The Trevor Noah Internet Kerfluffle, Outrage, and the War to Win the Moral High Ground

As I've commented elsewhere, the problem with most of those jokes actually is that they're failures. Most of them would have been seen as completely innocuous with a few minor changes to them, changes which would also have made them funnier.

We need to stop thinking of him as some "oh you poor thing, you've never been outside your little corner" type. As his defenders say, he's "really well traveled, speaks many languages, and really has a grasp of international politics." So he should damn well at least know that even in joke form, misogyny is not cool.

Standup comics, by and large, are very well insulated from the idea that jokes can negatively impact the world. There are a handful that understand that (Todd Glass and Hari Kondabolu leap to mind), and it's definitely gotten better in the current generation of young liberal standups that appeal to comedy nerds and build their careers in alternative venues. But the more mainstream comics like Noah, and even the older generation of liberal comedy-nerd standups like Patton Oswalt, who cut their teeth in a much rougher environment, don't ever learn about this kind of thing. That's why it's important to reach out.

Guy Branum has a really good op-ed in The New York Times, where he relates his life as a gay comedian and how he realized just because he was gay, it didn't mean he could do offensive AIDS jokes.

If being a gay comic doesn't give you at least some extra license to play around with that subject, we're basically saying nothing does. And I think that's bullshit. I have not yet encountered a thing or idea or concept that could not possibly be involved with a joke without being hurtful. As an example of a gay standup who thankfully didn't decide that he wasn't allowed to make jokes about AIDS, I'd point you toward James Adomian's bit positing Skeletor as yet another stereotypical Gay Villain, in which he riffs on Skeletor's bony physique by describing him as "already having died from AIDS."

He's had an experience that should make him a better man

How is the experience supposed to do that? Just like by magic? The only thing a standup is hearing in this situation is "A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE OFFENDED BECAUSE OF SOME JOKES YOU MADE." That's it. He has no idea why. The angry tone and sheer volume of the criticism makes it difficult for any nuance to get through. And look, I get it, he needed to hear about this publicly. But he needed to hear about it like this: "Hey man, when you make a joke about Bruce Jenner making a choice to be trans, trans people see yet another public figure of influence trivializing their identities and describing those identities as a choice. Trans people already get a lot of shit shoveled at them. Can you understand that this would be a pretty hurtful thing for them, and not do it again?"

/r/GamerGhazi Thread Parent