# Tracy Morgan: I'll kill my son if he talks in a gay voice **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 10, 2011, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tracy-morgan-ill-kill-my-son-if-he-talks-in-a-gay-voice/585027 "2011-06-10T21:13:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 108
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2011, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tracy-morgan-ill-kill-my-son-if-he-talks-in-a-gay-voice/585027/108 "2011-06-13T00:09:59Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > > [@spark240](#): > > > > Can anyone name or link to an original stand-up performance which expresses a point-of-view _clearly_ at odds with the comedian’s genuine, contemporaneous personal feelings in another cited context? > > Sasha Baron Cohen ? Not really stand-up I suppose. Stephen Colbert would be another one. > > ETA: also, Tosh.0 whose stand-up persona is that of an smug, racist little shitstain when the real guy probably isn’t. Sarah Silverman, same thing. What Sacha Baron Cohen does is really nothing like stand-up. He’s basically a situational performance artist whose artwork is the whole scene that develops, not just his own character or the things that character says. Colbert is a little closer, but I’d say that his satire is so broad that it’s not really _expressing_ a right-wing viewpoint. Even with no prior knowledge, I’d think one would have to be pretty dim to take Colbert seriously for longer than a brief segment of his show. Daniel Tosh is a different matter. He may think he’s not “really” racist. He certainly has some fans on this board and elsewhere who would argue that he’s not (and by extension, that they’re not). You say he “probably” isn’t a racist shitstain; is that not just what we’d like to believe? Has he ever actually said anything in any non-performing context that makes this clear? Colbert’s joke is that he is (roughly) pretending to be serious. We’re supposed to think that Tosh’s metajoke is that he’s _not_ serious about his overt jokes–the ones that he and his audiences are, in fact, laughing at? As I said in [one of the Tosh threads](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12872823) last year, > [@Daniel Tosh and racist jokes](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/daniel-tosh-and-racist-jokes/552463/43): > > …I do find it a little suspicious when they go to some lengths to deny that there’s any racism involved, that we’re _all_ engaged in a big meta game making fun of the _real_ racists. Especially when it emerges that, in fact, committed bigots _are_ laughing too. There are some approving mentions of Tosh on the “chimpout” site, including a link to the same “Is it racist?” routine linked here, and the endorsement, > > > [@Justin Igger](#): > > > > Daniel tosh is about the most openly racist TV personality on these days. > > How much does that “irony” really matter when, in some cases, _exactly the same material_ works for genuine, self-identified nigger-haters? Sarah Silverman I am less familiar with, but taking your word that she shows similarities to Tosh, I’ll say the same for her–barring evidence, of course. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Minority comedians often make jokes about the stereotypes applied to their ethnic group as if those stereotypes were true. Do you think the writers and actors on SNL think Stefan is an accurate example of a gay person in NYC? I haven’t watched _SNL_ regularly for a long, long time, so I haven’t seen too much of their current stuff. It wouldn’t be whether the writers and actors think he’s accurate, but whether the depiction is representative of a bias against gay men. Not all stereotypes are hateful, of course. I certainly don’t think that members of minority groups are _incapable_ of producing material which supports discriminatory attitudes against their own groups. With a quick glance at a random vid, Stefon seems to me like he was conceived without real malice, but is still rather dehumanizing, and not funny. I don’t think the attitude towards gay men exemplified there is even distantly comparable to Morgan’s, though. > [@devilsknew](#): > > … or Andy Kaufmann… he misrepresented himself in a sardonic manner constantly. Think he was really a misoygynist and hated the “hillbillies” of Memphis and Jerry Lawler when he was doing his Lady wrasslin’ stint or appearing as his alter ego, Tony Clifton? Again, not a stand-up comedian. Sometimes an actor, sometimes a performance artist–indisputably realms of fiction. > [@Marley23](#): > > Rodney Dangerfield’s jokes about his wife. Joan Rivers’ jokes about her husband Edgar. Not all comedians give interviews to explain their real opinions, of course. I may be wrong, but my impression of Dangerfield’s “wife” jokes wasn’t that they were to be understood as references to his actual wife; did he name her? I found a reference (the _People_ piece that followed Edgar’s suicide) that claimed, “Joan was always careful that she, not he, was the butt of her jokes.” In any case, I’m asking for _evidence_ that the tone of such a routine is at odds with the comedian’s genuine beliefs. If there _is_ no evidence, further assumptions about what the real feelings “must” have been are not illuminating. Unless somebody can provide _one_ clear cite to the contrary, I’m going to stick with **tim314** here. > [@tim314](#): > > A standup comedian does write their material to be funny. And if you find racist or homophobic jokes funny, then yes, it can be an indication that you are a racist or a homophobe. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tracy-morgan-ill-kill-my-son-if-he-talks-in-a-gay-voice/585027)._