I was shocked to find out that Wanda Sykes was asked to give a speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner this past weekend, but was excited nonetheless. She was hilarious, as was Barack Obama himself. The WHCD has a long tradition of giving really edgy speeches that dig into the president, his administration and whatever else strikes the fancy of the comedians that are asked to speak. Let's remember last year's speech from Stephen Colbert.
In the second part of Wanda's speech (first part here), she dug into our least favorite conservative pundit of all time, Rush Limbaugh. She says,
"Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails, so you're saying, 'I hope America fails', you're, like, 'I dont care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq'. He just wants the country to fail. To me, that's treason."He's not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker. But he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight."
"Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails, I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a good waterboarding, that's what he needs."
Naturally, conservatives are up in arms about her joke. Which is ironic considering she is a comedienne and so her job is to say things that are edgy and controversial. We hold Rush Limbaugh accountable for his actions because he is considered legitimate conservative thought and is very important to the GOP. I mean we might think he is an entertainer, but he definitely does not. But Wanda? Wanda makes us laugh, unless she is intentionally trying not to and making a statement. Conservative pundits say whatever they want about liberals, calling us socialists, US haters, mocking us. I guess it is no wonder that wing-nuts are up in arms because while their pundits sound like they are making jokes they are actually being serious.
Take this video for example via Natthedem when Tucker Carlson freely admits that he was comparing Osama bin Laden to Howard Dean. He was being serious.
On the other hand, as to be expected Robert Gibbs has made a statement distancing the White House from Wanda's remarks.
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maybe i'm old fashion, but it still makes me very unconfortable when i hear anyone imply that violence or physical harm would be funny or positive. there is enough to make jokes about other than torturing conservatives. not funny.
But Rush doesn't think waterboarding is torture. He said the other day that Speaker Pelosi deserves a medal for knowing about the authorization of waterboarding (if that's indeed true). Rush thinks waterboarding is great, so suggesting that he be waterboarded shouldn't be insulting to him. He should embrace it.
I agree. And the feeling that I was left with after that joke wasn't "Oh, waterboarding isn't something to take too seriously" ... it was "Isn't it ridiculous to say something like 'waterboarding's no big deal'". She was humorously attacking the fact that Rush thought waterboarding shouldn't be too hard to handle. She was not saying that she wished he would be tortured, just that if he was ACTUALLY tortured he would see how ludicrous those kinds of statements are.
I would be distancing myself from those remarks too. They were disgusting "jokes" in bad form and they weren't even funny.
"Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails, I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a good waterboarding, that's what he needs."
This is not "edgy." This is personally attacking your opponent and hoping he dies. If there's some witty, classy point in that which I am missing, feel free to point it out.
This is no better than the shit Limbaugh himself spews and there is no reason anyone should celebrate it just because it's attacking conservatives instead of liberals.
Rush says he hopes one unit of the country fails (the administration) therefor wishing harm on the entire country. Wanda says she hopes one unit of his body fails (his kidneys) therefor wishing harm on the entire person.
While I don't think its funny, I don't think she wishes serious harm on him and that this was an offhand comment between written and planned jokes.
The conservative reaction to the jokes is overboard and doesn't make complete sense. "Imagine if a comedian "joked" that Obama was a terrorist" writes Toby Harnden in that link.....I don't have to imagine, I can remember during the campaigns people who were -serious- about Obama being a terrorist. FAIL
Seriously. When I read about this, I was like ... So, it's not OK for Wanda Sykes to compare Limbaugh to a terrorist, but it IS OK for major newspapers and other generally ignorant conservative idiots to compare the Obamas to terrorists? Because that latter has been done many, many times in the past eight, twelve months.
exactly. while I can see saying "he needs a waterboarding" is probably not in good taste, comparing him to a conservative=exactly what the New Yorker, and many others, did to Obama. How exactly is this worse than what Ann Coulter gets paid to say every day?
or rather, comparing him to a terrorist.
Well stated.
sorry but when did the standards of "major newspapers and other generally ignorant conservative idiots" become a metric for measuring our own ethics?
