THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

To be fair, if we didn’t make jokes about people who are “just living their lives” and “not doing anything ridiculous for us to fairly mock”, then we’d have a lot less funny in the world. I’m making no comment at all about any of the jokes or people you mention above… just that taken in a vacuum, that criteria eliminates quite a bit of humor.

It sounds like you want these comedians to be more sensitive in particular to these issues, which is another thing altogether.

Not that I made a study of it, but it seems to me that comedians almost always target those that I noted it, and they stay away from the ordinary folks who do nothing.  I’ll watch Letterman today if I can, and see who it is that is being targetted.

Bono is especially deserving of respect, given some of the crap already spewing his way.  You get the brain-dead morning crew of Fox and Friends who mock his choice of life. 

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertainment/glaad-fox-news-still-transphobic

Bill O’Reilly gave his support to Chaz. Why would Jimmy Fallon want to be part of the same crowd as the morning crew of Fox?

Blame and humor are in the eye of the beholder.

Are bankers worthy targets of ridicule? They’re just doing their thing, too.
Then what about jokes about lawyers, who have traditionally served as major foundational component of many a joke book?

And Poles?

Belgians? What did Belgians ever do to warrant being the butt of so many jokes?

And don’t forget about Canada.

PLEASE don’t forget about the Canadians!!!!!

but can you make fun of chaz for being fat, or for having ugly tattoos, or for being terrible on dancing with the stars? it depends.

as long as its done right you should be able to make fun of anyone for anything. its obviously a thin line that people will disagree on. the specific audience, timing and situation will matter, but to me the biggest difference is whether you truly believe that the person is “bad” or “wrong” for the thing your making fun of, or if you’re just using it as a premise for a joke. it also helps if the joke is funny and clever.

just drawing attention to the fact that there are lesbians playing in the WNBA by clumsily forming a portmanteau of d--- and the team moniker is about as lame as it gets. if you make the joke because you believe being a lesbian is wrong, youre the lowest of the low. if thats just what you consider a witty play on words, you may not be a bigot but you are very obviously a woeful hack. i have to admit tho, the Los Angeles Lesbians has a ring to it.

mettle: it’s one thing to talk about the fat cat bankers, and it’s another to talk about a particular teller at Chase Bank.

These jokes are aimed specifically at Chaz, or the 12 ladies of a basketball team.  And it’s not some generic joke that could apply to anyone.

Banal, mean-spirited, dated.  It describes Fox and Friends and the rest.

Well, I think the joke itself really matters and not simply the target.

If the joke is (A) funny and (B) not coming from a place of hate (because hate is ugly and taints anything it touches), then I think *anyone* can be made fun of, or at least teased a bit.

Sometimes those things are hard to ascertain and sometimes it’s very contextual (e.g., who makes the joke). This is why there’s a subjective component. For example, if a Jew makes a joke about the Holocaust it may be okay as compared to a neo-Nazi, with the former clearly not coming from hate, while the latter is. So, if a lesbian, at a party with other lesbians, makes the LA lesbians jokes with awesome timing, then I’m sorry, but hilarity many indeed ensure and it’s not sludgy. Similarly, a guy like Louis CK, who is very transparently not hate-filled and is very funny, can pretty much tell a joke about anyone.

This is what many conservative don’t understand about the N-word and things like that.

And yes, I did use the word “taint”.

Excellent point about “coming from hate” (or ignorance I’ll add).

Don Rickles, Ricky Gervais… they’ll go after anyone.  But they’re good-natured about it.

Fox and Friends were belittling.  Jimmy Fallon was lame and very dated.

There’s also a difference, in my opinion, between a joke you tell a buddy at the bar and the same joke told by a media figure with a respectable regional or national audience.  In those rhetorical situations it is entirely appropriate to hold the speakers to different standards because the consequences arising from the joke are not proportionate.

"Excellent point about “coming from hate” (or ignorance I’ll add).”

No. Completely disagree. Most of those jokes do NOT come from a place of hate.  But, they help to foster disrespect, hate, intolerance, bigotry, etc. in the world, especially among children.

It does not matter where they come from.  The reason they are wrong is because of the effect on other people.

