There is apparently already debate raging as to whether “Saturday Night Live” crossed the line in its portrayal of NY Governor David Paterson, generating laughter courtesy of his blindness by having Fred Armisen as Paterson displaying a financial graph upside down and later wandering aimlessly and unwarily into the camera shot. (Apparently the guardians of what’s funny/what isn’t have given up complaining about the white Armisen portraying black politicians and instead are now complaining about him portraying blind black politicians.)
I shall now settle this debate with an open statement to all those who contend that SNL did, in fact, cross the line of good taste and fairness:
Yes. They crossed the line.
And your point is…?
SNL is, and always has been, about redrawing the line, then crossing it, and then redrawing it some more.
So last night they made Paterson’s blindness part of the sketch. It was funny. How do we know it was funny? People laughed. The contention, as one organization put forward, that they were making fun of “all blind people” is the same as attacking their opening sketch parodying the beleagured Illinois governor and saying it was making fun of everyone who uses profanity.
Rather than complain about ill-treatment, I’d be inclined to think that advocates for the blind should take pride. What else IS equality if it’s not being just as capable of being held up for lampooning as anything or anyone else? Would it really be better if SNL or comedians said, “No, no, blind people require special protection and consideration. They’re so oversensitive that they can’t possibly deal with having their disability be part of a comic prodding.”
A good comic doesn’t just acknowledge the elephant in the room; he makes fun of it.
PAD
• 
………..
Just waiting for the “It’s alright, they weren’t watching anyway…” line.
Oh, wait…..
It’s not even close tot he first time they did this–remember when Ray Charles hosted?
1- Ray announced that he was only hosting because the show was bing done at Carnegie hall.
2- Michael O’Donahue…well, here’s how it went down:
Mr. Mike: You know, we’ve kidded Ray a lot tonight but blindness is nothing to kid about. So, we at Saturday Night, with the network, set up sort of a matching fund and we were able to purchase this lovely painting in appreciation of Ray Charles and the courageous example he sets for all of us — besides being one heck of a good sport. And, so, in Ray’s name, we’re donating this painting to the Lighthouse of the Blind, in the hope that someday all will be able to see it. Let me just, uh, pull the string here and give you to look at what I’m talking about. [removes the covering to reveal a frame without a painting, just big red block letters that read: PLEASE DON’T TELL HIM!] It was painted in 1909 by the French Impressionist Claude Monet and it’s entitled, as you may have already guessed, “The Old Windmill.” Uh, there’s that shimmering iridescence, the, uh, subtle interplay between light and shadow that Monet was famous for. Hard to describe really, you sort of have to see it.
They also made fun of Steve Wonder’s blindness when he was on, as I recall, although I don’t remember the details.
PAD
there are always those demanding fair, equal treatment and insisting that they are just as capable as any of us who then feel they shouldn’t have to tolerate the “bad bits” – such as being the butt of a joke on SNL or what have you.
If you’re coming to the party you get the same snacks as the rest of us.
there are always those demanding fair, equal treatment and insisting that they are just as capable as any of us who then feel they shouldn’t have to tolerate the “bad bits” – such as being the butt of a joke on SNL or what have you.
If you’re coming to the party you get the same snacks as the rest of us.
The reason I think the jokes work (as well as with Wonder and Charles) is these are people who are known for success in spite of their blindness and are mostly held in high regard. So it feels more like laughing with them since we know the parity is over the top.
It’s always funny as all get-out until they start laughing at YOU. “There’s nothing funny about us! It’s so SERIOUS!” Unless Yahoo’s going to come out, it really isn’t.
The real question is have they done an Al Franken skit yet? if they haven’t, who will they get to play him? Is Tina Fey still available? 🙂
This isn’t even the first time people have made fun a Patterson this way on TV. The “Night of too Many Stars” fund raiser from a few months ago had kind of jokes. They had a Patterson stand in sitting in a parked car, thinking he was driving.
I think the Wonder bit was a phony add for a camera. “So easy, even I can take great pictures” or something like that.
David
I think the Wonder bit was a phony add for a camera. “So easy, even I can take great pictures” or something like that.
David
They also made fun of Steve Wonder’s blindness when he was on, as I recall, although I don’t remember the details.
PAD
It was one of their fake commercials, for a Nikon camera, back when Nikon’s ad campaign was “So easy, anyone can use it.” (or something to that effect), where they’d give someone (usually a celebrity…an athlete more often than not), a camera and show off how wonderful the pictures were, even when not taken by a professional photographer.
