Harry’s Place

Jacky Mason is past it. Sarah Silverman is so much funnier. (This is not a comment on McCain/Obama - but on their respective comedy routines.)

He’s right. Not about McCain, but about the presumptuousness of Silverman’s video. (Which was hilarious of course, but utter bullshit.)

Unfortunately I have to agree - and I love Jacky Mason, shame. The clip wasn’t funny, odd use of sound effects (people still use canned laughter?) and they couldn’t at least at least light him properly? Mason missed the boat on this one.

She is certainly ‘hotter’ than Mason.

I’d say the chances that a bubbie and zadie Silverman-backlash loses Obama the election are about the same as Iran handing over their ex-prex to Interpol.

But its nice to see a pissed off old Jewish guy indignant over being called a racist by someone he’s never met. Warms the heart.

Actually Mason has been moderately even handed. And Sarah Silverman is a Yenta.

the presumptuousness of Silverman’s video.

That was part of the humour.

In jr’s video, Mason calls McCain “a blatant, out-and-out, disgusting low-life.” Not exactly an endorsement.

and in the Mason-Silverman one he doesn’t directly endorse Mccain. I get the impression he still doesn’t like him.

the presumptuousness of Silverman’s video.
That was part of the humour.

It may be possible that I’m losing my sense of humor during this election. But presuming that Jews are racist, and that this racism might cost the Democrats the election, is controversial to say the least. So it demands some sort of critique. But a good joke always pisses someone off, so….

Surprisingly mild. I guess it’s not nice to call someone a Yenta. What does it mean?

I don’t think Mason supports Obama though.

He called David Dinkins a “fancy schvartze with a moustache”.

Mind you, Obama hasn’t got a moustache, so he might have a chance.

This drollery is not very droll. Is it just me or did he plain miss the joke???

no Mason is a republican at the end of the day, and in common with a lot of republicans appears to be less than over the moon about the ticket. Anyway what bothers me is that whenever the republicans put up what appear to be joke candidates, they win - e.g. Reagan, dubya. Mccain is a creepy old bastard who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on half the time, and as for wonderwoman… Against which the democrats appear to have chosen two mentally alert, functioning humanoids. And unfortunately on past form my betting would be on the Adams family.

I think many people may have missed something about the Silverman video.

If a black comedienne made a video about how ignorant, racist black people were going to lose Obama the election by not going out to vote, its conceivable that some black people might get upset, no? Wouldn’t you be surprised if they didn’t? By missing that, you have missed part of the joke. That is, the funny offensive part.

She hid this by making it look like as if she was really offending the black yuppie sitting beside her. But that was her playing it safe actually.

She was calling Jews racist, in a funny way, but it is what it is.

If she was just calling old people racist, its not clear to me why she brought in her Jewishness, or why some other non-Jewish comedienne didn’t make this joke first.

My favourite Jewish comedian is of course the wonderful Woody Allen, although he now makes films for the English Tourist Board.

No prizes for guessing who he will be voting for.

In fact tops period.

For those, like me who didn’t know, a Yenta is an interfering busybody of a woman, a gossip.

Mason is 100% on the ball. He says “Vote for who YOU think is right for the Country”.

He’s right that Yenta didn’t need to embarrass herself and the Jewish Community by making it a Jews For Obama broadcast.

He’s right that Obama has accomplished nothing.

He’s right that no-one knows what Obama stands for.

So, how can he be wrong?

When Jackie Mason played Wembley for Israel’s 60th, he went down like a ‘lead gefilte fish.’

He used his set to call Obama a shvartzer, and that in my book is racist.

I posted this before OT on another thread. I wondered about classifying retired Florida Jews as bigoted. Wouldn’t these be the same generation as the “civil rightsy” Jews? As I recall, there was a previous HP link to a spoof talk show interview with Florida Jews, where they also resisted the attempt to show them up as racist and acquitted themselves quite well.
Whether an accurate target or not, I expect a Bateman cartoon reaction to my statement that despite all my offsprings’ attempts to join them on the floor rolling about laughing at Silverman over the past couple of years, I can only manage the occasional hah.

