From my couch in friendly Sweden I just watched the Jay Leno show. One of the opening gags:
Leno has watched Al-Jazeerah, and taped a commercial which he has brought to the show. The commercial is shown. It shows the crafty Baghdad entrepeneur / fence “Crazy Ali” advertising all kinds of stuff stolen in the Iraqi lootings of recent days. Ali looks like the result of cross-breeding a stereotypical american used-cars dealer with a stereotypical arab guy. In the background is a collage of news footage from the lootings.
So Leno’s writers cracked a joke with usual subtle finesse. Nothing new under the sun.
How do this kind of joke spin with an Iraqi, or an arab in general? That it is featured in the talk show most popular with the people that currently claims to be Iraqs “liberators”?
My belief: pretty poorly.
You guys?