For SNL’s fake, they aped the format of the commercials, giving Stevie Wonder and a pro tennis player cameras and putting them on a tennis court. So, Stevie was missing the ball, taking wild pictures of whatever spot the camera happened to be pointed at, etc. Then the capper was the two of them pointing the cameras at one another to say the tag line, “So easy…” at which point Stevie reaches over and pulls off the lens cap that’s still on the tennis player’s camera, “…anyone can use it.”
As to whether or not SNL crossed the line in this case, I can’t say. For me, they crossed a different line many years ago…they stopped being remotely funny or entertaining to me. So, I didn’t see the sketch in question.
Nytwyng, I’ve found that hulu.com makes SNL worth watching again. I clicked on a sketch and found that it is Hugh Laurie giving the world’s longest, most boring wedding toast, so I skipped it. Then I clicked on the David Patterson parody and found that it was pretty funny.
On hulu, I watch 15 minutes of SNL a week and enjoy it.
I don’t even know if you can claim that they crossed the line since the line was crossed years ago, trampled by the huge crowds of comedy writers who have come before them and pretty much erased by their shoe heels. It’s not like famous blind people or blindness in general haven’t been mined for comedy by comedy writers and comedians for decades now.
Stevie Wonder, as has been pointed out above, has been a regular target on SNL and everywhere else for as long as I can remember. And blindness in general? Hëll, one of the sillier funny bits in Murder by Death were Sir Alec Guinness playing a blind butler and the bits written around that. And some of the scenes with his blind butler dealing with Nancy Walker’s deaf/mute maid were hilarious.
I agree 100% with PAD’s question/statement above. What else is equality if it’s not being just as capable of being held up for lampooning as anything or anyone else? Tell the PC Police to stick it where the sun don’t shine and turn their TVs off if they can’t find sense of humor.
As i recall, Tommy Smothers and (i think) Ray Charles did a bit about a blind street musician and a deaf one.
Tommy was the blind guy and Ray was the deaf one, if i’m recalling it aright.
The only times a joke has ever made me uncomfortable was when I felt it was less of a joke and more a truth about how the teller really saw the world. SNL tells jokes (and a lot of unfunny ones, but they’re still jokes).
Headline News is going on about how people are complaining that it’s “offensive to people with disabilities.” I’m waiting for SNL to issue an apology in which they explain they were trying to be offensive to all people, regardless of type, and they deeply apologize for failing to do so.
I’m not saying I agree with this, but one could argue that the difference was that Wonder/Charles were not depicted as potentially incompetent in their fields of expertise (music in both cases) because of their blindness, whereas Patterson arguably was.
For example, it’s not sexist to make fun of Sarah Palin (though some dolts thought so) but it would be sexist to imply that she was incompetent solely because she was an attractive woman.
I wonder if these were the same group of people (outside of the blindness advocates) complaining during Anna Hathaway’s hosting gig.
They did a sketch on the Housinbg crisis and they were showing ‘victims’ of the collapse. One pairing was a par who made a lot of money or something on the crisis, and the description under them, was people who should be shot.
Problem was they were actual people being described, who were upset over this. SNL cut the their impersonations from the sketch, which is fair. If they had been called douchebags or something I think it’s fair game, but saying they should be shot is a little different, it’s a statement of violence.
The Patterson thing was clearly set up to interupt Amy’s goodbye speech.
Rule of three. They point out his blindness with the graph joke, set it up with him wandering in during Seth’s line (in what I’m guessing is a bit stolen from McCain doing the same thing during the Town hall debate)
Then they punch the joke home by completely undercutting her farewell speech. It wasn’t a commentary on how the Blind are useless and an annoyance it was a Maguffin set up to get to the scene where Amy tries to say thank you and can’t.
Fred Armisen isn’t “white,” but 25% Japanese and 50% Latino. The SNL sketch simply ridiculed Paterson for being blind, unlike the older sketches described, which, funny or not, weren’t one-dimensional ridicule of a person for being disabled. Beginning in the Adam Sandler days, SNL began getting cheap laughs of of ridiculing disabled people, maybe because they noticed how many people laughed when Sandler said “retarded.” There are still audiences which laugh uproariously over caricatures of Jewish folks with oversized hooked noses, too.
“You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right? …. Well, aren’t they? Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? …. Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it.”
