Posted on 09/02/2009 11:06:40 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The crowd sitting elbow to elbow in the basement performance space at New York City's Comedy Cellar on a recent Wednesday night had pretty much had its fill of sex jokes, gay jokes, rants about New York cabdrivers and time-filling banter with the couple in the front row who had just gotten married a week ago. Then, a few minutes after midnight, James Smith, a lanky Australian stand-up who has appeared on HBO's Flight of the Conchords, bounded onto the stage for a 15-minute set to do something a little different. He talked politics.
Some of his targets were old reliables like Bill Clinton, fresh from his diplomatic jaunt to North Korea. ("We need to bring two hot Asian chicks back from North Korea in a private jet," said Smith, imagining the genesis of Clinton's recent mission. "Who should we get?") He delved into the economic crisis, pinpointing the bitter irony of banks' having to declare bankruptcy ("How do you f___ up your only job?"). And he waded fearlessly into perhaps the most treacherous satiric waters of all: the new resident of the White House. (See TIME's history of stand-up comedy.)
Making jokes about Barack Obama is the big test for political comedians these days, and like many, Smith did it mostly by talking around him. Obama could never get away with the kind of sexual shenanigans that Clinton did, he mused, because Michelle wouldn't stand for it: "She would impeach him herself!" Obama's election victory was inevitable the minute Oprah Winfrey endorsed him: "There's nothing bigger than Oprah. Oprah can do anything. 'Betcha can't make a black man President.' 'Watch me!' " The joke isn't Obama himself; it's the cultural shift — and the country's reaction to it — that he represents.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Let’s face it. Comedians know they will get slammed for going after Obama and nearly all of them are cowards at heart.
They wish.
Hussein IS a joke...
Sasha and Malia.
“But Obama, with his obvious smarts, low-key style and (most important) ability to catch the prevailing tone of irony and laugh at himself, has left the comics with little to hang their punch lines on.”
If he could laugh at himself, comedians wouldn’t be so worried being called racists!
Soooooooooooo lame. Did anyone even laugh at that?
You couldn’t get away with jokes about Hitler in Germany, either.
"What the heck were political comedians going to do? For eight years they had enjoyed a comedic gift from the gods in George W. Bush, whose bumbling presidency provided even richer material than the cartoonish excesses of the Clinton years. But Obama, with his obvious smarts, low-key style and..."
“acting stupidly”
“I won”
“I am the President”
“rising oceans stopped”
Add to those morsels his narcissist complex and megalomania, and there is a bottomless pit of ammo for humor. But most of the popular comedians today are commies too so why would they ridicule their master?
Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld, FNC, 3AM ET to see exactly how Obama can be made fun of nightly.
I've long maintained that the entertainment and news businesses are not about entertainment or news. They are just propaganda arms. Profits are not the point. Hearts and minds are the point.
...Time dances all around the elephant in the living room....you can’t poke fun at a black man in America....BUT....turn on BET and every standup comic there is ridiculing Whitey
No need to be racist. Declare Obama to be white!!
LOL!
The best part of this is that they do not have to make jokes about “Mack Daddy the Zebra” because the entire world know that he already is a joke by himself.
If making jokes is bad because it’s somehow “racist”, then it’s just as “Racist” making jokes about a white president.
Normally, I wouldn’t think that your joke was funny, but gee whiz, that is extremely mild vis a vis statement about Palin’s kids.
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