You want funny? Here you go;
What do you call ten racists and a successful, funny comedian who’s “edgy”?
Eleven racists.
Eeesh, you have the miraculous talent of making Maher seem funny by comparison.
Wait! Wait! You haven’t heard my “Danish people are always putting marmalade in my socks” routine!
Cool. I like those guys, too. But enjoying Maher doesn’t preclude me enjoying other comedians, too. I recognize Maher’s eccentricities and limitations, but over the years I’ve been entertained by his show and genuinely learned a lot from it, about the world and about the personalities of some of his guests.
I will say, though, that some of us are casually throwing around words like “offensive” and “racist” in a way that has only the most tenuous relationship to what those words actually mean. Or else, perhaps, being too willing to condemn someone for alleged sins based on a paucity of the flimsiest evidence interpreted in the harshest and most uncharitable way possible.
Various posters in various places, including privately, have described the recent trajectory of this thread as a “train wreck”. I agree, and with apologies for my own substantial role in perpetuating it, I think it may be instructive to have this little meta post about how we got so sidetracked, and hopefully we can get back to the topic. In case anyone’s forgotten in all this mess, the actual topic here is Bill Maher’s show, Real Time.
Way back on September 15 – seemingly about a thousand posts ago now – I made a pretty straightforward on-topic post about Maher’s poor handling of an interview with skeptic and borderline climate change denier Bjorn Lomborg.
The insufferable asshole Chingon – who I now have on permanent ignore – then made a very offensive post implying that I was a racist, because it wasn’t good enough to just criticize Maher on some issues; one apparently has to hate Maher on all issues all the time – unless, of course, one was a racist like me. (Or something like that – I’m certainly not going back to read that offensive garbage again.)
It might have ended there but Mundane_Super_Hero for some reason felt the need to take us further off the rails by pursuing the racism tangent. And now the racism tangent has morphed into the Islamophobia tangent.
And, no, Jackmannii and some others, I’m not going to be goaded into Islam-bashing in order to defend Maher or anyone else.
It’s amazing how we got into this hole from an on-topic post about Maher’s poor handling of an interview with a climate change denier, but this is the Dope, and this is the Pit, and here we are. I would sure like us to get back to discussing this sometime-provocative show, because many of the guests and topics are well worth discussing.
No, you voluntarily defended Maher’s Islam-bashing.
I’m not sure you realize which forum this thread is in. This ain’t Cafe Society.
I was a big Bill Maher fan for a good decade and a half. I started watching his stuff when he was still on network TV. When he moved to HBO I sometimes read the trancripts of his show to get my fix. I loved watching him whenever he was a guest on a talk show. Later they started posting stuff on Youtube. Fridays meant a new Straight Dope column and a new Real Time. I thought he was funny. His show got me interested in politics. I couldn’t tell you if I learned anything from it, 'cause I don’t remember.
I can tell you this, he’s been saying stupid, edgelord shit as long as I’ve been watching him. On Politically Incorrect, he once said developmentally disabled children have no more moral worth than his dog. Not as a joke. However, he did sincerely apologize the next night at the top of the show.
Then he segued into the first segment with, “Speaking of covering your ass…” That’s funny. Funny enough that I remember it almost a quarter century later. He said something sickening. He said something funny. I feel no cognitive dissonance saying those two things.
I don’t think he’s a racist, but his response to Sasse was, essetially, “I wouldn’t work your fields even if I were your Black slave.” If that’s not what he meant then why say “n*****?” Oh, I know why, because he thinks it’s a cool, edgy word all those cool weed-smoking rappers use. He’s cool like them, he smokes weed with Killa Mike. The guy is a terminal adolescent and not a particular bright one, it seems, despite being Ivy League Educated™ (yup, Bill Maher has an degree from Cornell).
He doesn’t know any more about Islam than you do and what he knows he saw on the news or read in the newspaper. In other words, he knows nothing about Islam, less than you do.