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
What gets left out during all this hand-wringing and head-shaking is that the sketch wasn’t just blind jokes– I’d be inclined to agree that if the sketch was just a blind guy holding a sign upside down or failing to shake Seth Meyers’s hand, it wouldn’t be particularly funny. But even as the physical comedy is going on and grabbing our attention, Armisen’s Paterson is trying to grab attention by insulting New Jersey, talking about his own sexual appetites, and– eventually– trying to buy drugs. Frankly, I thought coupling the political comedy with lowbrow… ahem… sight gags was what made the entire bit. It seems to me that those whining the loudest haven’t indicated at all that they actually got the joke.
Maybe this is too fine a point to matter, but there is a difference to me between the Patterson jokes and the Charles/Wonder jokes. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder were in on them and we can assume had the ability to give the thumbs up or down to the jokes. This would amount to them making fun of their own disability. Patterson was mocked for his. He wasn’t in on it.
Kind of the difference between you making fun or your own kids and somebody else making fun of your kids.
I am living in England. I haven`t seen that SNL broadcast and don`t know these people.
People laughing means that some people find it funny. As it was said in Babylon 5, humor is such a subjective thing. Here in Britain, stand up comedians are very popular. Maybe you have to be British to understand that kind of humour and find it funny. My English husband enjoys it. I am German and find most of it either not funny or tasteless.
I am not blind but an accident many years ago left me permanently disabled. I am able nowadays to also appreciate certain jokes about people on crutches or in wheelchairs but I still don`t think it is a good idea to make jokes about that.
Just imagine how you would feel if you just lost your sight or were just told you have to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair and some “jokers” think it is a great idea to make fun of that.
Kind of the difference between you making fun or your own kids and somebody else making fun of your kids.
But Saturday Night Live is filmed in New York; they’re making fun of their own governor. If Jay Leno or some other Hollywood-type did this, I’d agree with you…
Actually, I think for your comparison to work, you’d need to say that it’s like someone making fun of me vs. me making fun of myself. Although even then, I don’t really buy it. Using that logic, it’s never okay to make a joke at a public figure’s expense (and, as I said before, I don’t think the over-the-top physical humor was the really outrageous part of that bit, nor was it the part the governor should find insulting, if he truly finds any of it insulting.; it’s just the part that everyone’s focused on, just as the writers and producers knew they would be).
As Bradley mentions above, the was more to the sketch than just the “blind jokes”. Kind of ironic in this situation that people seem to be up in arms over what they saw, instead of what they heard.
If last Saturday hadn’t been SNL’s final show of the season, I would fully expect an in-person appearance by Paterson on this or the following week’s show. It always seems to happen that way (Sarah Palin, Mark Wahlberg, etc).
I’m a New Yorker. Paterson’s my governor. I thought the sketch was funny.
As an Amy Poehler fan, I was more upset by him getting in the way of the camara during her farewell.
Like Baerbel, I live in England, so I haven’t seen the SNL clip. However, the description reminds me of a scene from the “Daredevil” film, where Foggy Nelson and Matt Murdock are sitting in a cafe and Foggy deliberately passes Matt the wrong container (e.g. salt instead of sugar). In a way, that’s a bit mean spirited since he’s taking advantage of Matt’s blindness. On the other hand, if you’re willing to play a practical joke on your friend, you could do much the same thing to a sighted person (e.g. pouring salt into the sugar bowl while they’re not looking). So, I think it was fair enough; like PAD said, he’s treating Matt the same as anyone else rather than singling him out for special treatment. (Of course, it helped that Matt got his own back by swapping the cups around while Foggy wasn’t looking.)
I am the adult child of two completely blind parents. I am very impressed with Governor Patterson and how high an office he has attained.
I watched the skit on SNL and cracked up. I thought it was freakin’ hysterical. I have hung around with enough blind people to know that they have an extremely good sense of humor.
Hëll my mother loved Helen Keller jokes!
John Burgess: “Maybe this is too fine a point to matter, but there is a difference to me between the Patterson jokes and the Charles/Wonder jokes. Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder were in on them and we can assume had the ability to give the thumbs up or down to the jokes. This would amount to them making fun of their own disability. Patterson was mocked for his. He wasn’t in on it.”
They were in many of them, John, but not all of them. Murphy used to do Stevie from time to time (as well as others) and I remember at least a few guest stars doing Charles over the years. Besides, your basic stance would mean that no one can perform satire about a public figure or a handicap unless they were that person or had that problem. Doesn’t leave a lot of room open for comedy there.
