Ironic cluelessness
As part of a very enjoyable neighborhood social event, I went out to a comedy club tonight. The old guy who made old people jokes was very funny. The other “observational” humorists occasionally hit the mark, but mostly didn’t. Many were clearly struggling with new post-election material now that they don’t have Bush and Cheney as their targets, especially since their manifest Obama worship makes it clear that he’ll never be the butt of one of their jokes. Overall, the intentional humor was weak.
The funniest moment was unintentional, and only because it was an exquisite demonstration of irony. It came about when the gay, morbidly obese, foul-mouthed guy, sporting multiple earings, and making jokes about drugs, child abuse and other unsavory stuff, announced that, after a hellish “comedy” tour of Montana, he just had to tell one last time the Sarah Palin jokes he couldn’t tell those sour Montanans. His first joke: “Sarah Palin is the epitomy of white trash.”
Huh? On the facts as we know them, she’s a college graduate, small business owner, married, with a dramatically successful career in national and local politics, while you’re a rather gross looking fellow who seems to live in a perpetual sordid wallow. Who are you calling white trash, dude?
As it was, the comic (a term I use very advisedly) eventually did get around to explaining why Palin’s white trash: “She taught her daughter abstinence while the girl was pregnant.” Again — Huh? Do only white trash girls get pregnant out of wedlock? And because unwed mothers are one of the fastest rising demographics in America, I guess that makes a lot of mommies white trash. Or perhaps white trash women are simply those who don’t believe in abortion. As an ambivalent pro-choicer, I can certainly envision making a variety of arguments against ardent pro-Lifers, but calling people who value innocent life over all other things “white trash” isn’t one of those arguments.
I won’t offend you by repeating here the nasty remarks about Trig’s handicap, but I will tell you that there are few “white trash” people who would stoop so low.
In other words, the comics were funny if you find it amusing, as I do, to watch absolutely clueless and classless people smugly exposing their ignorance and ugliness in public.
