> The same probably should go for when you're claiming to be offended. Nobody > on earth thought the joke was about Willow Palin (I barely realized that a > Willow Palin even existed before last week).
So not true. After the last little extended message thread on this brouhaha Friday/Saturday, this subject came up in a conversation with three female friends of mine (one of whom brought it up)---all dyed-in- the-wool, Obama-loving, GWBush-is-an-idiot Democrats. They all thought the 'joke' was referring to the 14-year-old daughter, and one thought there were racist overtones in making the other party an athlete with a Hispanic/Latino surname. Further, if you believe Governor Palin truly is/was pimping her kids out for PR purposes (as some on this list do), then wouldn't virtually -everyone- know who they are and their clothing sizes by now? I think this falls into what might be called the Howard Stern Syndrome: if you are a regular disciple of the purveyor of the material, then you will automatically understand what the purveyor meant and consider yourself in on the joke. If you are not, then you will believe the purveyor meant something else (often crass and vulgar) and will feel differently about the material. The problem lies in that, at least with Howard Stern, you have to pay extra to hear him or physically go after clips of the show (almost always with the attendant "mature content" warnings), not automatically have them piped into your living room. (Which, likewise, makes it a little different than going to a comedy club or a Don Rickles performance.) _____ On Jun 15, 10:52 pm, Wesley McGee <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:52 PM, Phil Collins <[email protected]>wrote: > > > Like Dave said if you have to explain the joke, it's not a joke. Dave did > > the right thing. Liberals never see wrong when a Conservative is wronged. > > The same probably should go for when you're claiming to be offended. Nobody > on earth thought the joke was about Willow Palin (I barely realized that a > Willow Palin even existed before last week). Hell, the target of the joke > was the male -- just like almost every joke where Bristol served as the > pregnant teen prop since August 2008. > <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/top-10-reasons-sarah-pali...>Two > years ago, it would have been the sleazy dude knocking up fictional pregnant > teen Juno. Before that, Jamie Lynn Spears. And so one and so forth. To even > think it was personal, and was directed at Willow requires a willful > misrepresentation, and accepting of behavior that is so far out of character > as to be inconceivable. (Now, whether a pregnant teenager should serve as a > prop for philandering jokes is another thing entirely.) Even if you feel > that David Letterman is cruel to people he does not like, do you really > think he would lash out at their anonymous children? No, he's cruel to them > *directly*. > > The thing here is that Sarah Palin has had a long history of making > everything personal against her. It's a known issue in Alaska politics, and > for whatever reason, she felt she could score a quick political point > against Hollywood and become the aggrieved. > > Which just leads to aggravation all around. > > -- > Wesley McGeehttp://www.ambivi.comhttp://sterlingnorth.vox.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
