Comedy Central confuses offensive jokes with satire

For 16 years, comedian Jon Stewart has been a satirical news powerhouse. No one has been able to compete with Stewart’s beat of comedy — not The Onion, not even the guys at Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.” And now, with Stewart’s announcement that he is to leave the show later this year, he passes on the torch to a relatively unknown comedian, Trevor Noah.

Taking a look at Noah’s Twitter feed gives people a clue as to what brand of humor he has in store. His past tweets include misogynistic updates on his weekend, proclaiming, “People are going to get drunk & think I’m sexy! -fat chicks everywhere.” His offensive comments also extend to racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic musings. Though Comedy Central stands by Noah, proclaiming that he “pushes boundaries” and is “provocative,” Noah’s humor is just plain insulting, and thus, the network must reconsider their choice of their new host.

I have the utmost respect for Noah’s field because getting a genuine laugh is one of the hardest things to accomplish. It requires impeccable presentation and erudition. Simply put, comedy is really, really hard. Sometimes, the laugh received depends on the audience’s subjectivity. Comedy, however, does not depend on the ability to be edgy or how much a joke stings.

Too often, we give satirists a “get out of jail free” card because satire is supposedly sprung from intellect. We’re taught in our high school literature classes that irony is the most difficult form of prose to master because it supposedly reveals something about the human condition. When an offensive joke receives backlash, say one that bashes a minority group, there’s still a proportion of the population that gives kudos to the comedian. The excuse is that the comedian is pushing the envelope, and that we need to chill out; it’s all in good fun, and no one is really getting hurt.

Obviously, with the amount of attention Noah is getting, people are, in fact, feeling the burn, and rightfully so. If Noah can be so derogatory on a casual platform such as Twitter, he can’t be expected to treat delicate situations — such as the crisis in the Middle East and the gender wage gap — in a sensitive manner.

There’s a correct way to approach humor, and the past hosts of the Golden Globe awards best illustrate what the way should or shouldn’t be. Ricky Gervais, the host until 2011, targeted everybody in the room by airing their dirty laundry, kicking people while they were down. Gervais received so much backlash that he was removed from the stage the last time he hosted the ceremony. The subsequent hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler achieved acclaim because they didn’t go after individual people. Rather, they facetiously criticized Hollywood, the pretentious film mecca. The duo wasn’t perfect — here’s looking at that Margaret Cho sketch from this year — but they knew not to marginalize people for an aspect of their lives that they could not control. Noah deviates completely from their example through his tweets, which is basically all that people have to go off of at this point. He capitalizes upon human weakness.

The deed is done, and Trevor Noah is set to make young liberals laugh in front of a television screen. But here’s a tip for him: stop making “fat chicks” your punch line.

Danni Wang is a sophomore majoring in psychology. She is also the editorial director of the Daily Trojan. “Point/Counterpoint” runs Tuesdays.