The torrent unleashed…

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on June 15th, 2009

Or just a sputter or two before it dies down?

We were alerted to a column in today’s New York Post, written by Andrea Peyser, about how, while David Letterman was telling jokes that riled up a good chunk of the nation…

His struggling brother up the dial, Conan O’Brien, on Thursday night was having a blast slurring women and Jews– two groups that may constitute the last permissible sick-comedy staples.

Here’s Conan:

“Political experts say that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to endorse what he calls a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side but have no contact,” he said. Ba-dump.

“Netanyahu said it will be exactly like being married to a Jewish woman.” Ba-dump-bump.

She goes on to say that “…women, specifically white women, make up the last group that one may freely stereotype to get a cheap laugh.”

Up until now, it’s pretty standard and reasonable rhetoric– In ten years of monitoring this stuff, we’ve seen some pretty off-the-wall criticism of comedians, so this isn’t remarkable.

But, she caps off the essay by relating the following:

In 2006, I attended a “comedy” fund-raiser at Town Hall to raise money for homeless women, at which alleged funnyman Louis C.K. joked about “decimating” his “stupid” 4-year-old daughter by bashing her in the head. Comic Patrice O’Neal gave men lessons about improving their orgasms by paralyzing their partners while in the act.

And this was a fund-raiser for homeless women, many of them victims of domestic violence!

Setting aside the fact that Louis C.K. and Patrice O’Neal might not be the ideal comics for a benefit for a women’s shelter, what’s remarkable about this is that Peyser has been more or less seething for three years.

She has taken the occasion of the Conan O’Brien joke (ostensibly, but we really know it’s the Palin/Letterman dustup that was the impetus) to dust off the three-year-old “Aren’t comedians jerks?” story.

It’s a by-product. It happened in the wake of the Imus flap. But, in that case, we argued that Imus wasn’t a standup comic. And his remark was an off-the-cuff remark, and not a prepared joke.

And it happened when Michael Richards went postal.

And we predicted it would happen with this latest debacle.

When the damage control comes too late or is inadequate, we can expect the blowback to be severe and we can expect it to reach far into the comedy community.

It will die down (just as it did in the other instances), but it could have been strangled much, much sooner.

Thanks to Al Romas for the tip.

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