Punching Down

“I've been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds out, she'll kill me.” – Henny Youngman

On December 6, 1980, a young comedian named Gilbert Gottfried appeared in a short film on Saturday Night Life portraying Pepe Gonzales, New York City’s only living bullfighter.

The short film had Gottfried challenging taxis instead of bulls in the city’s financial district.

I thought the bit was funnier than hell and if you can find it online, it’s definitely worth watching.

Gottfried, who died earlier this month at age 67 after a long illness, was fired from SNL after a dozen episodes, but he went on to have a long and successful career.

He made his name with highly offensive material, including 9/11 jokes two weeks after the World Trade Center came down, and a series of tweets about the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan that killed 15,000 people and got him fired from his job as the voice of the Aflac duck.

There’s been a lot of talk about comedians being “cancelled” and so-called “woke” culture, and while I will readily admit that we live in pretty touchy times, I also have no use for shock jock humor.

My niece, Kristin, and I were talking about some of the crass remarks comedian resort to and she described it as “punching down.”

Indeed. I don’t mind when comics mock politicians and celebrities; these people are in the public spotlight and being razzed is part of the job.

But if you’re making jokes about horrific incidents where innocent people are killed or injured, well, you can count me out.

Louis CK, who admitted to masturbating in front of women, mocked the survivors of the Parkland school shooting who testified before congress.

Comfort the Afflicted

Seventeen teenagers and adults were killed in the attack and Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was one of the victims, said on Twitter that “my wife and I deal with loss every day."

"Why don’t you come to my house and try out your new pathetic jokes?” he asked.

And then there’s the shockingly overrated David Chapelle, who sparked controversy last year when he made comments about transgender people during his Netflix special.

“Gender is a fact,” he said. “Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. This is a fact.”

He went on to say that “trans women’s” genitalia are “not quite what it is”.

Excuse me, but how is this even a joke? It just sounds like a no-talent bigot spewing his venom—and getting a nice payday for it.

His remarks led to dozens of Netflix employees staging a walkout, but that didn’t seem to bother the front office too much, as the streaming giant announced earlier this year the release of four upcoming comedy specials executive produced and hosted by Chappelle.

Please understand I’m not talking about censorship—God forbid we should turn these clowns into martyrs—I just wonder why some people feel the need to sink so low.

And I don’t think that controversial comments absolve you from criticism.

If you have the right to make a crass tasteless joke about some terrible event, then I have the right to call you a fucking asshole.

There’s an old line about journalism that says reporters should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

I think that’s a good rule of thumb for comedians. You can let the rich and powerful have it with both barrels but you really should stop punching down.