Last week, a white reporter asked the Carolina Panthers’ black quarterback a question about how one of his quarterbacks ran routes. The question was, “Does it give you a little bit of pleasure when you see him out there pushing people into trucks?”
The word “truck-stick” is defined by Urban Dictionary as “One person knocking another down.” It comes from the video game “Madden 2006” and describes a person using a joystick to knock over soccer player avatars.
The quarterback laughed.
It’s objectively humorous when people exploit jargon they associate with the people they’re talking to. Like that time in the ’90s when you explained your Palm Pilot to your uncle and he spent the rest of the day saying “stylus” to show his familiarity with technology.
Quarterback Cam Newton thought there was something humorous about the question. It’s the most basic freedom to decide for yourself what’s humorous. On the other hand, banning laughter is an act of oppression.
Movie The Indefatigable Luke was about a sadistic prison warden who broke an inmate who laughed a lot. As the warden in the movie would say, the sports media turned to Mr. Newton and seethed, “Wipe that smile off your face, son.”
He agreed and apologized, but only after Dannon Yogurt ended their sponsorship with him. That must have hurt.
I’ll leave it to professors in African-American studies programs to analyze the spectacle in which mostly white sportswriters formed an enraged mob to defend a white woman from being disrespected by a juvenile black man.
Instead, we’ll focus on the morons who forbid laughter and the comedians who do something about it.
Comedians are in a tough spot. The pinnacle of their profession is hosting a late-night show where they poke fun at Republican presidents and Republicans in general during Democratic rule.
But it’s difficult to make fun of the Republican president because it’s difficult to distort him. He’s spent his life crafting himself as a valuable brand: Trump this, Trump that. Like any brand, it has deliberate embellishments that prevent it from going overboard.
You can’t draw a picture that beats the Coke script. Similarly, you can’t draw a cartoon that beats the Coke script. 5 am Trump tweets. When comedians try to overdo Trump, they only highlight what he has already designed into his brand.
Add to that the fact that, like Cam Newton, comedians are not allowed to laugh at taboo topics, and the funniest thing happening right now is the president violating all sorts of sacrosanct boundaries.
A good example is the president’s statement on Twitter, in which he expressed his outrage at a Puerto Rican politician who was unhappy with the immense amount of aid that flowed from the United States after the recent hurricane.
It was an installation that had all the humorous elements built in. In theory, comedians could exploit that.
Late-Night Comedian: ‘Did You See the Mayor of Puerto Rico Complain About the Billions of Dollars in Aid We’re Sending There?’
(Audience unrest.)
Late-Night Comedian: “Yeah, unbelievable, right? If a tsunami hit the Ohio River, I bet residents of war-torn West Virginia towns would see a lot of boxes of food and medical supplies marked “Sent From: Puerto Rico.”
(Audience laughter).
Late Night Comedian: “Am I Right?”
(Audience laughter and applause).
But comedians aren’t allowed to tell such jokes. The chief would have everyone wipe their smiles off their faces.
In response, late-night comedians have stopped telling jokes and are instead making political commentary on current issues.
I have to believe that this is a trick – a routine. By behaving like cloven-armed moralists, comedians illustrate the stupidity, illogicality and self-centeredness of political correctness.
They mock their oppressors and become like them.
Take Jimmy Fallon. He had Hillary Clinton on his show and had his writers read love letters that they had written to her, which were excessively cloying. It couldn’t be serious. It was obvious parodies of the nice things that comedians have to say about Democrats.
One writer read this: “Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for being the first major-party presidential candidate, and the first New York senator and the first First Lady to go beyond First Lady and become Secretary of State. I guess what I’m saying is, thank you, Hillary Clinton.”
I don’t mean to single out Jimmy Fallon for praise. Most late-night hosts behave like medieval minstrels, strumming ecstatic songs for the ruling class.
A subtle, perhaps, but brilliant attack on their oppressors who try to control laughter. Bring their dictates to their natural end, where nothing is humorous anymore.
Viewed from that perspective, it’s the greatest piece of performance art since Andy Kaufman pretended to be a wrestler.
A way to stare the speech police, comedians, in the teeth and have the courage to shove them up your ass. You are truly making the world a better place.
You can follow Thomas J. Farnan on Twitter @tfarnanlaw