I think you're right to point to the hypocrisy of conservative responses to sykes' statements, but I don't see how that justifies them.
I see what you're saying, but (1) It simply means I don't feel all that bad for the conservatives whining about it; (2) Perhaps it was a bit inappropriate and irresponsible, but I'm not one to say 9/11 is off-limits for jokes. I read Samuel Beckett and Kurt Vonnegut; people respond to and deal with and crack jokes about death, disaster, and suffering. Actually, it's ironic for Sykes to turn Limbaugh's own rhetoric back onto him. And let's be honest: the 9/11 hijacker she compares Limbaugh to here did not kill half as many people as Hitler - or frickin' Bagosora/Bizimungu in Rwanda. Or, heck, last year's Sichuan earthquake. 9/11, for Americans, is a disaster which other countries have to deal with on scales 500 times magnified every day. It just annoys me how extremely Eurocentric, nationalist, and protectionist some people can be in proclaiming 9/11 extremely solemn and "off limits."
Not to be a Ward Churchill or to condone violence - of course I don't at all - but come on.
oh! I find jokes about wishing waterboarding on people sort of disgusting and antithetical to anti-violence values, how nationalist and eurocentric of me!!!
the 9/11 part of the joke isn't the only thing that's at issue here (for some it's not even the major issue, if you read the comments)
Um, Sykes and most Democrats are not the ones actually pushing for *REAL NATIONAL POLICIES* condoning torture and other militaristic violence. Republicans ARE. Yes, REAL POLICIES.
Yes, sorry, I did read the other comments. But I'm not sympathetic about the Oxycontin joke because I'm pretty sure taking drugs of pretty much any kind would have been a conscious choice on Limbaugh's part, at least initially, and is also fair game because his own party preaches policies of little tolerance for drug users/dealers and prison policies that refuse to treat drug use as an "illness" - and, again, the party pushes for policies to enforce these morals on others. Regarding Hannity claiming waterboarding is no big deal and he'll do it voluntarily for charity, I don't see anything wrong with Sykes simply asking, "Really?" HE HIMSELF was the one bloviating in all of his cocky macho glory about how "he could handle it" - when it's TORTURE. Sykes wasn't "wishing" anything on him; HE'D ALREADY SAID HE WOULD VOLUNTARILY UNDERGO IT.
I'd also say this is an instance of laughing at the absurd. One cannot *imagine* Hannity being waterboarded by "someone he doesn't trust," a Pakistani, as Sykes suggests; Hannity would NEVER BE waterboarded for various reasons. It's not even possible. It's absurd. This joke is simply not the same as cracking jokes about things that are NOT uncommon, that happen every day, that are not absurd, that could happen to you in 10 minutes, like rape and domestic violence, etc.
People are failing to put Sykes into perspective and pretty much misrepresenting the context of what she was joking about. She never "wished" waterboarding on anyone who hadn't already wished it upon himself.
I love Sykes and the majority of her performance was great. I even thought the Rush-might-be-the-20th-hijacker was quite funny -- primarily because her inclusion of the OxyContin reference made the joke feel very natural.
However, the joke about Rush's kidneys failing felt mean. Mean comedy is still comedy but is inherently held up to more scrutiny. Let's not give this any more credit than a personal taste issue, in spite of how loudly the conservatives are attempting to squeak.
She's not a politician. She's a comedian. And she's awesome!
I dislike Rush Limbaugh intensely, but I also take issue with Sykes' "jokes". (And I really bristle at the "hey, why can't you take a joke?" line of reasoning.) Wishing someone would die of kidney disease is WAY more mean than it is funny. Actually, it's really not funny at all.
I put Rush and Osama bin Laden in the same basic category (bullies/sociopaths - just to a different degree), and I think it's reasonable to be bitter against them.
But I don't want ANYone to be waterboarded. Because that's not something that humans should do. It's something that harms the humanity of the perpetrator, and of those condoning his or her actions. The point is to NOT lower yourself to the evil of your enemy.
