nervously, with a half-grin/half-grimace, giving horribly contorted reasons (excuses) for why they appeared (repeatedly) on Imus’ show. And in their rush to distance themselves from the show and the man (and get on the “right” side of all this), they are condemning everything that might be even the least bit “offensive.” They are publicly flagellating themselves and making sure that everyone knows that they don’t think it’s funny any more. From Tanenhaus, in today’s NYT:
Those of us who benefited from his attention can only feel saddened now, not only because we are indebted to him, but because we too played a part in the performance he carried too far.
It is an appalling display.
And, all too often, “humor” and humorists, are cited as the “problem.”
When the late C. Dolores Tucker campaigned against lurid, hate-filled misogynist lyrics and images in rap music and video, she was derided as an officious busybody, a meddlesome annoyance who was merely tolerated, often regarded with a roll of the eyes. Rap music was protected speech, went the counter argument. Tucker’s crusade was given lip service by the Rev. Jackson and others, but when the dust settled, Ludacris was a modern day equivalent of a troubadour “who afforded suburban teens keen insight into the urban experience.” The now-legitimate Snoop Dogg was signed as a spokesperson by Chrysler.
Now, the Army of the Earnest– The Few, The Proud, The Humorless– are invoking Tucker as if she were a saint, as though they’ve carried Tucker’s picture in a locket around their necks. To hear them tell it, they were just waiting for an incident like this one to, once and for all, “clean up the culture.”
There’s only one problem: The discussion, as it proceeds in excruciating slow motion, is drifting away from rap music and inexorably toward humor. It is humor– as dispensed by Imus and “others like him,” that is truly hateful, terribly corrosive and which must be… stopped? Wiped out? Ended? Choose your verb. It’s all the same.
And they are naming names. Figures on the left and the right are bandied about– in columns, on blogs and on television talk shows– Maher‘s next, Olbermann’s in danger, Rosie O’Donnell should watch what she says, Limbaugh’s every utterance is under scrutiny, Glenn Beck might think about reigning it in a little.
To her credit, O’Donnell defended Imus, sensing where the entire lynching might lead. To his discredit, Olbermann joined the mob and publicly declared that he would be the one doing the scrutiny.
This whole affair wouldn’t be all that worrisome if the ultimate mission was merely to remove one person from the air– sad as that is, Imus was merely a victim of corporate weenies/market forces, to a small extent; nothing new there. But, the folks who dined on Imus’ carcass don’t seem to be quite finished– Imus is merely the appetizer.
And they don’t seem all that focused on rappers as much as on humorists. In fact, the “Imus only used the same language as rappers” argument is being labeled as “a diversion,” a red herring, a disingenuous parlor trick that’s only intended to save the skin of a washed up shockjock.
No, the real target this time seems to be humor and humorists, broadly defined.
It’s an adult version of the fashionable, softheaded anti-bullying campaigns that have turned our schools and playgrounds into group therapy sessions. Ifill and others are determined to criminalize any commentary that is defined as cruel. Defined as cruel by them.
Humor, it has always been said, is subjective. Normally, that means that a statement intended as humorous might be viewed by some as not-so-humorous. This kind of elemental, binary ground rule has protected humor for some time now– it’s been the shield we’ve all labored beneath since the beginning of comedy time. “Hey! I was kidding! It was a joke!”
This defense is no longer sufficient. Comedy, decrees Ifill (and those who will line up behind her), has to be funny. It’s a declaration. It’s a threat. It should be a warning to all who make a living through humor.
The hypocrisy is astonishing– from the various media types whose books became bestsellers, whose television profiles were raised to dizzying heights, whose names became household words by virtue of their appearance on Imus’ show– they all are now adopting the “I never actually listened to the show” defense. They are all watching helplessly as their direct pipeline to The Demographic Sweetspot snaps shut.
Not one of them has matter-of-factly said, “I always just thought he was kidding.” That might be a mildly tough position to defend, but not one of these normally eloquent authors, correspondents or academics is making even the weakest attempt at doing so, lest they be branded as some sort of racist, misogynist troglodyte by the Ifills of the world. (Brooks tried. He cited Borat as an example of a kidder who might be mistaken for hate-monger. He used a rather handy analogy– he compared the nattering of the Borat character as more akin to involuntary manslaughter as opposed to murder. It was this opportunity that Ifil took to utter her threat.)
There are some defenders, even if the defense comes a bit late. In a NY Post commentary from Kinky Friedman:
The Matt Lauers and Al Rokers of this world live by the cue-card and die by the cue-card; Imus is a rare bird, indeed – he works without a net. When you work without a net as long as Imus has, sometimes you make mistakes.
Wavy Gravy says he salutes mistakes. They’re what makes us human, he claims. And humanity beyond doubt, is what appears to be missing from this equation. If we’ve lost the ability to laugh at ourselves, to laugh at each other, to laugh together, then the PC world has succeeded in diminishing us all.
Political correctness, a term first used by Joseph Stalin, has trivialized, sanitized and homogenized America, transforming us into a nation of chain establishments and chain people.