Regularly Foul Lady Comedian Offends Sensibilities at Offensive Event
The outrage economy is upset that comedian Lisa Lampanelli told some dirty jokes at the recent Friars Club Roast of David Hasselhoff. Did she go too far? (Spoiler: probably not! Or also: that's the point?) Time for some very recent history.
2002
Roast of Chevy Chase.
Ms. Lampanelli returned to [Beverly] D'Angelo and her chemistry with [Chevy] Chase in the Vacation pictures. "I haven't seen chemistry like that since Rosie O'Donnell poked Tom Cruise with her strap-on. In fact, it's nice to see Rosie O'Donnell," she said, then added: "Oh, that's Freddie Roman."
2005
Roast of Don King.
"I've had more black dick in me than the urinal at the Apollo," Ms. Lampanelli said. [N.B. You want "too far"? This was the roast in which Paul Moody went way dark, one reason being that Donald Trump was on the dais, and it was not ancient history to everyone involved that Trump had taken out ads advocating reinstatement of the death penalty in light of the Central Park jogger attack... in which the convictions were all vacated, and the lawsuits against the City are still ongoing. In any event: sort of tense!]
2006
Roast of Jerry Lewis.
"But you look fantastic, Nathan [Lane]," [Lampanelli] said to him. And then to the crowd: "Up until recently, he had a goatee. He shaved it because it kept irritating Matthew Broderick's balls."
This manufactured outrage sure seems like one of those examples of different branches of the media-entertainment engaging in a cannibalistic content cluster-fuck by either disregarding history or hiring people too young to have any historical knowledge – see also Kanye at the VMAs this year – all of which allows them to indulge their audience's ignorance rather than improve it. Or whatever. The holocaust!
A peculiar fascination, these roasts. Anachronistic, yet au courant.
Well, whatever. Lisa Lampanelli will never have one.
This article ought to include a "2010" point of comparison, for those of us who didn't feel compelled to tune in to the Hasselhoff roast.
essentially she said that if they'd played Hasselhoff's CDs in Auschwitz the Jews would have run for the ovens. Then she said George Hamilton was like a black man because he was a bad father and hadn't worked in 20 years. And Pamela Anderson had had more plastic surgery than Rger Ebert. I don't really get why half of the roasters spend more time ragging on people who aren't the roastee at all. I swear she had about 3 jokes about Hasselhoff and 8 minutes on Hamilton and Hulk Hogan
Thanks!
THAT was an excellent summary!
Oddly I didn't really get the "I can't believe you just made that joke" feeling from any of her controversial ones, probably because they were all tired, even the halocaust one felt like I've heard it a hundred times before. I was more "wow, did you really just say that?" at Gilbert Gottfried's halocaust denier joke. That may have been the most potentially offensive to a swath of people of the night.
Yeah, Lampanelli's problem isn't that she's "too offensive", it's that she has the comedic sensibilities of a 12 year old boy. Every single joke she tells is about racist stereotypes or how much she loves fucking, which are coincidentally two of the top five things on my List Of Shit Too Boring To Laugh At.
To be fair, she laughed at the jokes that were at her expense louder than anyone else. And one of those jokes was (paraphrased, natch), "I can't believe any black man would be willing to be inside of anything the size of a slave ship."
Now THAT is funny.
But doesn't it seem like a lot of her laughter is really fakey? Like she's trying really, REALLY hard to be the good sport. I always get that impression.
It looked like totally fake laughing, yeah. But I'll take that over Pam Anderson's looks of abject horror at all the "you have a huuuuuuuuge vagina" jokes any day.
Truth? Does anyone really give a shit? I mean, let's say her feelings are hurt. As Joy Behar likes to say, "That's the gig, folks."
I'm actually pretty sure you can't get anywhere as a comedian as long as you have any vanity or self-consciousness. And certainly not without a whole lot of self-loathing. So, yeah. Whether her laughing is genuine or not, it all matters very little.
Oh, yeah, it's totally better to overact than to be a stick in the mud. I just mean that I doubt she finds the insults as funny as it looks like she does.
I actually don't think the best ones ARE self-loathing. Having been an actor (back in the day), one learns pretty quickly that not everyone is going to like you, and not everyone has to — to sort out whose opinion matters to you, and whose doesn't. Or you drink yourself to a slow, lonely death trying to convince people you neither like nor particularly know that you're REALLY a TERRIFIC person (*coughjenniferanniston*).
Lisa Lampenelli ain't my thing, but… it's a roast. And you asked Lisa Lampenelli to be on it. What the hell did you expect?
Also true! It's like inviting Robin Williams and then acting shocked when he puts on a mincing lispy gay impersonation.
Or going into a Robin Williams movie and acting shocked when you feel like punching someone afterwards.
I'm looking in your direction, "Dead Poets Society".
Yeah, part of this is that it's weird to televise a roast. Jokes that fit into the context of the Friars Club seem a lot more offensive when you compare them to other stuff thats on tv.
Humor, what you got?
Given that the Internet depends so much on memes (which, uh, are just in jokes repeated to death) does anyone need an explanation? Making a joke about Lampenelli dating black men is like getting to edit the Awl for the day and posting a bear video. Every up and coming comedian's dream.
Way to go, Andrew Dice Clay.
I made dirtier comments about Pamela Anderson while trying to hide my sexual apathy towards women in sixth grade.
Comedy Central roasts are like welfare for an entire group of comedians – without them, they wouldn't have work at all.
"Comedy Central
roasts areis like welfare…"Fixed.
Where was the GOP to curb this before it got out of control?
I love me some Gilbert Godfrey and Norm MacDonald, though.
@petjayhawk — I'll give you Hulk Hogan, Lisa L. and Jeff Ross, but THE ROAST MASTER WAS SETH MACFARLANE!! Hardly starving for work. Plus, he's a genius.