This is not a big deal, but it is the kind of little detail that draws me down the rabbit hole. Here are the two jokes:
“I have to say I’m a little star-struck. I love you as Aunt Lydia in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’ Mike Pence, if you haven’t seen it, you would love it.” (Joke 1) “I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. She burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.” (Joke 2) Neither of these is a slam on SHS’ appearance. Taken one at a time: Joke 1: There is a physical resemblance between the actress who plays Aunt Lydia in the Hulu series (she was on Colbert recently and is just delightful, so if I were SHS I would be happy if I were being compared to her in any way), but anyone familiar with the story knows that the joke here is all about Lydia’s function. Here is the character description from Sparks Notes, for those not familiar. I think the basis for the joke is obvious (and devastating, and it is one of Wolf’s best lines of the night): *“Aunt Lydia* - The Aunts are the class of women assigned to indoctrinate the Handmaids with the beliefs of the new society and make them accept their fates. Aunt Lydia works at the “Red Center,” the re‑education center where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids. Although she appears only in Offred’s flashbacks, Aunt Lydia and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Aunt Lydia’s slogans and maxims drum the ideology of the new society into heads of the women, until even those like Offred, women who do not truly believe in the ideology, hear Gilead’s words echoing in their heads.” Joke 2: This is a play on the old Maybelline ad tag line (“maybe she’s born with it, maybe its Maybelline”). I guess SHS has smoky eye make-up (I vaguely know that term from watching Project Runway, but I can only guess what it means), but the joke here clearly is about how much she lies. I don’t think this works very well as a joke, and is pretty typical of Wolf’s humor, which I do not find smart or elegant, but kind of lazy. This is basically just an excuse to yell real loud “Sarah Hucakabee Sanders is a liar!”, which is true, but not very funny - though it takes a certain about of course to do that when the woman is sitting 5 feet away from you. If people want to slam Wolf for not being very funny - fine (probably mostly true). If they want to slam her for taking liberal digs against the Trump administration, also fine (very true but, then, what do you expect?). But trying to gin up internet outrage over a female comic betraying the sisterhood by making jokes about another professional woman’s appearence is, in this case, bulshit. A better moral to draw from this and other recent similar events is that the tradition of roasting the President and other powerful figures in this way requires an underlying mutual respect, if not personal, than at least institutional and constitutional, which is lacking right now. This was already getting to be true in the W. Bush Administration, and would have been true had there been even B-List comics available during the Obama Administration. It is profoundly true now. Without a modicum of mutual respect, comic roasting just comes across as mean-spirited and low-class, and perhaps we would be better served calling at least a temporary halt to it. https://youtu.be/2yShWRb7L8s https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2018/04/29/the-harshest-jokes-from-michelle-wolfs-correspondents-dinner-speech/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2e3d7e2012df On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 10:23 AM Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 9:44 AM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I am wondering why I am reading so much outrage by liberal white women >> that Wolf made fun of Huckabee’s looks. The maybelline joke was not >> particularly funny, but it was not a know on SHS appearance. I thought the >> Handmaidens Tale joke was better - both funnier and sharper - but also not >> a joke about looks. Am I missing a joke (don’t have the stomach to >> rewatch)? And if I am missing a joke, why don’t the complainers reference >> it? >> > > Complainers gonna complain. The references to looks that I’ve seen > complaints about were the smoky eye thing (which is actually a joke about > where she gets the makeup) and the comparison to the character on Handmaids > Tale (who some interpreted to be a comparison of the character traits while > others interpreted to be about how the character/actress looks). > > Huckabee Sanders is a bully who works for a bully (and all bullies are > secretly cowards). These bullies have not only physically mocked people, > but they’ve enacted and defended laws that discriminate against people > based on how they look. So even if the jokes are rightly construed as > insults on appearance, I cannot muster up any outrage over them. > > -- >> Sent from Gmail Mobile >> >> -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > -- > Kevin M. (RPCV) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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