Wanda Sykes, by Michael Davis – Straight No Chaser #117
May 15, 2009 Michael Davis 1 Comment
Wanda Sykes, said some really crude stuff about Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in D.C. last week. There are quite a few people who think she went to far and should apologize.
Apologize to a man who makes millions for doing exactly what Ms. Sykes did.
That shit is so funny to me.
Some in the GOP think that she went to far. Went to far doing what Rush does FOR A LIVING.
That’s fucking hilarious to me.
That to me is the single dumbest thing I have heard this year. That’s like me calling Rush an asshole and some people complaining when he returns the favor.
These are adults? What the hell has this country come to? Rush can say; “I hope the president fails’ and there is no GOP outrage but Ms. Sykes says some shit and she should apologize because she ‘went to far.’
In some places in the world Rush would have been shot if he called for the failure of the head of state.
Not here, this is America, here we have freedom of speech. If Rush wants to call for the failure of our elected leader (elected by a sizeable vote count by the way) that is his right. If Wanda says “I hope his kidney fails’ that’s her right also.
The way I see it, if you can’t stand the heat shut the fuck up this is America and if Rush (who I CANNOT STAND) wants to talk smack then so be it.
I’m smart enough to know that we NEED people like Rush. We need people like Wanda we even need people like me. But the GOP complaining about how Rush was treated is like Michael Jackson calling someone weird.
I’m a liberal democrat but I would support torture if I knew the person who was being tortured was a terrorist. If it were up to me I would forgo a trail if there were videotape evidence of a crime. I’m a liberal democrat but this is how I feel. If I now stood up and said ‘Torture is bad’ you would consider me a hypocrite and you would be right.
Saying that Wanda should apologize for saying some harsh things about a man who lives like a king because he says harsh things about whomever he wants is the TEXTBOOK definition of hypocrites.
Any criticism against me is warranted IF I have professed something then complain about the very same thing.
I would not do that because I’m an adult and can take a punch. Unlike Wanda I don’t want Rush’s kidney’s to fail…I want his car to break down in South Central L.A.
Let him talk shit about Obama then.
Vinnie Bartilucci
May 15, 2009 - 5:47 am
Forget love and money, offense makes the world go around. No one will get on television complimenting someone.
If they can’t be offended about something personally, they’ll step up and take offense in someone’s name. You can’t tell that joke because those people over there (who I’m not one of, thank god) might not like it. So people trying to curry favor with Rush (as you mentioned last week) stepped up in his defense.
They did a pretty good job of couching it in the idea that she shouldn’t have made a joke about 9/11. But of course, you can make a joke about ANYthing, and some people will find it funny. And the room laughed at Wanda’s jokes. The PRESIDENT laughed at the joke. That should have taken the curse off it right there. But some reporter brought it up at a recent press conference, and the press secretary, a man who really needs a class or two about talking in front of groups, funfered and hoohawed, passed the buck to the correspendents committee TWICE, and then fell back on the old, “Well, that’s one of those things that maybe you shouldn’t make fun of.”
It was a joke. They get told every day. Some people get them because they have senses of humor. And some don’t because they have skin as thick as condoms bought at a 99 cent store. Here, watch…
Q-How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A-That’s Not Funny.
Rush, ironically, barely mentioned it. He knew better.
Mike Gold
May 15, 2009 - 6:59 am
That’s funny, Vinnie. Wanda Sykes is funny too, and she was last week. Humor is in the brain of the beholder.
Here’s something that isn’t funny at all: If Rush Limbaugh were to get hit by a truck and is lying under the rear tires writhing in pain and agony, I hope it happens in front of me. I’ll just point and laugh until they put me in a straight jacket. I’ll laugh so hard I’ll be drooling all over myself.
And here’s an enigma. Keith Olbermann branded Wanda Sykes as having gone too far. Keith Olbermann is a HUGE fan of Family Guy, Arrested Development and other Fox shows many consider to be in poor taste. Go figure.
As for 9/11 being “beyond humor,” that’s bullshit. As George Carlin (another of Keith’s heroes) said repeatedly, there’s nothing that’s beyond humor. To illustrate the point, here’s a true story. Absolutely true. No shit.
It’s the funny side of of the Holocaust.
I grew up next to Skokie IL, which was, at the time, home to more concentration camp survivors than any other place on Earth. Many of my friends had parents with numbers tattooed on their arms: it was common to the neighborhood. When I was 13 I went to a lot of Bar Mitzvahs, and at one of them I saw to ancient looking men (they were probably in their late 30s) laughing in the corner. Why were they laughing?
They were playing liars poker with the numbers tattooed on their arms.
That’s a true story. NOTHING is off-limits for humor.