What Sykes did here is give some validity to the "hate radio" mentality, legitimizing the tactics of Rush Limbaugh (& ilk). Is that what she intended?
"the point is to NOT lower yourself to the evil of your enemy."
this is so damn freakin' true. on so many levels and in so many situations. *love!*
I returned to work last night after three days off to discover that a patient of mine had died during lunch on Mother's Day. Literally as her children had arrived for a visit. Also, it was eight days after her birthday. In addition to being dead, it just sucks in so many ways for her family (among other things, they have always expected her to get better/were in denial, and had thus never bothered to get her financial or legal affairs in order).
After months of lingering, I consider death freedom from her pain. She was never the same since her last surgery last year.
My point is, she apparently died of effects of dehydration or kidney failure. Her kidneys certainly were going. I also have experience with actual dialysis patients. Their experience is nothing to look forward to. Few if any are able to hold down a job, and their family members also need to stay home to help care for them and drive them to dialysis.
Since my own days of laughing along with and telling hurtful jokes in middle school nearly 30 years ago, I had to realize that they could indeed be hurtful (i.e. racist jokes) to people actually living in those circumstances. Some classmates also had to point out to me, hey, I'm Iranian/Black! etc. during the telling of the "joke." Then I began to notice that the people around me had themselves experienced DV, rape, cancer, AIDS, deaths in the family, and personal tragedy.
Political correctness aside, many attempts at humor are simply triggering to people who've lived through it. So imagining Rush Limbaugh with kidney failure or being waterboarded are hilarious because of his politics? How about him being raped? How about him being beaten by his wife?
i'm so glad you said this. and the last paragraph - is exactly what i was thinking.
what if a comedian had said during a nationally televised political event that they hope Hilary Clinton gets beaten to death by her husband? What if they had said it about Ann Coulter or Sarah Palin? Does that make it better? worse? how would the OP categorize these "jokes"? as edgy? controversial? or just plain wrong?
I've been thinking about the OP all day. I really am disgusted to see it on Feministing.
I thought this was really funny actually. I love Wanda Sykes.
As far as wishing Rush to die, she was turning his phrase about how he wants our country to basically collapse back on him. I thought it was clever and amusing.
The only part I didn't find funny was the waterboarding line because I just don't think waterboarding is funny. But otherwise I don't see the big deal. She's a comedian; she's not a political figure.
Stephen Colbert's speech at the WHCD was actually three years ago, in 2006, and went over so badly with the Bush administration that to make nice, the WHCA brought in comparatively timid comedians Richard Little and Craig Ferguson in 2007 and 2008, respectively.
Now, some of Wanda Sykes jokes did offend me (kidney failing), while most did not (20th highjacker) but then, and I know that is the nature of professional comedy--some of your routine works, and will be retold and retold and passed down into the canon if good jokes, and some will just strike the majority of people as too mean spirited to be funny. Its about pushing the audience and their pushback.
But I don't think its wrong or trivial for conservatives to express offense. In large part I agree with their grief. A joke about kidney failure is not funny to anyone who worries about kidney failure, has experienced it or has had a loved one experience it. We reserve the right to object to rape jokes for a very similar reason. We certainly would object to a joke about a feminist figure dying, and its only fair to be equally offended by a joke about Rush Limbaugh. That doesn't mean we don't think the rest of Wanda Sykes material is funny.
So what if Tucker Carlson said it? Please don't tell me that your stance on appropriate behavior includes the argument, "HE DID IT FIRST!"
This is a really self-absorbed angle you have here. Rush is not an entertainer, but Wanda makes us laugh? Yes, I like her considerably more than Rush. Yes, she does make me laugh, but I'm sure there are people that laugh at Rush too. The criteria for what is appropriate babble for a microphone shouldn't be merely, "is it funny?" but rather, "is the content degrading or cruel?"
Just because there are immature frat boys that think sexual harassment is funny doesn't mean that it's ok because it makes their buddies laugh.
