Nation’s Comedians Terrified Of Barack Obama Presidency
July 15, 2008
“A thousand points of light.” “Read my lips.” “I did NOT have sexual relations with that woman.” “Lockbox.” “Presidenting is hard-work.”
The last few Presidents and Presidential candidates have provided tremendous amounts of fodder for the nation’s comedians, from Dan Akyroyd’s Nixon to Will Ferrell’s ‘Dubya’. The Clinton impeachment paid for an extra house for Jay Leno, while Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report took off under George W. Bush’s comic misspeaking (”Thank you, your Holiness. Awesome speech.”).
But alas, there is fear of comedic recession, if not depression, in Hollywood, for it seems the nation’s comics cannot find anything to make fun of about Barack Obama.
Obama isn’t “a comical figure,” said Mike Barry, who started writing political jokes for Johnny Carson’s monologues in the 1960s. The editors of the New Yorker tried this week to poke fun at Obama, but the joke fell painfully flat.
What is there to make fun of exactly, about Barack Obama. There’s none of Clinton’s womanizing, Nixon’s foul play, Gore’s monotonous droning, or Bush’s dyslexia. He has no catch-phrases like “The Gipper”, “lock-box”, or “A thousand points of light.”
There is a course, plenty of potential material in the first African-American Presidential candidate who happens to have a white Kansas mother (and somewhat racist white grandmother) and a black Kenyan father, grew up on food stamps and then went to Harvard. The only problem is, there’s only one comedian capable and willing to make hilarious jokes that heavily based on race.
That would be the man who put on skits involving a black KKK member, a black time-traveler who shoots white slave-owners, a game show called “I Know Black People”, and a guest spot called “Ask A Black Dude.” Unfortunately Dave Chappelle is temporarily retired, or crazy, or both. So it looks like, unless Mr. Chappelle decides to make a fourth season of The Chappelle Show (”I’m Rick James, bitch!”), it could be a long, laughless eight years.
[...] enjoyed this post by Andy Sparrow, Teresa’s co-writer at TeresaCentric, about how comedians will have limited [...]
Well, maybe Obama will have a VP worth making fun of.
Next EIGHT years? As much as you are an Obama supporter, you gotta give him some room to F@#k up in his first term. That’s an awful lota pressure you’re putting on the poor man.
There’s a difference between fucking up (Obama’s support for FISA and Faith Based Initiatives), and doing something funny (”Awesome speech your holiness:).
[...] know Andy says that Barack Obama is nearly impossible to make fun of — unless you’re Dave Chappelle, that is — but JibJab has sure done a great [...]
I loved it when the live audience at The Daily Show started booing Stewart’s Obama jokes, and he said “You people DO realize we’re allowed to make fun of him, right?”
Behavior like that will continue to chill comedians who might consider Obama material, at least until people downshift from Obama Cultists to Obama Supporters. (And please, no flames… Bush has his Cultists too…)
Most comedians are left leaning, so of course they don’t find things funny about him. Many comedians are very serious and bitter people at the core, but have found an outlet in comedy to express veiws on things that seem unfair to them. Barack is seen by many, regardless of his voting record, as the prince of the American Socialist Utopia, because he is a talented orator.
You will have to turn to South Park or to what a previous comment mentioned Jib Jab.
A person with a true sense of humor will see the humor in just about anything. I was laughing my ass off at the JibJab “It’s Time for Campaignin” cartoon. especially at the Barack part with the unicorns, rainbows, butterflies, and the use of the word Change at least 10 times in about 10 seconds.