I’ll bring it back around to Bjorn Lomborg. I’ve established that I’ve been watching Bill’s show(s) probably quite a bit longer than you have. I’ve also been acquainted with Bjorn much longer than you have. In fact, the first time I heard of Bjorn was when I saw him on a talk show somewhere. What show was it? Let me have a think, see if I can remember…
Ah, I rememer!
It was Bill’s show, not Real Time, Politically Incorrect. Bill Maher knows damn well who Bjorn Lomborg is and he’s known for decades.
To be fair to Bill, this is only the second time he’s had him on his current show.
Doesn’t seem funny to me. Sounds like a dismissal of his own apology, makes me question how sincere it was.
I watched Politically Incorrect for a while, and enjoyed it. But I haven’t payed much attention to Maher since then. His pompous ass demeanor isn’t entertaining.
He’s an entitled prick. Rappers use that word, it must be cool for me to use it, too.
I once made what I thought was a funny joke meant to include someone in the conversation. But it was an unthinking bigoted remark. The difference is I learned from that mistake and looked at why I chose that remark so I wouldn’t repeat that type of thought. Also, I was 19.
If Maher keeps making “edgy” remarks based on racial stereotypes, then he might not be an overt racist, but he’s certainly comfortable with those stereotypes. Casual racism is still a problem.
Yeah, funny is overstating it. It would be more accurate to say that it really broke the tension. The apology seemed sincere in that he didn’t try to get out of it by claiming it was nothing more than a failed joke.
It seems like Bill’s been 19 for nearly 50 years.
His biggest problem is plain ol’ ignorance. He’s plenty smart but doesn’t know anything. He really thought that a death bed repudiation by Pasteur (which there’s no evidence for) invalidated the germ theory of disease. Can you imagine walking around like that? One shudders.
So back to the topic of the actual show, I know that this goes back two weeks, to the show prior to last Friday’s, but WTF? Were you watching the same show I watched? Whatever one may think of Bret Stephens, he was there to the end, and furthermore, there were reaction shots during the New Rules segment of both Ruhle and Stephens, individually and sometimes both together.
But Ruhle seemed to appreciate Maher’s jokes more – she was the one who spit out water or whatever she was drinking during one of Maher’s gags! 
Let no one tell Stephanie Ruhle that Bill Maher “isn’t funny”!
Maybe she just really likes spitting in public.
I don’t think that’s true–but I’d have to watch the segment again to verify, and at the moment the point doesn’t seem worth the time.
Wait, he doesn’t believe in the germ theory of disease?
Does he think the earth is flat?
I just thought he was a shallow self important blow hard. Didn’t realize he was an idiot.
Oh no, he is very much an idiot, at least where medicine is concerned. Think Joe Rogan in a suit.
The reason he’s a germ theory skeptic is the same reason he seems to be left of center at all: he’s very skeptical of big business. Big pharma is a part of that so it follows, in his mind, that medical science is equally suspect. Combine that with the fact that he knows nothing about science and Bill’s your uncle.
I haven’t seen the clip but had Stephens left, well, that would be the proverbial “I think we would have heard about that,” certainly with someone as beloved and admired as he is.
Bill Maher has a net worth of $140 million and is part owner of the New York Mets. He is big business.
He probably considers himself middle class, though.
I’m not sure that either of those things is still true, and for the same reason 
Which I think is fair enough. On a comedy show, an apology, however heartfelt, has to be followed by a laugh otherwise the show is totally derailed. It sounds like Maher did a better job of it than Jon Stewart early in this new season (though Stewart has redeemed himself, and then some)
Ignorance of science seems to be a big issue all round, including here in the UK. Whether presenters have come from a media background, or comedy, or journalism they likely haven’t come from a science background, so most TV presenters / hosts have frankly dumb opinions on a lot of science topics.
What tends to stop most from expressing those opinions, most of the time though, is just a worry about being out of their depth. They know they couldn’t read a scientific paper given 10 years with the author sat next to them, so they try not to go there.
So the distinguishing thing with Maher is the arrogance (plus the door has been open for a while in the US, and people like Rogan have taken any shame away)