As his own comedy routine suggests, it's pretty awesome being a white heterosexual male.

I think he makes sense, and is trying to defend the comedic circumstance. That, however, is asking for to much realization.

@1, yeah, I totally agree. I was watching these tweets as they happened and totally groaned. I wanted to reply, but acknowledged the pointlessness of the debate. Comedians (seem to, judging here, sorry) never understand that comedy is often taken at face value. Subtext is often lost on people with prejudice.

GAY GAY STAB STAB FAT KIDS!

Did I do that right? Am I an edgy comedian now?

You did great kiala. I've never been so proud!

I think Tracy's problem is that he apologized. If you're gonna make awful stupid biggoted jokes, at least have the cajones to stand behind them. Take ownership of your words and accept that there's some people who're going to dislike you because of it.

The joke isn't words that Tracy Morgan said. The joke is "Tracy Morgan saying things." Anyone who thinks that Tracy Morgan-the-man is going to stab his son if he talks like a faggot, or that people who actually believe that are going to point to Tracy Morgan and say, "See? He agrees with us," or that he is going to convince someone who was on the fence about gay people, is a moron.

If you don't think it was funny, then whatever. I don't want to live in a world where comedians don't tell jokes they are afraid will be misinterpreted, though.

You're all gigantic fudgy fat kids and I hope Tracy Morgan stabs you in your gay faces with Louis CK's privileged self righteous white cock.

I'm pretty sure the whole rant thing was a set up for this joke

"if you can take a dick in the ass then you can take a joke"

which is actually pretty funny

@Tornado I want to have your manbabies

Thank you for proving my point that this type of comedy invites people to believe/say terrible things. Your patronage is appreciated.

Who is being invited to believe terrible things? I don't really understand your point beyond "some jokes go too far and this joke went too far and people who make jokes like this go too far and they are bad."

Louis CK's routine is about the word "faggot" and the way it is used to belittle people.

One of the major themes of his material is white/male/hetero privilege and how blind people are to socially conditioned "differences." It's amazing how easily he can make a joke by displaying some characteristic of privileged people and pointing at it.

You don't understand English, let alone comedy, so I banish you from this conversation.

You can't fathom or respect different points of view. So I pre-banish you. So there.

No, I just can't believe that someone could take something Louis CK says so literally, ignoring the irony in a routine where he says he would never call someone a faggot for being gay, unless they were "being a faggot."

I can definitely understand someone who says that jokes about denigrating or attacking gay people aren't funny. Most of the time, they aren't funny. I just think that Tracy Morgan and Louis CK are funny, smart comedians, and calling them "abusers of human beings" is a fucking stupid thing to say.

I don't think that you're really saying that comedians shouldn't joke about something for fear of being taken seriously by dumb people who don't understand their jokes. Do you think it's a cheap laugh? They are stroking the egos of people who think they are enlightened and tolerant? I'm not sure, and if you want me to try to understand your point of view, you'll have to make it a little less opaque.

I hear you. I'm at work on break, otherwise I'd love to give this a more thoughtful response. But here is my shot at it.

There is a massive difference between the CK routine, which is an intelligent exploration of an offensive word, and the TM routine. I don't love it the CK bit, it makes me uncomfortable. BUT it also makes me laugh and makes me think. I had to come to the conclusion with some work.

Tracy Morgan's on the other hand was pure hate speech. It's an offensive spurt of violent, homophobic idiocy. This is the language that puts a kid on the edge and emboldens others to speak similarly.

Keep in mind the backdrop going on right now for lgbt people all over the states. We're repeatedly mocked in popular culture (just watch ten minutes of snl), we are drug into politics daily, everything from marriage rights to serving in the armed forces - all against the backdrop of having no real legal protections for how we were born.

So yeah. I don't think it's funny if someone says he'd stab me in the face if I were his child. And fuck it, I'd love to go back 50 years in time and see what kind of response I'd get by saying I'd stab my kid in the face if he happened to be black.

Thanks for your response. I realize more the longer this conversation goes on that it's pretty easy for me to say something like that is funny, since I grew up in a pretty sheltered environment: my parents specifically told me that it was OK if I was gay, the teachers at my Catholic high school wouldn't put up with any anti-gay crap (this was well before gay marriage was talked about as a possibility, so it might be a little easier to call "political opinion" now), &c. I've never been called a faggot.

So I'm less sensitive to the hugely offensive text of the joke than I am to the subtext: Tracy Morgan is an outrageous comedian who essentially plays a character all the time. "Tracy Morgan" says horrible, reptile-brained shit. He's an idiot. And he's constantly puffed up as being talented and funny. ("Tracy Morgan" basically plays himself on 30 Rock.) And when "Tracy Morgan" says he would stab his son if he couldn't come out to him like a man rather than a mincing priss, I think that's funny. Tracy Morgan knows that "Tracy Morgan" is an idiot.

(Read the Facebook post that started this whole shebang, as the substance of his routine has lost a lot of subtlety, such as it has: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=…)

So I think Tracy Morgan told the joke for people who think "Tracy Morgan" is a terrible human being. I think his apologies are sincere, and I kind of think it was the right thing to do. That doesn't mean telling the joke in the first place was wrong; sometimes a comedian just has to "go there" and deal with the consequences.

Louis CK's jokes are more textual and less sub-textual, so they're definitely easier to understand, which is why I took such umbrage at someone's interpretation of his jokes as being 180 degrees from the intended meaning.

Basically, I have more reverence for comedy than I do for people. Maybe that makes me a dick.

How do you have sex with a 16 year old girl?.....YOU DONT! Dont even think about it...Its illegal and wrong...I just did a pedophile joke...Its not right but its funny/true.
No body thinks pedophilia is funny but that is funny.
Horse walks into a bar..bartender says 'why such a long face'...Horse says: rampant alcoholism is ripping my family apart... Not funny, yet funnnnnnnyyyyy. All of your opinions about comedy is as funny as AIDS...look another joke. Not funny, but its funny! The only asshole in your life is in the mirror, now wipe off your mouth and get to work.

Fruit Cup's Official Rules of Comedy:
1) Never, ever offend anyone

Oh, how the tables have turned: now it's Fruit Cup saying someone went too far in their joke-making.

The last time we met, I was condemning the idiocy that is WSH. Reasonable people can disagree about whether his post was racist; just as people can disagree about whether TM's gay-bashing joke was funny. (Personally, I found it a little funny.)

As CK said, people voicing their opposition to a joke is encouraged; yet we should not proscribe which subjects comedians can/cannot address. That's dumb.

It would be more constructive to allow comedians a rarefied space where they can freely express themselves. Humor shouldn't have to pass any litmus test. If people laugh, they laugh; if they don't, well isn't that punishment enough?

Wait... do you think that if Tracy Morgan comes out with even more anti-gay hate "jokes" people will think he's not a closet case?

There's a large talent gap between them.

@eldepeche, pleasure talking with you today. I think we both arrived at a middle ground. Glad I could learn a bit about your stance. You're well spoken, and I appreciate that. Honestly, I only know TM from 30Rock, which I've always taken as him playing himself. SO that makes sense. But for me, and the recent Hawthorne beatings are added context that informs my judgment, he went over the line. I do, however, accept the apology. My only real point (if I had one) is that I was disappointed that Louis CK felt the need to hop into the fray at this point. It seems a bit like tearing a band-aid off needlessly.

@Chundy, you're trying too hard.

@FC Problem?

http://cdn2.knowyourmeme.com/i/000/096/044…

No problems. Just don't see the point in making the rounds with you today.