On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 1:55 AM, pedegars <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > 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. Those people are quite obviously closely pursuant of politics (given they were discussing this in a conversation, and you described them as "loving one/hating the other"). Automatically, they're unusual. Now, would someone who does not follow politics as closely have known the joke in question was directed at Willow? Would they have known, without checking the news that Sarah Palin was in New York City? That she was there with her daughter? That she was there with her *less famous* daughter? The people I asked, a couple of college students did not even know Palin had any other daughters, (when I said other daughter, one thought I was referring to Trig, whom he thought was "Twig".). It was never clear that Letterman was discussing Willow at the time the joke came up. In fact it took nearly a day after it happened, likely spurred by Palin's release, for the political blogosphere to begin to charge that, and a few threads I've read had people embark on hours long searches to verify that who was or was not at the game. Simply put, David Letterman does not do jokes that require people to be plugged into the political blogosphere to understand. (That's Jon Stewart's domain, and even then, he provides visual aids in the use of video clips.) Letterman plays in the broadest of archetypes -- Bush is dumb, Cheney is mean, Biden is Dan Quayle, Bill Clinton is horny, etc. Anything that requires the reading of the Washington Post page A27, or a guest list at the AEI (or even requiring some to know what AEI is) is not a joke you'd see on The Late Show, or The Tonight Show for that matter. I say again, if Palin never said that it was Willow at the baseball game, no one would have thought the joke was at Willow's expense. -- Wesley McGee http://www.ambivi.com http://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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