Baerbel Haddrell: “I am not blind but an accident many years ago left me permanently disabled. I am able nowadays to also appreciate certain jokes about people on crutches or in wheelchairs but I still don’t think it is a good idea to make jokes about that.
Just imagine how you would feel if you just lost your sight or were just told you have to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair and some “jokers” think it is a great idea to make fun of that.”
You might be surprised. You’re feelings on it are yours and you have every right to them, but different people’s mileage does tend to vary. I know people who have been in accidents where their world was changed that dramatically and years later they still find humor along those lines funny. I’d tend to think I would as well.
Why is it funny though? I don’t know. It just is. Mel Brooks once explained it thusly: “Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole and die.”
They also made fun of Steve Wonder’s blindness when he was on, as I recall, although I don’t remember the details.
Besides the camera sketch previously described, there was also a skit in which Stevie Wonder was playing a horrible Stevie Wonder impersonator. Before Eddie Murphy started teaching him how to do a better impression, he said “Watch this,” getting a pretty good laugh.
Just imagine how you would feel if you just lost your sight or were just told you have to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair and some “jokers” think it is a great idea to make fun of that.”
I dunno I have a friend in a wheelchair and he has a shirt that says I did it for the Parking space.
Sorry for the double post but Hëll my mother loved Helen Keller jokes!
Reminded me of Guido’s joke, “Why was Helen Keller such a bad driver?”
“Because she was a woman.”
I didn’t see the sketches in question, but on its face, this particular passage of Peter’s post doesn’t seem to be true. What qualifies as lampooning “anything or anyone” that anyone can say its even done?
If anyone is thinking of answering “Borat,” keep in mind audiences didn’t laugh at white people in Borat because they were white. They laughed at his victims because they believed his ridiculous performance. And when his victims didn’t take him seriously, like the weatherman, they still laughed at Borat from the tension of him continuing his performance sincerely.
Comedy becomes cruel and wrong when you’re kicking someone that is down. That is clearly not the case with Patterson. He is lived with his disability for a long time and is a successful and powerful man. He isn’t in any position of helplessness or vulnerabilit, so I say he is fair game.
I guess whether you find this stuff funny or not, could be dependent on whether you were raised NOT to make fun of differently abled people.
Then again, I don’t find “Funniest Home Videos” funny at all.
Megan: “dependent on whether you were raised NOT to make fun of differently abled people.”
First, there’s no such thing as “differently abled” people. That was one of the first major trip ups that started this slide. We suddenly had to start making up ridiculous new names for everything for really no other reason than political correctness.
You’re not handicapped, you’re differently abled. You’re not suffering from disability, you’re physically challenged. You’re not a janitor, you’re a custodial manager. You’re not a plumber, you’re a septic line technician. Etc, etc, etc.
But when the PC police came up with all of these new names to replace those names that supposedly implied inequality they then turned around and demanded inequality. This is a perfect example of that.
“I guess whether you find this stuff funny or not, could be dependent on whether you were raised NOT to make fun of differently abled people.”
If you want equal treatment then you should accept equal treatment. This is equal treatment.
I guess whether you find this stuff funny or not, could be dependent on whether you were raised NOT to make fun of differently abled people.
Hmmm, I don’t know, Megan, it seems to me that a lot of the funniest stuff involves things that are the least like us. You didn’t have to be a bigot to find ALL IN THE FAMILY FUNNY. In fact it probably helped if you weren’t one. At any rate, it’s probably a mistake to try to apply broad generalizations to something as personal as humor. I rather doubt that all the people who were amused by it were necessarily raised by parents who encouraged mocking of the handicapped.
“You’re not handicapped, you’re differently abled. You’re not suffering from disability, you’re physically challenged. “
“You’re not a janitor, you’re a custodial manager. You’re not a plumber, you’re a septic line technician. Etc, etc, etc.”
Except that the first category is generally outside the individual’s control, the second category is not.
“ALL IN THE FAMILY FUNNY” – This could be a cultural thing. I didn’t find “ALL IN THE FAMILY”, all that funny. Then again you might not have found “Kingswood Country” all that funny either.
I certainly can’t stand “Kath & Kim” although my SIL & niece think it’s brilliant.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at December 15, 2008 08:36 AM
It’s not even close tot he first time they did this–remember when Ray Charles hosted?
1- Ray announced that he was only hosting because the show was bing done at Carnegie hall.
Best I remember they chickened out on that one and had Ray reveal he knew they weren’t really at Carnegie Hall.