Making fun of someone is the lowest and most disrespectful form of humor.  Yes, there are times when it is OK, and there are times when it is in the grey area.  Jokes about Bono and the WNBA are not even close to being OK or the grey area…

9/

Are you kidding me? I can’t think of a single good comedian where making fun of other people isn’t part of their act - Lenny Bruce, Louis CK, George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Prior, Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Jon Stewart…
Subtracting that, you’re only left with Gallagher, Emo Phillips, Carrot Top and that guy who draws those charts.

I never thought of you as a humorless person, MGL, but it seems that if you put the PC kibbosh on making fun of people, on working out anxieties and anger about people through humor, then we’d have a far worse world, not a better one.

I’m all for appreciating the effect actions have on people, but good humor is a very different animal than hate speech. A good joke from the right place is very different than a bad joke meant to harm.

No, I’m not kidding you. And I was more referring to individual people than comedians. I am agnostic when it comes to comedians’ humor. It really depends on what kind “making fun” we are talking about.  Painting this issue with a broad brush does not further the discussion and does not accurately reflect either side of the issue. For example, I am thinking more of things like jokes about lesbians and gays or even blacks. Anywhere where there is legitimate hatred, discrimination, and intolerance, I think that “humor” along those lines only fosters it. I was never a big fan of Don Rickles and I can’t stand Lisa Lampanelli or Andrew Dice Clay (I almost wrote Dice-K).

Jerry Seinfeld makes fun of people.  Doing jokes about gays or blacks or things like that?  Are YOU kidding me?

Reminds me of the Roger Ebert/Vincent Gallo feud.  Ebert said Gallo’s “The Brown Bunny” was a horrible movie.  Gallo responded by calling Ebert a fat pig.  Ebert said something like “one day I’ll be skinny, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of the Brown Bunny.” Gallo then wished colon cancer on Ebert.  Ebert responded that watching a video of his colonoscopy was more entertaining than watching the Brown Bunny. 

I think a difference is making fun of someone for who they are as opposed to who they choose to be.  Making fun of someone for being black or gay or for having cancer or wishing such on someone just ain’t funny.  They really had no choice in the matter, although some conservatives still love to insist that homosexuality is a moral choice.  Never really understood the moral choice thing though.  If you insist it’s a moral choice, are you admitting that you have homosexual thoughts, but that you morally choose not to give in to those tempting thoughts?  Aren’t you then admitting then that you too are a homosexual, but have made the moral choice to pretend not to be?  I dunno, but that’s besides the point. 

With some exceptions, you choose to be fat or skinny.  You choose to be the director of the Brown Bunny.  You can be criticized or mocked for the choices you make.  You shouldn’t be criticized or mocked much for who you are when you didn’t really have much choice in the matter - i.e. being gay, black or having cancer (and I apologize for my tone here because it almost reads like I’m saying being gay or black is some inferior state of being we need to take pity upon. I am certainly not saying that). 

As to Bono, I can see the argument that she chose to be a he, so yada yada yada, but just don’t find it funny anymore like I would have maybe just 10 to 20 years ago.  Feels as lazy and passe as a yo momma joke or you know you’re a redneck when jokes. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEq6j-g4rFI

You had me up until the part where it’s OK to mock someone if they have done something ridiculous. It’s all relative so while you and I might think a baseball stats blog is really cool, the people who call into sports talk shows would probably say you need to get out of your mom’s basement.

The mocking the saberist is fair game if he chooses to spend an obscene amount of time on this stuff, like we do.

The basement thing is so not funny though.  Who actually laughs at that?  I’d like to hear a good Yo Saberist joke.  I’ll laugh at those.

Mocking the BBWAA and radio hosts are also fair game.

11/
There is a pretty wide swath of people that disagree with you that humor can only foster negative things. In fact, people who study humor generally acknowledge that it serves to defuse hatred, ease the psychological pain of discrimination and can even foster tolerance. e.g. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586481622/

Why do you think so many of the comedians I listed are minorities?

True enough, though, on Seinfeld - the exception that proofs the rule - feel free to swap in his partner, Larry David, instead.

My favorite Seinfeld / gay bit is when he talks about men’s fear of gay is that they can be talked into being gay, because men have “low sales resistance”.

So, the guy goes to a gay store, and the salesman offers him to “try it, walk around, no pressure”.

Genius bit.  See if you can find it online.

#15, fair enough.

There are so many levels and shades of this that it is impossible to make any sweeping statements or generalizations, in my view.