Bill Maher (that’s alleged comic Bob Saget as his “victim”) tweeted out a perfect parody of the infamous photo that triggered the demise of Al Franken, because his own party was fully committed to a sexual misconduct witch hunt, and they thought it might even lead to a successful execution of Plan J, to cancel out the election of President Trump.
Surely you remember the photo…
If there ever was a photograph and a situation begging for satire, this was it. The original photo was a gag that unethically used a sleeping young woman as a prop. Franken handled his apology badly. Then he set himself up as fair game for mockery by weasel-wording his way through the subsequent accusations of sexual harassment and groping, some of which occurred while he was Senator. Finally, he capitulated to a due-process-defying mob led by feminist vigilante Kirsten Gillibrand, and resigned his Senate seat in a snit. Later, Democratic Senators expressed doubts about their knee-jerk attack on Franken, but it was too late. The whole scenario was ludicrous. Ludicrous public events deserve mockery. [ The original version of this sentence read “pubic.” It was a typo, I swear. Thanks to reader crella for the heads up.]
Yet Maher’s tweeted gag is being widely condemned on social media, on a variety of theories, all bad. It’s “too soon,” some say. Maher is a current events satirist: it’s never too soon. It’s wrong to joke about sexual harassment, others say. Who makes these rules? If the target is President Trump, about seven TV comics feel that they can joke about harassment, senility, nuclear war and incest. Then the ultimate declaration: It’s not funny. No, it’s not funny to those who don’t think it’s funny. It IS funny to those who do think it’s funny, and that’s all a comic cares about. For the record, and I loathe Bill Maher, I laughed out loud.
The “it’s not funny how dare you” crowd is perhaps the worst segment of the political correctness collective, for they would leach all wit, joy irony and fun out of the world. Irreverent satire of serious subjects and events is, like so many other aspects of humor, an enterprise that has to be done well, and is not without risks. When it is done well, however, like it was here…
or in my favorite meme…
…it deserves applause, not whining from the easily triggered.
Good job, Bill.
For once.
Ethics Alarms 
Today I saw the headline that a Republican won the drawing from a bowl in the Virginia race.
One of the comments below said The democrat should have volunteered as tribute. I thought that was funny, but they were getting torn apart in the comments. These are the type of people I think are just going to be miserable their whole lives.
How dare you? One of my alternate reality descendants *died* in the Hunger Games, you Capitol-enabling scum.
Would you happen to have a link to that page?
Wait a minute…. Is that a private jet Bill’s flying on? Is it electric powered? How many pounds or tons of carbon is he emitting with apparent impunity? Are those women. WOMEN enabling him in the background there?
Maher can be funny. Pity he doesn’t spend more time on that. The photo I saw had: “#MeTooSoon” at the bottom.
I feel the same way about Colbert. When he was pretending to be a conservative, he was funny. As an actual liberal, he’s a bore.
-Jut
I wonder how many leftist comics have to be scarlet lettered before they figure out something’s rotten in Denmark?
Doesn’t say much for their actual intelligence, does it?
I can’t think of a single instance where the phase includes “that’s not funny” (including this variation of “it’s”) is accurate. Invariably, it actually is funny. Often when the phrase is used, the joke is highly hilarious.
What those using that phrase mean is that they don’t find it funny, because they’re offended and hurt but being an indirect or direct butt of the joke. Why can’t people just be honest and say that they are offended and / or hurt by the joke instead of saying a lie that they know isn’t true?
The exception that proves the rule: this…
Oh, there were some people who thought this was funny. Some people think Nick Berg losing his head for real was funny. Lots of Democrats apparently thought Steve Scalise being shot was a hoot. Has anyone asked Rosie?
But in general “suggesting the violent killing of a sitting U.S. President in a country where four Presidents have been assassinated and people are trying all the time to do the same” is generally conceded to be unacceptable irresponsible and not funnt at all.
I think the reason is fairly obvious, Mathew – it would make them subject to the “You whiny little bitch!” defense.
In all fairness, this is more about “Look how good I am” than anything else – pure virtue-signalling. Anything that can make a person feel morally superior is going to get a lot of repetition in the sewer of the social media “feelz iz me, I iz feelz” groupthink.
It’s a tragic mess. It couldn’t happen to a more disgusting victim, too, but Jack is right to defend him (just before he jumps into the shower).
The perpetually offended can find something to offend themself in anything they see.
There seems to be a cultural reversal from years gone by where a community tried to teach our youth to be responsible adults as opposed our modern society where a community is teaching our youth to be a coddled participation-trophy-bearing ignorant and entitled social justice warriors.
It’s sad.
”our modern society where a community is teaching our youth to be a coddled participation-trophy-bearing ignorant and entitled social justice warriors.”
Some major league pitcher once said something to the effect: “You can’t deal with winning until you’ve learned to deal with losing.”
To wit:
(shrug) I think it looks dumb, but it’s not worth getting exercised about. I’m not sorry Bill Maher is getting some well-deserved crap, however.
Are you proposing an obnoxious, vile comic variation on “The Postman Always Rings Twice”? He deserves crap for what deserves crap, like anyone else.
I don’t know whether to be glad or disappointed at that photo of Maher.
In any case, Maher’s cap partly obscures a view of a lady seated in the back – makes me curious how low-cut her top is – even makes me suspect she was trying to be a more substantive part of the photo, by flashing a, er, right-chested version of Airplane Passenger Girls Gone Wild. Also, in any case, the same lady seems to be wearing a badge. That’s a red flag and Ethics Alarm for me. I wear a badge most days, too, and I am ever, ever forbidden, on penalty of death, to let my badge appear in a public photo. (“My face is THAT ugly,” I tell photographers.) On the other hand, maybe she’s a flight attendant and the badge means nichts.