Interestingly enough, the part about kidney's failing didn't offend me. Now the part about waterboarding part did. No one, not even Rush, should be subjected to torture. I wasn't the only one because you'll notice no one laughed there. The joke feel flat and she moved on.
Her commentary regarding Limbaugh was not in the least bit amusing. He says many things that can be easily deconstructed but picking on him for his drug addiction, which is an illness is extremely insensitive. If you have never had to deal with chronic pain you have no idea the careful dance that must be done between pain management and addiction. What happened to him could and does happen to many people daily and it does not make them less of a person either. We have simply chosen to stigmatize those that are addicts.
So Limbaugh's OWN PARTY of the "black-and-white but no gray area" thinks drug users and traffickers are scum and have no qualms about expressing it. They use it as a reason to build a giant fence on our southern border and uproot and deport Mexican illegal immigrants.
??
I really have no idea where all the offense on this thread is coming from.
I don't really know much about the event, but I guess the impression I got from Colbert's speech was that it was a bit of a roast kind of affair.
Frankly going after enemies, no matter how well deserved (and I did like the 20th hijacker bit) seems cheap.
I wasn't offended by the kidney bit, but it wasn't much of a joke either. More of just a plain insult delivered like a joke.
As a "liberal" I can still see plenty of stuff to bust this administration on in a humorous way. She could have gotten a lot of material out of the Air Force 1 NY photo-op, for example.
However Colbert is a pretty damn high watermark, so maybe I'm just being unfair with my expectations.
Those comments she made are jokes?
The first graf trotted out the old conflation of president and country that I find absurd coming from the mouths of progressive people. Since when is the president's identity one and the same with the nation's Wanting your president to fail in his implementation of policies you disagree with is treason?
I think every one of us here was hoping Bush would fail at a lot of what he intended for the country. I also think that we're glad he failed at plenty of things so we wouldn't be dealing with a Republican president and GOP-dominated Congress right now. So enough of this "wanting the president to fail is TREASON!" bull. I really wish generically liberal celebrities would leave the accusations of treason to the right wing. It's better at levying them, anyway.
That twentieth hijacker/Oxycontin joke was pretty lame. And the waterboarding comment, the renal failure comment... How were they remotely funny?
More importantly, how are they defensible, and why is this blog rushing to the defense of lame jokes and really hateful, hypocritical remarks made by a famous comedian? Rushing to their defense totally undermines any moral high ground concerning torture. Since when is it in a feminist blog's purview to go trading videos of liberals and conservatives doing equally shitty things -- tit for tat, man! -- in order to exonerate said famous comedian?
This post made me feel really sleazy.
Oh and PS, I apologize for the ablist language; I'm still trying to kick the "lame" habit.
An excellent point. I think the whole "Limbaugh wants the country to fail" thing has been blown way out of proportion. He said he wants Obama (not the country) to fail because he believes Obama's success would be the country's failure. He's wrong -- but he is entitled to that belief. He believes that Obama succeeding with the policy ideas he ran on means economic and national security disasters for the U.S. Given this belief, it seems logical to hope Obama fails at bringing the US to ruin.
It is entirely possible for one to believe that the Administration is comletely ass-backward (thus rooting for its failure) without surrendering their love of country. Limbaugh simply has a different opinion as to where Obama's policies will lead.
I believed the same thing about Bush -- and thus rooted for his failure. During the Bush Administration, I specifically advocated the idea that dissent was patriotic. I will not change that stance now simply because I happen to agree with the Administration. Dissent is still patriotic.
kbz
A lot of people I respect had a problem with some of her comments but I didn't. I dislike Rimbaugh too much to ever care about his sensibilities. Wanda went hard at him but he goes hard at people all the time so to me the rules of engagement were followed. And I admit the thought of his kidney failure made me chuckle, I think he is the type of person who makes this world a worst place. I will say this might have worked better in her standup were you can vent than in this setting.
i totally agree.