”Except that the first category is generally outside the individual’s control, the second category is not.”
It doesn’t matter. The root cause for the change was the same problem and the desire by some to force their idea of “acceptable” terms, tags and humor were the same. It was an example of political correctness.
Did they exaggerate any gaffs or problems that Governor Paterson might display or might have displayed in the past owing to his blindness? Yeah, they did. So what? That’s what comedy and parody often does. It takes one small thing about someone or one action of theirs and magnifies it into a humorous caricature. And it’s not only pointed at the handicapped.
Look at Gerald Ford. He was a bit of an outdoorsman in his youth and was a highly decorated athlete in his high school and college years. He tripped one time on camera and his pop culture image, largely shaped by SNL, was of a clumsy bungler with two left feet. Strangely, I don’t recall the PC Police going off the rails about it.
Governor Paterson is being treated just like every other politician has ever been treated by SNL. He’s being treated equally. People can say that they didn’t find it all that funny and that’s their right. No one is required to find anything funny that they don’t find funny and they can say that they didn’t find it funny all day long, but the ”crossed the line” and ”over the line” talk from some combined with the they were cruel to the disabled” bit that’s coming from some quarters is silly. It’s PC garbage.
If someone finds that kind of humor unfunny then they probably shouldn’t have been watching SNL to begin with. Again, that’s their right. It’s not their right to try and cow the people at SNL into apologizing for it and/or into not doing it in the future.
But the ridicule of the sketch can apply to any blind person. It encourages a shame in following the leadership of a blind person. It tells blind people they can’t have an impact on progress. That’s who they’re kicking that’s vulnerable.
What? What does that even mean?
They’re blind, so they’re not even experiencing the show. If you’re referring to a special privilege, what special privilege are they asking for?
What name is being protested? Are blind people insisting the word “blind” doesn’t refer to them? What does that have to do with anything? What are you doing except making relevant to this discussion that slaves were denied their humanity by being referred to as 3/5ths of a citizen, and that names matter?
Lampooning Ford stumbling was based on Ford actually stumbling. Chevy Chase tells people Ford was a stumbling bungler. Whose word that Paterson is a stumbling bungler is SNL basing its lampoon on?
I’m of two minds of this. On the one hand, if people want to be treated as equals, they have to suffer the same stuff as the rest of us. There’s a wonderful cartoonist called John Callahan who is in a wheelchair (and a recovering alcoholic) and does tremendously funny twisted humor, such as a blind man with a cup and a sign reading “Please help, I am blind and black but not musical” or a Western posse finding an empty wheelchair in the desert and one cowboy saying, “Don’t worry, he won’t get far on foot.” It’s completely politically incorrect and hilarious.
However, I didn’t find the SNL sketch either funny or clever. George Carlin said that you can find humor in just anything if you focus on an exaggeration of it — and I didn’t see any of that in the SNL sketch. His describing his situation as “a Richard Pryor” sketch was a good line, but a blind man stumbling around, or an ex-drug addict talking about cocaine, just isn’t funny.
But the ridicule of the sketch can apply to any blind person. It encourages a shame in following the leadership of a blind person. It tells blind people they can’t have an impact on progress. That’s who they’re kicking that’s vulnerable.
Nonsense. By that logic, their depiction of McCain as absentminded and randomly wandering around the set is a shameful attack on the elderly. SNL can’t be held responsible if random blind people decide that they themselves are being slighted.
What’s the alternative? That making fun of Paterson is off limits because he’s blind? Wow, that’s equality. You can make fun of the governor of Illinois but not the governor of New York, because blind people can’t take a joke.
Bûllšhìŧ.
PAD
Fred Armisen’s not white is he? I thought he was latino or something like that.
Fred Armisen is my new god. I always knew he was good, but what did Saturday Night, skewering Amy Poehler’s would-be poignant farewell into running gag about Paterson had me literally laughing out loud for the first time in a long time that I could remember while watching SNL.
As far as whether it was offensive, well, my position on humor is as Eddie Murphy prescribed: It’s going too far when it’s not funny. I laughed my ášš off, so that’s a sufficient barometer for me.
Besides, how can it be offensive to blind people? It’s not like they can see it or anything…..
“What’s the alternative? That making fun of Paterson is off limits because he’s blind? Wow, that’s equality. You can make fun of the governor of Illinois but not the governor of New York, because blind people can’t take a joke.”
Make fun of his policies, his political actions and decisions. Play the ball, not the man.