Can I Abuse You Please

Over at Townhall, conservatives are enjoined to invent comical jokes about Barack Obama. The column is written by someone named Jon Sanders, who looks and writes like a singing weatherman on a Pop Rocks & Champale bender.

According to the New York Times, which rumor has it is a newspaper of some repute in New York City, professional comedians can find very little to joke about concerning Sen. Barack Obama.

There is a joke in the preceding paragraph. No, really. Here:

According to the New York Times, which rumor has it is a newspaper of some repute in New York City [<-- joke], professional comedians can find very little to joke about concerning Sen. Barack Obama.

In American Heartland, you do not read New York Times, New York Times reads you. Or something.

Feel free to examine the rest of the theorizing as to why Obama isn't being made fun of adequately. Suffice it to say, there is no acknowledgment of the fact that one reason this is tricky is that at some point during the past eight years, the GOP circus train jumped the tracks and slammed into a confetti factory, causing an explosion at the popcorn warehouse next door. And John McCain is proposing to put on a big red clown nose & some comedy breasts, back that choo-choo up, and ram it into a banana peel distributorship. How can you compete with that?

All that aside! Let's get to the fun! Here are two proposed jokes whereby Townhall hopes to make Barack Obama a laughingstock such that even your liberal fascist socialist sister would rather giggle than fuck him:

How many Barack Obamas does it take to change a light bulb? Just one. He holds the bulb, thinks the world revolves around him, and calls it change you can believe in.

Barack Obama dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates. "So this is heaven," Obama says. "What's it like, healthcare up here?" St. Peter misunderstands him as saying he'd like Hell and didn't care for it up here, so he shrugs and sends him down there. "Cool," Obama says upon arrival. "It really IS just like Canada's!"

Wow. The comedy gap has surely been bridged. The nation will be sniggering  uncontrollably at that Obama fellow by Tuesday next. No doubt. But as usual it is the comments that reveal the true funny:

Obama was a community organizer- where I come from they're called Bloods or Crips.

Knock Knock
Who's There?
YOUARACIST!
Oh, its Obama.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Emersom.
Emersom who?
Emersom pretty big ears ya got there Barack!

Might as well get our laughs now because if Snob-Bama and Michelle get in - humor will be outlawed!

Question: What's the difference between Louis Farrakhan and Barack Hussein Obama?
Answer: Not much but Farrakhan can play sing!

Question: What's the difference between Hugo Chavez and Barack Hussein Obama?
Answer: Not much but Hugo's wife knows when to shut-up!

I submit that the most salient reason professional comedians, who are often enough dopes themselves, are having trouble making fun of Obama, is that the people who are most willing to laugh at him are at the moment horrible insane sociopaths who can connect to "humor" only under strictly controlled laboratory conditions for purposes of dispassionate scientific analysis.

Comments

[Dave]

I kinda liked the ear joke.

[Gundamhead]

"Barack Obama dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates. "So this is heaven," Obama says. "What's it like, healthcare up here?" St. Peter misunderstands him as saying he'd like Hell and didn't care for it up here, so he shrugs and sends him down there. "Cool," Obama says upon arrival. "It really IS just like Canada's!"

Excuse me, but what the fuck was that?

I don't think I'll ever understand the people at Townhall.

Anyway, I read an article about how professional comedy writers couldn't come up with any gags about Obama because there just isn't anything very funny about him. His personality is pretty much parody proof and he doesn't really make the kind of mistakes that you can be humorously mocked.

[aimai]

Yes, but gundamhead, they read the same article and they thought all those professional comedians were lying because they are all liberals. They imagine that actually the liberal professional comedian's association is like skull and bones and they are all really sitting around an open coffin making barack obama and n*gger jokes *all the time* and then they pretend to solemnity and scold the republicans in flyover country when they get on tv for their shows.