Another example. Here’s a very funny joke about AIDS:
Roy Cohn.
Best joke I ever told.
Linda Gold
May 15, 2009 - 7:11 am
What you have to remeber, Michael, is that hypocrascy has become the standard for the right-wing. In fact, it is so pervasive in everything they do that I am not even sure they are aware of it any more if they ever were. They will twist themselves into knots trying to defend anything the current administration or the people who stand opposed to them support whether it makes sense or not even if it is a position they supported the day before.
Jeremiah Avery
May 15, 2009 - 7:31 am
I thought it funny when Jay Leno had John McCain’s mother on “The Tonight Show” and she said that Rush doesn’t represent the Republican party she’s a part of, “he’s an entertainer” was what she said. But yet he’s treated like Don Corleone.
Hypocrisy is not limited to just the right-wing; they just keep shooting themselves in the foot a lot more lately. Someone make Cheney eat a stick of butter so he can’t go on tv anymore.
While I don’t agree with some of Obama’s policies, if he fails, then the rest of us are going down with him. Certainly nothing worked the previous eight years, we need something to improve.
To me, Wanda wasn’t offensive. What is offensive is a bunch of idiots passing a bill that they didn’t read which used our tax dollars to reward those that helped drive this economy into the ground and then feigning outrage.
Martha Thomases
May 15, 2009 - 7:39 am
Gee, I thought Wanda was mostly funny but her timing was a little off – I suspect the room wasn’t with her. I’ve seen her be much funnier. In fact, the first time I ever saw her was at a benefit for the Ms. Foundation for Women, and she killed. Her jokes (that I can remember) were about single women adopting.
My favorite line from last week was that Sean Hannity would give up state secrets if you put him in the middle seat in coach.
Vinnie Bartilucci
May 15, 2009 - 8:13 am
“Keith Olbermann branded Wanda Sykes as having gone too far. Keith Olbermann is a HUGE fan of Family Guy, Arrested Development and other Fox shows many consider to be in poor taste. Go figure.”
As a rule, people will laugh and laugh and laugh until the guy on stage starts making fun of them, or what they hold dear. I was at a Carlin performance and he started the show with a bit about the flag being a symbol, which are designed for “Symbol-minded people”. Killed. Then he did a bit where he suggested that people were pompous a-holes for believing that we were so powerful that we had to worry about “saving the planet”, which is going to be here LOOOng after we were, and you could hear the boos and hisses bubble up. At CARLIN. These folks expected him to make joke after joke about conservatives, the government, all the things that “should” be mocked, but as soon as he suggested that some of their ideas were questionable as well, they turned like sharks after a hemophiliac.
So as long as you’re mocking the RIGHT people (ie, “them”), you’re funny. Start mocking “my” likes and beliefs, and you’ve got to be shut up.
We live in a world where people laugh because they know something’s funny, then the rational part of their brain kicks in, they stop quickly, and their heads scan the crowd to make sure nobody else saw them laugh. And that’s just friggin’ tragic.
marc alan fishman
May 15, 2009 - 8:53 am
Case in point: I’ve been doing stand-up comedy now for about 2 years. The first time I ever did a show (it’s on you tube if you search Marc Fishman) I decided to do some material about my parents. The room went wild. Did I go to far? Not if you knew my parents. AND I was sure to preceed my material with how much I love them, and that these were only jokes… but of course… One day my dad figured out how to use youtube, and he pulls up my show. Of 30 minutes of material, maybe 7 minutes is my folks. Guess who enters the room right when the jokes turn to her? My jewish mother.
You would have thought I just told a room of people my mom was a racist murderer who sold meth to kids. She told me I stepped so far over the line I should track down everyone at the show and tell them how I lied. My dad is still laughing at the jokes I told about him….
Humor is indeed in the brains of the beholders.
Mike Gold
May 15, 2009 - 8:55 am
I was at Carlin’s Comic Relief appearance at Radio City Music Hall about 15 years ago. George played to the front rows — those rich executives whose companies paid a couple grand a seat. He savaged them, demanding that all the golf courses be turned into public housing (I agree, betraying my Chicago roots for a change). Those guys were NOT laughing.
The rest of us were.
marc alan fishman
May 15, 2009 - 10:44 am
But Mike, how are poor folks living in public housing supposed to get their hoopties out of the sand traps?
Alan Coil
May 15, 2009 - 12:48 pm
Mofo makes $50 million a year to preach hate over the airwaves. If he can’t handle a joke or two from Wanda Sykes, the he needs to shoot HIMSELF in the head.
I am intolerant about intolerance.
