Pathetic.
Stand up comics are notorious for their bitter hatred and jealousy of each other, but guys, really: get a grip.
Savor some of this “commentary” from “former comic” Larry Fedoruk.
(Read the whole thing, actually: it’s a particularly exquisite example of that “on the one hand, on the other hand” Canadian low testosteron beta male blather that passes for “opinion writing” these days):
No one should be subject to persistent and cruel remarks at a comedy club because of their sexual orientation, or weight, or clothes or, or, or. [Scroll down for NSFW video evidence that Larry doesn’t know what he’s talking about…]
Some comics, especially those saddled with the job of hosting, make a point of audience interplay. They pick on a few people and often exchange barbs. This however, sounds like it got real cruel real fast.
I haven’t seen or heard what happened that night. As far as I know this show has not appeared on The Comedy Network as: Guy Earle’s Famous Vancouver Lesbian Meltdown. But I can almost guarantee you it wasn’t funny.
***
It’s news to me (and, er, everyone whose ever sat on the dais at a Comedy Central Roast [NSFW], and everyone in that audience, and everyone who has left the house or turned on a TV in the last forty years) that comedians aren’t supposed to make fun of fat people, in the audience or otherwise.
I’m eagerly awaiting Larry’s follow up column: “Hamburgers have NO place on the menu at McDonalds’!!”
You’ve heard of “Larry the Cable Guy.” I’ll let you come up with your own nickname for this Larry…
Hey, Larry: Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are plenty “funny.” Funnier than Guy Earle, and funnier than you, believe me. Didn’t help them diddly squat.
Jezuz, this guy was in the business? Doesn’t he know that “Persistent and Cruel Remarks” is much more accurate name for the average comedy club than “Giggles” or “Hilarity’s”?
Scaramouche — who actually sounds more pissed off about this whole mess than I am — comments:
Get it through your head, Larry: it ain’t about the “funny.” Earle could have been hilarious, uproarious, and the thin-skinned Lesbian could still have taken offence at something he said and hauled his sorry keester through the “human rights” process.
(Because members of designated victim groups know that there’s a mechanism that allows them to profit financially from their thin-skinnedness–so why not take advantage of it?)
“Funny” won’t save, you Larry. “Funny” won’t get the gatekeepers of “niceness” to lay off. “Funny” won’t preserve your freedom.
And guess what? More often than not “funny” makes the gatekeepers really, really angry (laughter being highly subversive and therefore verboten in places where P.C. or sharia or some other totalitarian ideology reigns supreme).
Capiche?
UPDATE — yeah, this is why I didn’t attend the Guy Earle fundraiser in Toronto two years ago — I knew this would happen:
I detected that spineless PC trait amongst his supporters when I went to a Toronto support party for him back two years ago.
It was strange: they were mocking the very people out to support him. This certainly dampened my enthusiasm for this particular case. Perhaps now, with a fresh victim nailed to the cross, the rest of the deluded PC types can wake up.