The Tribune columnist today retells the jokes of late-night comics about Sarah Palin without any recognition of how offensive many of them are. For example:
Bill Maher: “I, John McCain, am the only one standing between the blood-thirsty Al Qaeda and you. But if I die, this stewardess can handle it.”
Jimmy Kimmel: “[S]he looks like one of those women in the Van Halen videos who takes off her glasses, shakes out her hair, and then all of a sudden, she’s in high heels and a bikini.”
David Letterman: “[She looks] like the lady in the dental office who gives you the keys to the restroom” and “like the woman in the department store who tries to spray you with perfume.”
On his blog version, Zorn piles it on even thicker, then writes this:
“The comment thread here is to talk about political humor – does it change public perception? Does it create a poisonous herd mentality? It is not to air political grievances or to whine and moan, snarl or lash out. It’s not to complain that some of the jokes are in bad taste or sexist – we know that. If your post doesn’t appear, I probably ruled it off topic, out of bounds in some way or just unpleasant. You can try again using your inside manners if you’d like.”
Right. We know these jokes are sexist. We know so much I shouldn’t have to acknowledge it!
Next: Racist jokes about Barack Obama. We know they’re racist, but we’re not here to discuss that, we’re just here to wonder if such jokes create a poisonous herd mentality.
2 responses so far ↓
Pat Hickey // September 12, 2008 at 1:04 pm
My Dear Rhodes,
I am a rock-ribbed Sexist. Eric Zorn is no Sexist – neck is nowhere thick enough, don’t you know.
Damnable, excess, Rhodes, damnable.
Master Eric is politically correct, sweet-boy, Progressive.
Zach // September 12, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Totally plausible that politically correct, progressive boys have a sexist bug in their heads they don’t know about.
Good point comparing these to racist jokes. Well done, sir.