The problem with “equal opportunity offender” comedians

I’ve been thinking about comedy, as I often do and it’s historical context. And I went to a dark place and started thinking about how people ride on the coattails of Don Rickles and proclaim themselves as “Equal Opportunity Offenders” and why this tag never sits well with me. That led my train of thought to Jeff Dunham, and how simply offensive it is and the confusing relationship offensive has with funny. And more importantly, Don Rickles was an insult comic, not an offensive comic. Then my critical self chimed in and said “But Scuba-you love Blazing Saddles and that is definitely an offensive comedy.” But is it? And how does that contrast with Jeff Dunham?

First, let’s deconstruct Jeff Dunham’s act. If you’re not familiar with it, or haven’t seen him since the 90’s, here’s the summary:

His act is, to put it mildly, racist stereotypes-and a few other characters. His defense of this is that they are merely characters and are a way of letting them air out their absurdities, to expose them for what they are. There’s a whole art and a large umbrella of the give ’em enough rope routine. Sacha Baron Cohen of course does a variety of this, as does the old late night tv show “ask a person on the street” routine and any of the news criticism comedy shows, like The Daily Show and it’s related acts.

But that’s not really what Dunham does in his act. He, through his characters, spouts stereotypes, and in proper ventriloquist form Dunham acts as the straight man. For example, his old man puppet, Walter goes by the traditional ventriloquist act of a grumpy old man who says grumpy old man things. Peanut says spazzy absurdist things. And Dunham plays the straight man to their characters, laughing right along with them. It’s worth noting that in the 90’s and 80’s these were his primary characters.

But then we get to his other characters. Most notably, Achmed. His joke is more of an observational comedy, but the difference is that he’s telling it in a third person, instead of a second person perspective. The gist of this joke is to make a contrasting jab at a stereotype, but the art is to cut in such a way that’s genuinely funny and not punching down.

The thing is, Dunham shifts between chuckling “oh, Walter, you say such stereotypically curmudgeonly things” to chuckling “oh, Achmed, you say such stereotypically arab things” without missing a beat. By bridging this gap, he is normalizing racist tropes by equating them with mostly inoffensive grumpy old man tropes.

Now, can you say that Dunham’s character of Walter could be a stereotype of old white people, or his character of Bubba is a stereotype of rednecks. Of course you can. And there’s a large amount of comedians that claim to be “equal opportunity offenders”. But there’s a few things wrong with this.

First is relatability. Everyone knows a grumpy old man. If you don’t know a grumpy old man, you’ve seen countless grumpy old men. Maybe you’ve even seen the movie. This is a common trope. It’s like making a blonde joke, or a joke about the rival sports team. Similarly with rednecks. Most importantly with both is that the joke is not about being old or about being white, but about being grumpy or about being, well, redneck-y. These are character traits, which are fair game.

The character of Achmed could be said to be a parody of terrorists, but more specifically he’s a parody of arab terrorists. Is anything he says universally terrorist? Of course not-they only work with a limited stereotypical understanding of arabs. And there’s the rub-stereotypes are fueled on ignorance.

Everyone knows that blondes aren’t inherently dumb, because everyone knows blondes. We know that old people aren’t inherently grumpy, because we know them. With blondes and old people we know about numerous other facets of them through the people we interact with. Chances are you have arabic friends and that informs your view. But…chances are equally good that many people laughing at Achmed don’t actually know any arabic people.

The other part is timing. Not comedic timing, but cultural timing. And in America, we’re still struggling with this. What was acceptable once is not acceptable now, partly because of relatability and partly because of progress. That’s why there’s tons of banned cartoons from old Disney and WB days that featured numerous stereotypes prominently. Those jokes were fueled entirely by crude stereotypes of people the audience didn’t have any experience with.

Timing in telling a joke is important. But timing of WHEN and WHERE you tell a joke is very important as well. You may have a great dead baby joke, but probably not something you’d say to a mother who just lost her child. I would be very shocked if Jeff Dunham has ever done a comedy tour in the mideast and used the Achmed puppet. Sure, there’s cultural reasons why some jokes don’t land in different regions, but I’d be willing to bet the Achmed jokes in Branson are received a lot better than they are in Baghdad-and it’s not because of a cultural misunderstanding.

In short, Jeff Dunham’s act could be succinctly summed up as a minstrel ventriloquist show. (He also did have a pimp character named Sweet Daddy Dee, who was also extremely problematic, but has since retired the character). While he has other puppets to balance out the insults, he uses this to call himself an “equal opportunity offender”. (The term itself is a co-opting of “equal opportunity” used to shroud the comic from justifiable criticism)

Now, let’s bring it back to the top-and contrast this with Blazing Saddles.

First things first, we have to understand there’s quite a bit of context, because there’s a wide generational gap. Blazing Saddles was an extremely controversial movie in 1974, and if it were released in 2018 would be regarded differently. So, comparing contemporary comedy with this needs to be understood. Comedy reflects society. In 1974, was a very different time for America in culture and race relations(but not entirely different, of course). Heck, the kiss between Kirk and Uhura, and MLKs assassination was only 6 years old. Loving v Virginia and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner were only 7 years old.

Blazing Saddles bridges many comic styles, but the joke that fuels the whole thing is fish out of water gag-and that is used to spin the stereotypes around. More importantly, it uses anachronism to highlight contemporary values-which is of course, pretty much something all great historical fiction does. The frontier times are used as proxy for America in the late 20th century and could still easily pass for early 21st century America. How much of a stretch would it be to replace Cleavon Little becoming the Sheriff to becoming President?

There are lots of stereotypes in Blazing Saddles. But these stereotypes are largely to the white settlers of the town, and it’s explicitly spelled out by Gene Wilder’s character with a line early on.

“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons”

The line doesn’t need to be said to exposition the settlers, because it’s clearly shown throughout the movie who and what they are. If there were never a western movie before that depicts settlers as hardy, noble people, this line would be a head scratcher. That’s why the real purpose of this line serves as a way to throw the stereotype from classic westerns and put it through a new lens.

And this lens is the important part of understanding why Blazing Saddles is not offensive the same way someone like Jeff Dunham is. Jeff Dunham’s portrayal of characters in his stand-up starts with negative stereotypes and further piles on. Mel Brooks takes the accepted positive stereotype, pulls away the gloss and changes it so that it’s uncomfortably close to home.

In reference to Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks said it couldn’t be made again today. But I think it absolutely could. Some parts would have to be modernized, but the same story and 95% of the jokes could still be lifted directly. Hedy Lamarr confusion would probably fall flat on a modern audience, and farts on the big screen aren’t particularly new, and there’s some other parts that would certainly need to be cut/changed. But on the whole it still works because it’s still funny.

Racist comedy is always marked by laziness to land the joke. A racist joke can land successfully on some audiences because it positively affirms your preconceived perceptions-just like insulting the rival sports team. But absent that stereotype, there is no real punchline. It’s lazy for the comedian and it’s lazy for the audience.

There is a confusion that says shocking things are funny, but it’s not true. Shocking CAN be funny, but the joke has to carry it-not the shock. This is why Blazing Saddles is still widely regarded as a work of comedic genius and an example of the successful marriage of funny and controversial, but Jeff Dunham is merely a contrived controversial hack.

It’s almost always that an “equal opportunity offender” like Dunham is merely offensive as their comedy focuses on offense and not on funny. For fans of these comedians, the joke is almost never on them. That’s the difference between insult and comedy.