I used to find Mason hilarious, but he has become increasingly fossilised and is now flatly unfunny.

field, the great Yiddish expert (all of a sudden) tell them what a “ferkate knebesh shlemil” is - you should know!

My link didn’t work, so here’s the gist of the review from the JC:

In comparison, the king of kosher comedy Jackie Mason went down like a lead gefilte fish. His jokes about Indian doctors, gay interior designers and “schwarzer” US presidential candidates felt dated and unfunny and caused some members of the audience to walk out. His impression of Henry Kissinger and an admittedly rather funny gag about Moshe Dayan proved how long he has been using this material.

The former rabbi got a few laughs as he delivered his punchlines which invariably included the words “putz” or “shmuck” or “yenta”, but mostly out of a kind of nostalgia.

His observation that Barack Obama had not done anything particularly noteworthy apart from being black — and even then he is only half-black as his mother is black but his father is white — verged on the offensive. No less questionable was his line: “If you ordered a black couch and something the colour of Barack Obama turned up, you wouldn’t be happy.”

Mason sure told that Silverman by calling her a yenta.

Mason was probably so angry in the video not because of Silverman implying that elderly Jewish voters may not vote for Obama because he is black but because of her comment telling people that they should threaten their grandparents with only one visit if they don’t vote Obama - and that, “they better hope they stay healthy till next year”.

(Mason is 72)

“If you ordered a black couch and something the colour of Barack Obama turned up, you wouldn’t be happy.”

Well, I have couch, and it is the colour of Barack Obama, and I am happy. I didn’t actually buy because it was the colour of Barack Obama though.

He used his set to call Obama a shvartzer, and that in my book is racist.

That’s pretty rum; apparently he apologised for calling Dinkins a schvartze.

To a large extent what is funny about Mason is also what was funny about Bernard Manning - timing,delivery,bluntness. Often despite the material. Mason is nowhere near as offensive and bigoted as Manning was, but his race-related material is definitely past its sell-by date. But he can still be very funny.

Sometimes a comedian has had his day. This sort of thing was considered hilarious at some stage. The times have moved on and Mason’s shtick just does not seem to be funny any more. Mason should simply retire.

I don’t think Silverman was flat-out saying that older Jews are racist– although I can understand why some might see it that way. She was making the point that someone with a name and background like Obama’s might be disconcerting to some older Jews who don’t know anything else about him. And let’s face it, some rightwing Jews are doing their best to fan fears and doubts about Obama when it comes to his alleged Muslim connections and his support for Israel.

“let’s face it, some rightwing Jews are doing their best to fan fears and doubts about Obama when it comes to his alleged Muslim connections and his support for Israel.”

It doesn’t help matters that, by Obama’s own estimate, he sat through over 500 sermons, nearly allo of them delivered by Jeremiah Wright, at Trinity United.

OFF TOPIC -

I was cut off in mid flow, as the Toben thread was closed. HOwever having spent a few minutes on it, I thought I’d pop it here anyway.

FROM THE TOBEN THREAD:

This is the standard of Fabian’s argument:

I SAID:

“No one who favours locking up Toben for his views has put forward a reason why this principle should not be applied to other brutal mass murders in history”

HE SAYS:

“This is a complete red herring and irrelevant to the point.”

Yep that’s it. No further elaboration.

****

I’m sorry Fabian, but the massacres of Armenians by Turks, of Hindus by Muslims, of Tutsis by Hutus, of Darfurians by Arabs and the destruction of Tibet by the Han Chinese have been every bit as brutal as the holocaust and the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis.

Why on earth would you think that this principle of banning free speech in order to prevent the denial of a historical reality can be applied to just one such event, even if it is in many ways uniquely horrible for the way it was organised and conducted with such perverted rationality? Other atrocities in Africa have been uniqualy horrible in their own way e.g. in that family members were made to sexually assault siblings or parents and then murder them: that did not happen on any routine basis in the holocaust.

