Tweet Tweet, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

April 11, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 2 Comments

Later this year, Trevor Noah will replace Jon Stewart as host of Comedy Central’s hit, The Daily Show. Stewart made a show that was influential far beyond its ratings, making news as well as skewering it.

No one would have had an easy time taking over his chair.

The kvetching started almost immediately.  As a working stand-up comic, Noah had spent many years honing his Twitter game, trying to make people laugh 140 characters at a time.  I follow a number of stand-ups (because I like laughing), and I know that this is a difficult part of the job.  Sometimes the gag works, and sometimes it doesn’t.  It’s a learning experience.

Some people didn’t like some of Noah’s six- and seven-year old tweets, deeming them racist and sexist and Anti-Semitic.  Some of this subset of people wanted Noah fired because he offended them.

This is ridiculous.

A comedian who never offends anyone isn’t funny.  Not because only offensive things are funny, but because humor requires risk.  The way a comic hones his or her craft is to try things and see what works.

Did I find the “offensive” tweets funny?  Not particularly.  Making fun of fat women doesn’t require much bravery.  Was I offended?  No.

As a feminist and a Leftist, and also someone who not only loves to laugh but has studied the history and culture of comedy, talking about politics and humor gets dicey.  A sense of humor is a personal thing.  It’s influenced by one’s position in society, by one’s privilege and race and class, but those are not the only elements involved.  I think “dead baby” jokes are funny, in part because they were a fad when I was in elementary school. Not because I am in favor of dead babies.

Because I’m not.

We’re living in a “gotcha” age in terms of comedy (and lots of other things as well).  The Internet, loving the hits that come with controversy, loves to quote offensive jokes from stand-up comics.  Offensive jokes inspire outrage, and outrage is like a drug.  I’m not immune.  I am capable of enjoying my outrage, although after a while, it gets exhausting.

It’s not fair.

It’s not fair to the issue at hand, whether it’s racism or anti-Semitism or sexism, because we are not frail flowers who must be protected from a bad and evil joke.  And it’s not fair to the comics because, usually, the offensive joke is one small part of a stand-up routine, taken out of context.

Patton Oswalt recently gave an interview to Salon where he addressed some of this.  He doesn’t say no one can be offended (because that’s not something that can be legislated), but he says that people who are offended should be limited to those in the audience at the event, and they should take the issues up directly with the comic.

This situation is different when we’re talking about tweets.  Obviously, anyone following Trevor Noah’s twitter feed should let him know when she doesn’t like a joke.  That’s why there’s a message function on Twitter.  Still, scrounging through years and years of posts looking for something offensive is, well, like looking for a needle in a haystack, and about as useful.

At the end of the day, Trevor Noah is an entertainer.  He will entertain us or he won’t.  If he does, we’ll continue to watch The Daily Show.  

The Internet also likes to play “Gotcha” with other public figures, especially politicians.  Sometimes they go looking far into the past, maybe college papers or weird frat-boy type pranks <http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/who-is-aqua-buddha>.  This can be entertaining, and it may reveal something about how a person’s mind developed, but it isn’t the same as real political discourse.

It is, I think, fair to consider things a politician has said as an adult, and I think it is fair to be horrified or delighted or just generally puzzled by what s/he says.  Someone asking for the public trust should demonstrate a respect for that public, which includes meaning the things s/he says.  If for nothing else, that’s a good enough reason to vote against Ted Cruz.  And I have a lot of other reasons.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, wishes everyone a most happy tax day.