Vinnie Bartilucci
May 15, 2009 - 2:36 pm
“If he can’t handle a joke or two from Wanda Sykes”
He CAN handle Wanda Sykes. He DID handle Wanda Sykes. He barely mentioned her. He saw it was a joke, and let it slide. You are patently ignoring the facts. ALL of the talk and invective about the set are by news program desperate to pad their show, and by people attempting to gain favor in his eyes by coming (unsolicited) to his aid. It’s eerily similar to how people will come to the President’s defense over comments and statements (many of which said by Rush and other radio folks like him) that they feel he should be offended by, but the President never mentions, or sometime outright states they’re nothing to get steamed over. And the two men are nowhere near equal in power.
In most cases, the people who Rush responds to are the people who take him SERIOUSLY. He dissects the endless times he’s mentioned on the Sunday news shows as if he actually has any relevance. He speaks up most often when politicos mock not him, but his audience, portraying them as “brain numbed robots” as he likes to say. He defends them to the end of the day, but when he talks about his mentions, it’s with the mindset of “Why are they talking about me? I’m just a harmless little fuzzball”
Yes, that’s facetious. He’s certainly well aware he holds some small sway wth his listeners, and the party that wishes to court them. But it comes down to what I said last week – he IS an entertainer. He says things in a funny and sarcastic way BECAUSE he intends to entertain.
Rush chose to say nothing about Wanda. The only reason the jokes are still being discussed are because we live in a 24-hour news world, and that time must be filled. Rush, and talk about Rush, is of interest to people, so he gets play.
Rush’s opponents, OTOH, never STOP talking about him. They speak about him the way the Native Americans talk about Custer. And every time they do, more and more people assume he must be important and powerful, otherwise why would these people spend so much time trying to defeat him? It’s Streisand Syndrome on a massive scale.
He holds no office. He has no vote in Congress. He has no access, directly or indirectly, to an armory or military. The only power he has is that which people give him, or more correctly, ascribe to him.
And somehow he may be hated MORE than Bush. Probably because he is still here. With no clear leader of the republican party to target for invective, he has been assigned the position of Chief Person To Hate. He is Emmanuel Goldstein. In that he is, largely, fabricated as to his level of threat.
He is, like so many things, being used to get people obsessed about, so they won’t get obsessed about things which actually matter. He’s the hot assistant you ogle while the magician is pulling a pigeon from his pant leg.
You WON. Obama is President, the Democrats are one vote away from a filibuster-proof Congress. The Republicans are rediced to the position of powerless outsider. It’s a position the democrats have been fighting for for years, a better position even then when Clinton was President. But they’ve been playing the role of Yappy Dog so long they can’t change gears.
Allow me to quote one of Harvey Keitel’s best lines in From Dusk Till Dawn”, spoken to Seth Gecko (George Clooney)…
“Are you such a loser you can’t tell when you’ve won? The entire state of Texas, along with the F.B.I., is looking for you. Did they find you? No. They couldn’t. You’ve won, Seth, enjoy it. ”
“I am intolerant about intolerance. ”
Yeah, I’m just gonna bask in the irony of that statement for a while.
Russ Rogers
May 15, 2009 - 2:49 pm
Wanda Sykes is generally funny. Most of the material she did at the White House Corespondents Dinner was generally funny. The jokes about Rush were over the top and mean spirited. They missed the mark.
I’ve watch the Obama and Sykes routines several times. Obama killed. He has good timing. He knew his audience and he played to the crowd. He’s smart and funny. He’s the President and the audience wanted him to do well. Major advantages in getting laughts.
But Martha Thomases is right, Sykes’ timing was off that night. Why? I think she was playing to Obama too much. If you watch the video, she is constantly cheating to her right and back, checking out how the jokes are going over with the President. She was not giving 100% to the audience.
Do I think Sykes needs to apologize to Rush for going TOO far? No. Rush has thicker skin than that.
For comparison, I went back and watched Colbert’s Corespondents Dinner speech. He was braver than Sykes. He spoke more truthiness to power. But he wasn’t as funny. He didn’t get as many laughs. And Bush certainly wasn’t entertained. I’m not even sure Bush got it. I’m not sure who did a better “job.” I wish Colbert had gotten more laughs. I wish Sykes had brought more insight and edge and less blatant vitriol to the party.
My sister is starting a ‘zine about feminism and comedy. She thinks that much of the criticism of Sykes is because she’s a woman, black and gay. I disagree. I think Sykes opened the door to her critics by laying a couple or rotten eggs in an otherwise funny, but too safe set.
http://wisecrackzine.blogspot.com/2009/05/wanda-sykes-at-white-house.html
Why was Obama the one talking about the Gay Marriage debate? Other than “joking” about wishing torture and illness on her enemies, Sykes most edgy material was about not wanting to see the President’s nipples. It’s funny, but pretty safe stuff.
pennie
May 15, 2009 - 4:01 pm
I agree with you Russ, Wanda played to Obama—safe. She could have ripped it up in so many ways–after all a black lesbian leading the charge at THE dinner?!!! Consider the possibilities…I was, when she was named a couple of months ago, especially after she came out and all.