There is no doubt in my mind that many Hutu racists will downplay the suffering of the Tutsis and seek to deny the historical realities - and will secretly harbour the hope that one day they can finish off the job.
There is no doubt in my mind that the whole Chinese state apparatus consciously denies the historical reality of the murder, rapine, looting and cultural genocide that has taken place in Tibet.

So it’s not a red herring. You have failed utterly to explain why the Holocaust should be dealt with differently from all other mass murder events in history. ”

*****

Apologies for that. But it’s annoying when you’ve invested some time and thought only to find a thread cut off in its prime.

I think the Silverman clip was much funnier than the one by Mason.

Unfunny, but at least he isn’t ordering people how to vote or intimidating them with threats of being labelled racist if they don’t vote a certain way.

I suppose it’d never occur to S. Silverman that elderly Jews won’t vote for Obama because they’re experienced and wiley, and so know Obama has all the substance of cotton candy.

She more she castigates them, the more they’ll side with the Republicans.

Why would Jews not want to vote for someone who spent 20 years in an anti-semitic church? Mystifying. They must be racist.

“She was making the point that someone with a name and background like Obama’s might be disconcerting to some older Jews who don’t know anything else about him…some rightwing Jews are doing their best to fan fears and doubts about Obama when it comes to his alleged Muslim connections and his support for Israel.”

Uh, Gene what were you watching? There were no Muslims in the routine. But there was a dull-looking black man on the couch sitting next to Silverman. She spent most of the schtick comparing Jews and Blacks. The whole point was that old Jews are scared of black people, i.e. racist. The Daily Show did the same routine (with a black reporter) a month or two ago. I thought both were kinda funny, but…

“Why would Jews not want to vote for someone who spent 20 years in an anti-semitic church?”

Because otherwise they wouldn’t get to vote at all?

In an Obama Presidency, this will more or less be ubiqutous.

“I’m vetoing this drilling bill, I suspect it’s racist”
“People are blaming me for allowing Iran to get the bomb while I went on my 17th world vanity diplomacy tour, that’s because I don’t look like the other Presidents on the dollar bills”.
“Governor Palin’s State is fiscally solvent, wheras the federal government is defaulting on it’s loans. Hence our creditors are racist.”

etc. etc.

Uh, Gene what were you watching? There were no Muslims in the routine. But there was a dull-looking black man on the couch sitting next to Silverman. She spent most of the schtick comparing Jews and Blacks. The whole point was that old Jews are scared of black people, i.e. racist. The Daily Show did the same routine (with a black reporter) a month or two ago. I thought both were kinda funny, but…

OK, fair point. But Silverman also made a point of saying Obama is not a Muslim and said “Barack Hussein Obama” is a “super fucking shitty name.”

In 100 years, when the world is all brown, gray and “post-race,” Sarah Silverman will come across as her offensive Jewish grandparents Jackie Mason, Don Rickles and Jack E. Leonard do now.

At first I thought that by using Jackie the Republicans were onto a loser, how could an aging comic compete with the hip (in my opinion not very funny) comedy of a young up and coming Sarah Silverman.

HOWEVER

Then I realised that since we are talking about an aging demographic of voters who undoubtedly enjoy Mason’s comedy and have probably never heard of Silverman it seems to me that the Republicans have probably trumped this one.

Mason Not For Obama

But Simpson is: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/3130874/Homer-Simpson-tries-to-vote-for-Barack-Obama.html

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/05/video-former-obama-adviser-on-invading-israel/

Why would any Jews have qualms over Obama? Again, mystifying.

why fight it. the simple fact so many of you are unwilling to face is that there are thousands of bubbies and zaydies in florida and elsewhere who are to some degree or other racist against “schvartzes” and wouldn’t vote obama for that reason, or because they either believe he’s secretly muslim and/or harbors secret sympathies for muslims. At the very least, they fear he will be anti-israel, irrespective of what he says.