This is where you are wrong. It is not about Limbaugh or his sensibilities. Do you think he is the only person to ever succumb to drug addiction because of chronic pain? Do all of those people deserve to be denigrated right alongside him? Tell me have you ever spent months unable to move because your body was in such intense pain? Do you have any idea what it is like to count your meds and decide whether you can stand the pain for five more minutes or just simply succumb and take an extra? Those little extras occur because living in pain is maddening and Limbaugh is not the only one whose pain tolerance would not allow him to just suck it up.
"Naturally, conservatives are up in arms about her joke. Which is ironic considering she is a comedienne and so her job is to say things that are edgy and controversial. We hold Rush Limbaugh accountable for his actions because he is considered legitimate conservative thought and is very important to the GOP."
Um, it's not only conservatives - and this joke does hold Limbaugh "accountable", it crosses so many different lines - 9/11, terrorism, kidney failure, torture??
I'm sorry but 9/11 was less than *ten* years ago. i'm not ready to here jokes about it. i don't think anyone in nyc (or DC or pennsylvania) is ready to hear jokes about it. i don't think i'll *ever* be ready to her jokes about it. not only is it *not* funny, it's horrible, inappropriate, inconsiderate, thoughtless.
The white house press secretary said of Sykes reference, "I think there are a lot of topics that are better left for serious reflection rather than comedy.""
I have to agree with him on this one.
and I don't like that the OP calls this joke "edgy and controversial"
and implies that these references are okay as long as we're making fun of a conservative? No.
I'm sorry, that second part should read "this joke does NOT hold Limbaugh accoutable"
Love the Rachel Maddow/Tucker Carlson clip. What a disingenuous asshole. I especially like the bit at the end where he is talking about how stupid college students are and how they should all be in trade school instead of college, and it's illustrated with almost 100% people of color. Very subtle, Tucker, very subtle.
I find it too bad that for some reason the asshole always seems to end up talking the most and getting the most air time, even when he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. Poor Rachel has to sit there patiently in the beginning while he's trying to explain how, in his world, the total nonsense makes sense. Amazing.
I think her entire bit would have been fine at her own comedy show. However, it was a little harsh for the nationally televised Correspondents Dinner.
The waterboarding bit didn't bother me. Neither did the 20th hijacker part. The joke about Rush's drug addiction and the kidney failure part rubbed me the wrong way. I don't think someone's very real drug problems should be joked about. And while I don't think Wanda wants Rush's kidneys to fail, I don't think that's fair game either. My best friend had to get a kidney transplant when she was 13 after they mysteriously failed, and she has to take a dozen different pills twice a day every day for the rest of her life. It's no laughing matter.
what I dont' like about the Limbaugh jokes is that they overshadow her excellent punchlines about Cheney, robbing a bank, and rescuing the country from a previous owner that was abusive. Those were perfect and yet this stupid Limbaugh stuff is all people are talking about. THAT makes it a big fail to me. :-(
Like everyone else, I think the "jokes" were distasteful.
If those jokes were made about any member from a group, said group would be rightly offended- just as conservatives are about this comment.
Although I found Sykes' comments to be funny (I think attacking a single person that way is more valid than attacking a class of people that way), I agree with what a previous commenter said about it being more appropriate for her own show. However, after watching the videos, what I really wanted to comment about is: WTF is up with that bowtie on Tucker Carlson? Combined with his hair, it makes him look like Keith Partridge.
Take this video for example via Natthedem when Tucker Carlson freely admits that he was comparing Osama bin Laden to Howard Dean. He was being serious.
Yeah, that's really outrageous. Like calling someone a representative of the Taliban wing of the Republican party.
I really like Wanda. I wouldn't think this to be inappropriate if it were her own stand up special or something, but for the venue, I don't think it was the best decision. She IS a comedian and I do think comedians do have more of a give when it comes to ALL subjects. Even the ones that offend me. the nature of comedy often includes someone being picked on, but...I do think it was a little crass.
I don't, however, think it was any worse than what the far right says about women and minorities on a daily basis.
