Monday, October 15, 2012

Permanent Alcohol-Induced Brain Damage? Hi-larious!: I should know better than to read round-ups of lines from celebrity roasts. But I made the mistake of following a link from the blog A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago to an article on Grub Street NY that claims to list "The 22 Best Lines From Last Night’s Roast of Anthony Bourdain." The lines were pretty rough and nasty, as is apparently expected for roasts, but then I came up on this one from alleged comedian Bonnie McFarlane:
"I didn’t wanna be mean tonight, but this is like a roundup of people with fetal alcohol syndrome." 
This was a preface to a riff on how ugly the men in attendance were, which also included a har-de-har-har about people deformed by "Japan's nuclear explosion."

And this is funny ... how?

It wasn't that long ago that Wayne Brady used Down syndrome as a way to insult the appearance of a roastee. He's since apologized, but ... sheesh, is this really the best that people who supposedly get paid to be funny can do? Use individuals with disabilities as a reference point for insults? They don't even have the cover of those who claim they use the R-word in a way that has nothing to do with people with intellectual disabilities. These cracks are clearly and purposefully insulting someone by comparing them to an individual with fetal alcohol syndrome or Down syndrome. There's no gray area here. And that's no laughing matter.

Look, if you want to roast someone and insult them in the grossest, most profane, most obscene way you can think of, fine, apparently there's an audience for that, go get 'em. The people who attend these things know they're going to get it, and can afford to be good sports. But leave my kid out of it. There's nothing at all funny about fetal alcohol syndrome. It's not a joke.

And for what it's worth, my kid is friggin' adorable. The guys in that room should be so lucky as to look like him.


1 comment:

Tina said...

ooohhh - letter going to Bonnie McFarlane roght now dammnit!!