I was wishin’ and hopin’ for a Colbert meets Kate Clinton and so much more with Lenny Bruce and a host of others thrown in. But, mostly I was hoping for Wanda to cut loose and be herself.
Michael, “Unlike Wanda I don’t want Rush’s kidney’s to fail…I want his car to break down in South Central L.A.”
I want Rush’s kidney, lungs and so-called brain to fail in South Central on a hot August night–live on MSNBC.
Wanda’s cool—I just wished she REALLY ripped it up.
pennie
May 15, 2009 - 4:22 pm
Come to think of it, a tag team of Wanda and Margaret Cho would have been just the ticket. Cho wearing one of her fabulous costumes–bullet-bra, wigs, kimonos, feather boas and all…Put it on pay TV–THAT would have raised some cash and Limberger would have been the least of it.
I can hear the “traditional values” posse howling now…
Vinnie Bartilucci
May 15, 2009 - 4:38 pm
“My sister is starting a ‘zine about feminism and comedy”
Wisecrack.
HAH!
R. Maheras
May 15, 2009 - 5:39 pm
Generally, I like Wanda Sykes, and I think she’s funny as hell. What I don’t like is the fact that she is a hard-core liberal, and as such, her humor is often one-sided — as it was at the White House Correspondents’ dinner the other day.
Personally, I think there are plenty of hypocrites and idiots, and plenty of tomfoolery going on the far left AND the far right, and if Sykes wasn’t such a kiss-ass, she’d skewer both extremes with equal aplomb.
I agree with those who think Sykes gave Rush a fair dose of his own medicine, and those who gasped at her blunt crassness are probably unfamiliar with her past work. If I was a celebrity and Sykes was at my roast, I’d be ducking for cover the second she walked up to the podium, because I’d know I was going to get ripped by a master.
Alan Coil
May 15, 2009 - 6:09 pm
You are patently ignoring the facts. You WON. Are you such a loser you can’t tell when you’ve won?
Alan Coil
May 15, 2009 - 6:11 pm
You are patently ignoring the facts.
*****
You WON.
*****
“Are you such a loser you can’t tell when you’ve won?”
*****
“I am intolerant about intolerance. ”
Yeah, I’m just gonna bask in the irony of that statement for a while.
*****
All the above are quoted from Vinnie’s response, even though I didn’t address Vinnie.
Sore loser much, Vinnie?
Vinnie Bartilucci
May 15, 2009 - 6:28 pm
So…we’re not allowed to comment unless we’re addressed directly?
And the proper method to reply to unsolicited comments is to pull quoted without actually replying to commenting on them?
This doesn’t even make sense. I feel like I’m in Zoolander and I’m the guy who invented the novelty piano tie..
M.O.T.U
May 15, 2009 - 7:29 pm
Can’t we just get along?
Alan Coil
May 15, 2009 - 7:47 pm
Hey, Michael, as long as you’re here…
Spike Lee was interviewed this week about his special on Kobe Bryant. During the interview, he mentioned he has 3 films he wants to make. One about Jackie Robinson, one about the intertwined relationship between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis, and one about James Brown.
The problem is that he can’t get financing. I am puzzled why a renowned filmmaker like Spike Lee would be having trouble getting financing. Any thoughts?
John Tebbel
May 16, 2009 - 5:37 am
Dear Wanda was a mite off because she hasn’t been doing stand-up recently I don’t think. If she had come in off of six months on the road it would have had a different feel. Mr. President had been on the road for two years before the hundred days.
Alan Coil
May 16, 2009 - 3:37 pm
Also, Wanda’a mind might have been elsewhere–thinking about the upcoming birth of twins.
MOTU
December 10, 2010 - 4:51 pm
Alan said-‘problem is that he can’t get financing. I am puzzled why a renowned filmmaker like Spike Lee would be having trouble getting financing. Any thoughts?’
Yes, I’m responding to an year and a half old post. Sorry dude I did NOT see this. The short answer is film financing is crazy hard no matter who you are. If you don’t have your own money to work with like a studio ( which also looks sometime to outside or joint financing depending on the project) it could be darn near impossible to get someone to write you a check.
Spike ran out of money on Malcolm X and had to call some of his big money friends to help him finish the film.
It’s the nature of the Breast.
…and it’s because he’s black.