The death of Rush Limbaugh wouldn't be a loss for me. Do I WISH him dead? Not specifically. However, he says stuff every single day w/o an ounce of irony or humor. He's a freaking racist, on top of being bigoted in basically every other way. If he can dish it out, then people shouldn't be crying when it's aimed at him.
LMAO. I love her so much. That is hilarious. Yes, it's extreme, but that is what comedians do-they use hyperbole and exaggeration to make a joke or a point. She's just telling it exactly how it is. She's showcasing the hypocrisy that is so endemic to the GOP.
Personally, I find the torture, warrantless spying, and wiretapping endorsed by Republicans to be far more offensive than anything that Wanda Sykes could ever say. Those people need to reprioritize what they find offensive. I think the fact that innocent people were subjected to torture is the real offense.
Again you assume that her commentary is only offensive to conservatives. As a person that lives with chronic pain I did not find it in the least bit fucking funny and my liberal creds are in tact. Call Limbaugh an ashole, pick on his politics but his addiction due to pain is not funny. If you can laugh at that you have never spent any significant amount of time trying to negotiate chronic pain. Since you find it so fucking amusing I dare you to trade places with someone who lives with it on a daily basis; I bet those tears of laughter would stop immediately.
I've had chronic headaches for over 20 years since the age of 4. Freaking sucks, so I do understand chronic pain all too well...
I don't think her jokes had anything to do with actual pain management and more to do with the hypocrisy that Limbaugh embodies. Don't judge lest ye be judged and all that. And the fact that the Republicans are generally the ones in favor of the absurd, money-wasting and racist "war on drugs" that's done little except incarcerate a lot of non-violent offenders.
"Those people need to reprioritize what they find offensive."
Oh, yes, please. Maybe it's because the moral high-ground holds no attraction for me, but I feel that Limbaugh totally deserves (what would in other circumstances be) the uncalled-for stuff -- and more -- after all he's unloaded on every political minority over the years. Abject bigotry is not a side-effect of drug addiction or any other physical affliction.
No one is saying that it is a side effect of his illness. They are saying that the condition itself isn't funny and if you can approve it for Limmbaugh how long before the tolerance level expands so that it is applied to others?
"the condition itself isn't funny and if you can approve it for Limmbaugh how long before the tolerance level expands so that it is applied to others?"
As far as I've seen, it is applied to others already, very publicly by Rush himself. So, in this context, Sykes's jokes aren't so much insensitive as they are (like justsarahbarah says below with "karma") confronting Limbaugh with his own ethical standards.
Like several of the other commenters, I just can't get behind public statements wishing violence on others, no matter how jokingly. If we want people to take seriously our arguments against "jokes" about violence against women, then we've simply got to set a strong example by holding ourselves to the same ethical standards.
The only part I found offensive was the Oxycontin joke. The rest was really funny, imo, but for some reason I just cringed at the Oxycontin thing.
But honestly, I don't think her voice had enough... rancor in it for me to hear her jokes and think, "Oh my god! She wants Olbermann to waterboard Limbaugh!"
I didn't find that particular joke funny, and I love Wanda Sykes. The rest of her routine was awesome, but, I dunno, the delivery was just off on those ones. I doubt she would actually want Limbaugh hurt, but I find it easy to believe that she dislikes him as much as I do and let that feeling enter her voice when she got to the Limbaugh stuff.
Also, quick note: Colbert was the 2007 headline entertainment, not the 2008 performer.
I think part of what was so appealing about Wanda was she went bare knuckles on Limbaugh. So often the left looks so weak and unable or willing (except for Hillary) to trade blows. The Angels need sharp swords too.
I can't even believe we have to explain the joke, but here goes:
Wanda Sykes doesn't want Rush's kidney to "fail." She's pointing out how ridiculous it is of him to want our country to "fail."
It's funny. And to all those who say that we don't get to make fun of people just because they make fun of people....yes we do. That's called karma. They get back what they have put in the world. Except that they don't, since this joke pales in comparison to the hate Rush spews. So Wanda is really just being charitable.
Agreed.
please can u send rachel maddows over to the uk?