Still, I think there is something to be gleaned from reading those horrible jokes. For one thing, I think they really make Obama come across as something and someone very, very, powerful. Its true that satire and contempt are very close together, but so are humor and lese majeste and these jokes just seem to emphasize how distant and cool Obama is. The joker really comes across as the pathetic loser and Obama as rather above it all. At least, that's my opinion. They aren't looking for a series of knock knock jokes or fake polish jokes about obama--and they sure as hell aren't looking for long winded anti canadian jokes, they are looking for a way to tie a mixed race man to the worst of white imagery and the worst of black imagery and its terribly hard because his personality and his style cuts against both. And maybe the two are setting up a kind of harmonic interference with each other--the tweedy academic liberal is interfered with by the muslim terrorist image, and vice versa. Look how they try to make all previous enemies pale in comparison--hitler, farrakhan, jesse jackson? But in the end the viewer just sees Obama as much less frightening (or in the case of hitler, Obama seems much less desirable. See steveM's No more mr. nice blog for some examples).

aimai

[nick]

I ....

Shit, i have to confess that I kinda liked the lightbulb joke.

{ducks tomotoes rifled at head}

I know. I know.

[DrDick]

This is just further proof that conservatives' parents dropped them on their heads - from a third story window - when they were infants. I really think that only severe brain damage can explain Clownhall.

[Gummo]

nick --

I agree, the lightbulb joke might have worked if they had just let it go at this:

How many Barack Obamas does it take to change a light bulb?

Just one. He holds the bulb and the world revolves around him.

But of course, overreaching is just one of the many sins of conservatism....

[DrDick]

This is just further proof that conservatives' parents dropped them on their heads - from a third story window - when they were infants. I really think that only severe brain damage can explain Clownhall.

[harmfulguy]

As far as I can tell, there are only two schools of conservative humor:
1) I'll say something nasty about someone I don't like, and you'll laugh because you don't like them either
2) P. J. O'Rourke

[rea]

i have to confess that I kinda liked the lightbulb joke.

It's not very original, although the versions I've heard have been about "men" rather than "Obama"

[prudence goodwife]

"Comedians perform a crucial civic service. They help us to laugh at politicians and ourselves. In doing so, they keep us all aware of our humanity."

I think he's means this-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSE_saVX_2A

[actor212]

...but the Ferengi in the Obama suit will have to go!

[actor212]

As far as I can tell, there are only two schools of conservative humor:
1) I'll say something nasty about someone I don't like, and you'll laugh because you don't like them either
2) P. J. O'Rourke

And what's the other school?

[actor212]

His personality is pretty much parody proof and he doesn't really make the kind of mistakes that you can be humorously mocked.

Yet.

But he's getting there. Look at the changes in his "nuances". It won't be long before some wiseass can hit him with a "changed his position on X more often than Amy Winehouse changed crack pipes"

[Davis]

Obama is not a ridiculous man, especially compared to what we've seen the last 15 years or so, particularly in the GOP.

[DrDick]

Obama is not a ridiculous man, especially compared to what we've seen the last 15 years or so, particularly in the GOP.
Bozo the Clown would look serious next to the current occupant of the White House.

[Ripley]

Over at Townhall, conservatives are enjoined to invent comical jokes about Barack Obama.

Steve Martin wept.

[skippy]

nick, you are right about the lightbulb joke. it's damn funny.

the trick to political jokes is to make them actual jokes, ie, something that would be funny if you replaced the name of the politician w/any other person.

the lightbulb joke works, because it relies on the premise of ego-centricism in general, not on a specific person. (i must admit, if you said how many 'bob johnsons' does it take to change a lightbulb, you'd have to take out the "and call it change you believe in" part).

that's the problem w/conservative humor...its premise is almost always just demeaning the subject, and nothing to do with set up and punch, and twisting expectations.

as to obama not being able to be made fun of, they haven't seen fred armisen's imitation on satnitelive. he's brilliant. he's got the pausing, the word emphasis, the heavy-handedness of obama's speech patterns down.

now they need to come up with a good mccain impression.

and personally, i'm still using the epithet "barack 'to the future' obama" over at skippy.

[Stephen Stralka]

It also helps if the jokes have some remote, vestigial connection to reality. I'd like to know, for instance, if there are any examples of Obama randomly calling people racists anywhere outside the fevered imaginations of the wingnuts.

["Fair and Balanced" Dave]

i have to confess that I kinda liked the lightbulb joke.

Alright then:

Q: How many John McCains does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: None. He won't change the bulb and then Chris Matthews and David Broder will go into paroxysms of pleasure explaining to the public how this is one more example of what a "maverick" John McCain is.