I know because my own parents are like that. Of course not all elderly jews think like that, but a good proportion of them do, which is why Obama does so much more poorly among jews than other democratic candidates in years past.

i don’t agree with them, but it’s dishonest to claim that isn’t the case.

i do disagree, however, that calling obama a “schvartzer” is racist, as schvartzer in Yiddish simply means black, and in that language the only other way to say it is “neger” meaning negro, which i suspect wouldn’t go down that well either. I guess it’s HOW you say schvartzer that tells the tale, but the simple use of the word isn’t racist, there are no other options to describe the black race in yiddish.

As it happens, historically the American Jewish vote is overwhelmingly Democrat.

In 2004 Kerry received 76% of the Jewish vote compared to 24% for Bush.
In 2000 Gore received 79% of the Jewish vote compared to 19% for Bush.
And so it goes on - Clinton received 80% of the Jewish vote first time round and 78% the second time round.

These percentages simply blow away the national averages. I see no reason why the Jewish vote will not still be overwhelmingly Democrat.

Vildechaye, I think shvartzer is fine if you’re speaking in Yiddish, but in English the word has a great deal of baggage.

hasan prishtina: no argument there.

however, it’s also important to note that Jackie Mason has made a career out of making outrageous caricatures of different ethnic groups. It may sound racist today, but in his day, it was no big deal. think don rickles. Mason turns his “racism” against jews as much as any other ethnic group. our generation is sometimes too sensitive.

ABSOLUTELY GOD-DAMNED RIGHT.

In a couple of minutes of youtube video, Jackie Mason peels the entire veneer away from Barack Obama and discovers nothing underneath.

Fashionable opinion sees the emperor’s new clothes, in reality we just have some dude whose spent a few dozen days as a Senator and the rest of his adult years as a shady radical.

So what’s the attraction? Cultish group think. BDS - the next generation. People are sooooooo fucking desperate for change that they’ll flip over a candidate because he can deliver a speech and he’s black.

In their their minds he can and will do exactly what they want him to. Even if they don’t want anything specific, his mere election will usher in a new era of hope and change for the future. Notice the shallow cultish platitudes that surround the campaign. Notice the complete dearth of policy? It’s like the election for number 2 in the prisoner.

Actually no - it’s like the hype Michael Jackson wanted to generate with his Heal the World schtick.

It is an act of lunacy to throw away a vote on the guy. It endangers the world.

RE: In an Obama Presidency, this will more or less be ubiqutous.

“I’m vetoing this drilling bill, I suspect it’s racist”
“People are blaming me for allowing Iran to get the bomb while I went on my 17th world vanity diplomacy tour, that’s because I don’t look like the other Presidents on the dollar bills”.
“Governor Palin’s State is fiscally solvent, wheras the federal government is defaulting on it’s loans. Hence our creditors are racist.”

What a good fiction writer you are. perhaps you missed your calling, you’ve got such a fertile imagination. This however, is a political blog, and you’re just making stuff up, based on nothing.

http://www.patterico.com/2008/10/05/any-argument-against-barack-obama-is-by-definition-racist/

This is the same guy who refused to perform on the same bill as a Palestinian.

just watched Mason. I thought he was pretty funny. And his point about Obama and his accomplishments or lack thereof is valid, and I say this as an Obama supporter. It’s a decent response to Silverman, who i thought was hilarious.

His observation that Barack Obama had not done anything particularly noteworthy apart from being black — and even then he is only half-black as his mother is black but his father is white — verged on the offensive

Pointing out that the Emperor has no fucking clothes is now OFFENSIVE?

Jumping Jesophat on a Pogo Stick. Is there no depths to which the Obamessiah’s disciples won’t stoop?

I like Jacky Mason. And I liked that video. It was fun.

As an Israeli who likes Obama but would definitely vote for McCain, I found the Silverman clip appalling. Absolutely appalling.

The Mason video didn’t do anything for me either. De bloke don’t even speek English properly.

Where Oh where is Hilliary.

Neither videos are funny! Mason has been telling the same joke for 50 years and its wearing thin. Silverman’s grandparents generation were far more likely to be liberal and democrat than her own. They included the freedom riders, civil rights activists and trade unionists who campaigned against segregation.

I bet democrats still get over 70% of Jewish vote.

That was hysterical.

Mikey’s Benny Hill clip, I mean.