Regular OS reader Sammy pointed out this recent Jay Leno segment where he's giving Ryan Phillippe a hard time for having played a gay teenager. Oh, of course, it is all in fun, right?
Whitless.com has the transcript, as well as the video:
Jeff at Whitless comments:
JAY: Can you give me like -- say that camera is your gay lover -- number two --
PHILLIPPE: Wait a second. Wait a second.
JAY: Can you give me your gayest look? Say that -- say that camera is Billy Bob -- Billy Bob has just ridden in shirtless from Wyoming.
"So naturally you homed in on how WEIRD and HILARIOUS it was that he played a GAY PERSON -- while Phillippe reasonably tried to shift the conversation to the larger issue of how weird it was to be on a soap opera. But you couldn't be stopped! You went for the comedy gold!"
I'm not saying Leno is a monster for telling this "joke." But, he just wasn't that funny. Some may cry "this is the PC police!" and all that, and assert their right to laugh at his routine. Of course, anybody has the right to laugh at whatever. But the routine is built around the premise that gayness is a punchline in-and-of-itself. And these jokes are told with the implicit understanding that the audience "gets" that punchline, shares those cultural cues.
For another exploration of when pop-culture makes these often offensive assumptions, read Adrian Tomine's "The Donger And Me" webcomic on NPR. It's a good companion piece to the Whitless.com piece, I think, focusing on how the author of each confronted the offending celebrity.
0 Yorumlar