[theperilouspea]

I am afraid that the association of Bozo with the titular head of the most powerful clowns on the planet is one floppy foot to far .
Bozo , as I remember , was more like a colorful Fred Rogers . Not a wacky slapstick dissembler .

"Mr Rove wha hopponed to the rcn and white house emails ?"
"Clown breasts , Ha ha ha ha ha ha !"
"He holds them (while the earth does gods bidding) and he sucks so hard because he is stupid !"
"Oh somebody Stop me !"

[Phoenix Woman]

Thing is, The Onion has done jokes about Obama that have been funny and non-racist. The Cons just can't hang with them, is all.

[coozledad]

The only funny right-winger was Kingsley Amis. And then only occasionally. While he was delusional about matters of racial politics, he understood the way it plays out here in the US is simply the product of gross stupidity and comically misplaced trashy arrogance. His private persona was more the flatulent fuckbag we've gotten used to from the right here, but he at least had the sense (and the humor) to back off in public.
Rightist humor here is usually some preppy titty telling you they're a better class of people because they had the courage and inner strength to pull themselves up by their daddy's fortune, and daring you to punch the teeth out of their heads.

[coozledad]

I'm sorry.That comment made no fucking sense. I guess what I was trying to say is, for a racist asswipe, Amis had some passing understanding of humor. And our righties don't.

[MikeJ]

The McCain light bulb joke above suffers from the same problems as townhall's Obama joke. Try this:

Q: How long does it take John McCain to change a lightbulb?
A: Maybe fifty years, maybe a hundred. I'm not that concerned about it.

[Me]

Hmmm, this humor thing is intriguing. Let me have a go:

Q:How does Barack Obama change a lightbulb?

A:He unscrews the burnt out one, then replaces it with a new one. But first he switches off the lamp, just to be safe.

How'd I do?

[Spokane Moderate]

How'd I do?

It's funny because IT'S TRUE!!!

[J Neo Marvin]

i have to confess that I kinda liked the lightbulb joke.

It's not very original, although the versions I've heard have been about "men" rather than "Obama"

I first heard it at band practice as "How many lead singers does it take to change a lightbulb?"

[aimai]

Well, I laughed like hell at "Me's" joke up above at 6:43. So it must have been a good one.

I think Phoenix Woman's point is really well taken. Its not, of course, that you can't make jokes about Obama because of racism. Its that you can't make racist jokes about Obama because only racists find them funny and the right wing wants to make the jokes but not admit how, why, and for who they are making them. There are a gazillion jokes you could make about Obama, and they would be funny too, like the Jimmy Carter "brown acid" joke (which, btw, I've discovered lots of people didn't get at the time)which parodied Carter for a well deserved reputation for earnestness.

the problem the right wing is having is that they don't just want to make jokes at Obama's expense, they want to tell jokes that make him sound scary, stupid, angry, black, muslim, socialist, etc... in order to disgust and frighten people out of voting for him. And those jokes are already pretty meanspirited, as well as factually incorrect. So there are two bars to telling those jokes--they are going to be awkward (since they depend on a set up that many listeners are going to know is false), labored, and in the end rely on racist/sexist/anti group sterotypes. Because that is what they are parodying--not Obama the actual human but Obama as the sum of all their racist, sexual, economic fears.

that's my labored analysis, at any rate.

aimai

[FlipYrWhig]

How many John McCains does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Zero. He still lights his house with spermaceti.

[Me]

How does a Republican change a lightbulb?

They don't. They just neglect it, then they say "See, I told you lightbulbs never work".

[Bitter Scribe]

My favorite was the one with the punchline, "Not much but Farrakhan can play sing!" It's just so surreal.

Conservatives who are trying to be funny should stick with their one, reliable, tried-and-true joke: "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

[Tyro]

the lightbulb joke works, because it relies on the premise of ego-centricism in general, not on a specific person

I disagree, because we've all heard that lightbulb joke before, and it wasn't that funny the first time.

[actor212]

Q:How does Barack Obama change a lightbulb?

A:We are the change we seek.

[tarheel]

Texas man: Where are you from? Harvard man: I come from a place where we do not end a sentence with prepositions. Texas man: O.K., where are you from, jackass?