Sometimes you mean to blog about something that's bothering, but you don't quite have it analyzed. So I'm sorry I'm late on this Times stories in which a gaggle of comedians sit around wondering why Barack Obama won't write their jokes for them. My sense is that if your job is to make fun of Barack Obama, and you can't, then that's your problem. Blaming it on racism is about as weak as me saying I'd be at the New Yorker or the New York Times if it weren't for racism. Do your job. I get that it's easier for David Alan Grier to make jokes than Jimmy Kimmel. Got it. But that's the job. If your main line about John McCain is that he's old, you aren't a very good comedian. Likewise if your only line on Barack is that he's black, you're not much better. I'm willing to bet money that Sarah Silverman will have material on Barack inside of a year. Meanwhile, here's one of my favorite--if crude--examples of white guy making jokes at the expense of black people. It's pretty good.
UPDATE: Commenter Doctor Jay basically nails it when he says, "I got the feeling watching that clip that Ross has spent a fair amount of time around black people, whether in barbershops, in clubs, or churches, I can't say. I think that's where it starts."
In other words if you've spent some time around black people, you likely get the sensibility, and thus are able to make the jokes. Or maybe you've spent no time and you have an extraordinary gift for insight. Either way, it's the same deal--If you want to know why you can't make jokes around black people, it's because your black people jokes aren't very funny. If you want them to be funny go do the work of being a comedian. There is no ban on making fun of Barack Obama, or black people at large. It just takes a comic who knows their material.
For what it's worth, Jeff Ross is also Jewish. Damn. We need to just get it over with and intermarry. This is crazy.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I like how two different Emmitt Smith Roast clips were used to make points.
I'm Black. I like Larry the Cable Guy. And he makes very funny jokes about Black people.
I got the feeling watching that clip that Ross has spent a fair amount of time around black people, whether in barbershops, in clubs, or churches, I can't say. I think that's where it starts.
"We need to just get it over with and intermarry."
Maybe we just need to inter-copulate.
Well, there is Lenny Kravitz. But, oddly enough, he strikes me as kind of humorless.
There are a few other things about what Jeffrey Ross did there that are worth noting:
1) The jokes he made about race were mostly about physical appearance. This doesn't make them any less racist--more racist in some ways even--but they're not things that scream "black people are criminals" etc. They're more like a "Jews have big noses joke."
2) The Wayans Brother's picnic line is an excellent one: completely a joke about race, but one that comes with a great amount of credibility, because some clueless, racist white person isn't going to be able to make that joke.
3) The context is key: he had massive testicular fortitude to do that, and I think that in and of itself made it funnier. If he had that panel in front of a different audience, it would have been much less funny--in the same way that Colbert railing the Bush Administration at the Correspondent's dinner worked because of the context/balls.
4) I still can't believe he told that Shaq/knuckles joke. I've seen it a number of times, and every time, I can't believe it.
plus Ross is a genius. a vicious, rude, eviscerating genius. he's the best part of every roast Comedy Central has ever shown.
Yeah, he definitely knows some things about black people and that is why it was funny. That ape joke took it too far for me, but the rest was on point. The funniest part of this roast is when Jamie clowns this other comedian who bombed...classic.
Jokes about John McCain being crazy >>>> jokes about John McCain being old
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Just a notification that you have a typo:
"not muich better."
Please delete this post.
Just a notification that you have a typo:
"not muich better."
Jeff Ross just isn't very funny. He's not. That's science.
Well, except for the Bea Arthur joke. That will never ever be topped. Funniest thing ever said at a roast. Easily.
Wow, that's some interesting material in Ross's routine. In terms of content, it's ballsy as all hell, but in terms of structure, 90% of those are either New Yorker cartoon jokes (Here's a cultural reference we both understand... let's share a small chuckle of mutual recognition, shall we?) or standard roast jokes (Hey, you know that guy we both know and that thing that happened to him? Watch me reference it in an oblique manner!)
This isn't a criticism, mind you. He's nailing the hell out of those structures. It's just interesting.
In your opinion, what's the best movie ever created?