In an interview with Philip Galanes of the New York Times (7/15/2017), Bill Maher and Fran Lebowitz talk a bit about Maher’s recent controversy, and entertainers being treated as politicians and visa versa [and other things: see the end].
N-word controversy
Maher sticks to his guns, as I’ve argued previously, that he’s not a racist, just a comedian, and what he did was make “a mistake”:
BM I think most people understood that it was a comedian’s mistake, not a racist mistake.
PG Your first guest on the follow-up apology show, Michael Eric Dyson, was pretty softball with you. But Ice Cube was righteously indignant. He wanted to hold you to account.
BM Listen, I hope we had a teachable moment about race: trying to make something good from something bad. But maybe also about how to handle something like this: apologize sincerely if you’re wrong — and I was — and own it.
PG Mission accomplished, as President Bush said.
So, OK, perhaps he’s not a racist, and yes, it was a teachable moment, if one that was forced upon him. As I previously argued, I can’t speak to Maher’s sincerity of the apology, I can only speak to his execution, which seemed overly defensive; he keeps saying “Yes, but….” And in his next quote, he continues this defensiveness with another “but”:
BM But we don’t have to grovel, and we don’t have to admit things that aren’t true. When Ice Cube said something about my telling black jokes, I wasn’t going to be: “Oh, well, I made one mistake; I might as well admit mistakes I haven’t made.” I’ve never made black jokes. I’ve made jokes about racists. But my fan base knows that, so it never went anywhere.
In practice, I know that you write a joke from a particular perspective (jokes about racists), and you hope that is how it comes across, and just being called out in the current political climate doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done anything wrong.
However, to be dismissive about it displays a lack of sincerity. If he had said, in the interview with Ice Cube, “Which jokes are you talking about?” and shown some interest, and if he could say now, “I went back after that interview and reexamined those jokes, and I’m pretty comfortable that they were jokes about racists and not ‘black jokes,'” it’d be different.
Asked about the difference between this incident and his 9/11, “Suicide bombers aren’t cowards,” comments, Maher said:
BM Part of the difference, as Fran says, is that I was on a network with sponsors. And when sponsors pull out, the network has no choice. But also, the 9/11 statement had meaning behind it. The recent thing was just a mistake. I should not have used that word, even reaching for a joke.
So he meant his previous statements; they were bona fide political statements. His recent problem was attempting to joke, and a mistake – not bona fide, and he doesn’t stand behind it.
However, he’s falling back on a classic defense – one he stated in the moment – one that we should examine critically [and I have]: “I’m joking!” When the statement comes out, it is what it is; it can be interpreted in a number of different ways. Just because he doesn’t back it after it’s reception, we’re supposed to say, no harm, no foul? It’s a premise Maher refutes in Catholicism: The idea that one can repent and all is forgiven. Perhaps I’m being too harsh, I’m a big fan of recoveries, and yes, “To err is human”; however, does the response to the audience reaction outweigh the original statement itself? Can you ever “Take it back?” Unfortunately, no. You can only hope to put it under erasure.
Entertainers and politicians
Lebowitz immediately picks up the point:
FL The worst thing about this is that there’s always outrage over people in show business, who have no actual power. They’re entertainers. We would prefer that they agree with us, and do the right thing. But moral outrage should be reserved for Congress or the Supreme Court. To me, the fact that people can’t tell the difference between these things is why we have Donald Trump as president. People want to be entertained 24 hours a day. And they’re seeking from entertainment what they should be seeking from other branches of life.
PG Have you ever had to do a public apology?
FL No. This is very specific to people who have mass audiences. Remember that whole period when Charlie Sheen was news. That’s not news, O.K.? You can watch Bill; you cannot watch Bill. But you can’t not have this Congress. That’s the misplaced moral outrage.
PG Better to save it for Paul Ryan?
FL I’m glad you brought him up. Every time I see the sentence “Paul Ryan is the conscience of the Republican Party,” I think: What is that? Is that like being the quarterback of the New York City Ballet? But yes, that is where your outrage should be.
Lebowitz’s points seem to be:
- Entertainers have no power; legislators have power
- We shouldn’t seek agreement from people with no power, but those with power
- Our moral outrage is thus misplaced
However, I see another option: People are granting entertainers as much (if not more) power than they are granting legislators. Understand, power doesn’t come from being an entertainer or being a politician, it comes from people. You weren’t born a politician or entertainer, people make you one. People make entertainers by watching their shows, and they make politicians by voting. Thus they can further give these people other types of power. We could talk about this in terms of the differences between ideological power and legislative power.
Lebowitz is calling our politicians for their legislative power, which is the power to create and enforce laws, which have a real-world impact on people. However, she’s pointing out that celebrities have ideological power, which is the power to influence how people think, their ideas and goals. The power to shape people’s worldview or ideology is far more powerful and subversive, but more slow and subtle, than legislative power. Ideological power helps decide who gets elected to public office – to whom we give legislative power. We base our votes for people (and our attendance to their shows) on the overlap between our (perceived) ideologies. And the more we realize this, the more we hold our celebrities accountable – as we should also be doing with our politicians.
“Comede-ing” versus stumping
Maher says one other thing that struck me as odd. Galanes asks,
PG Both of you spend a lot of time on the road, doing speaking engagements and stand-up.
BM When you’re a comedian, there’s nothing greater than comede-ing, getting up on a stage and making people laugh. It’s also a great benefit for doing “Real Time” because I see the country. People talk about “flyover states.” I land in them. I do shows in them. I talk to people, and I think I have a greater understanding of America because of that.
This idea that, because he did a show there, he knows the country is strange. After all, political candidates travel the country, do “shows” and talk to people. Also, if audiences “vote” with laughs, then every show is potentially a town hall, or at least a focus group. But there are subtle differences.
Unless they’re huge (like Maher), comics are unlikely to have security guards and aides, so they are less likely to be surrounded by their “bubble.” Comics are also more approachable, and this seems more likely to yield honest interaction with people. So perhaps a comic sees more honestly than a politician. And maybe Maher’s “greater understanding” is simply more than his understanding prior to touring.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
***Warning: Political rant ahead!!! Warning!!!***
The problems with these kids today…
They begin the interview with a question about racial and ethnic humor – which really becomes a discussion more about religion, identity politics, “busybodyism,” protecting lives versus protecting feelings, bashing millennials for trigger warnings and helicopter parents, and “quit complaining because it used to be so much worse”:
FL Or at Princeton, where they want to change the name of buildings. When I saw it on the news, the protest was full of black women. I thought: Girls go to Princeton now. When I was that age, girls couldn’t go to Princeton. Hardly any black people or Jews could go to Princeton, girls or boys. But they don’t know that, so they never think, “I’m pretty lucky to be here.”
Yes, we’ve progressed, but this is not the time to say, “Haven’t we come far enough?” Galanes is quick to point out the the playing field is far from level, and Lebowitz agrees, but Maher chimes in:
BM We need to find a middle ground on race. If you look at the polling of conservatives, Republicans and Fox News watchers, they think racism is over — which is insane. Denying racism is the new racism. And on the other hand, you have that liberal white guilt, #WhiteSoLame. They think they’re making things better by beating themselves on the back like that albino assassin in “The Da Vinci Code.”
First off, why’s he gotta pick on albinos? No, but seriously, everyone he’s talking about in this equation is white (or passes for it). He’s also making a false dichotomy; yes, there are racism deniers and self-flagellators, but there are also those who think the situation is better than it is, and guilty allies, and everything in between. Cries for “middle ground” and moderation skew toward indifference, and we still need activism and allies, even if only guilty ones.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
