Women Get Crapped On; Obama Laughs Along
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on July 14, 2008 at 5:52 AM in Barack Obama, Bernie Mac Scandal, Bill Clinton, Current Affairs, Hillary Clinton
Why it is acceptable that Bernie Mac, a man old enough to know better, stands before an audience at a $2,300 a plate dinner and tells them that, for the right price, any woman, your wife, your sister, your daughter, can be a “ho”. Please tell me why that is funny?
Please tell me why it is funny that a menopausal woman, the comedian’s wife no less, is referred to as frigid.
Please tell me why said comedian intimates the only thing a woman is good for is picking up the kids, washing the dishes and cleaning the house.
Please tell me what it says to you that a man running to be President of the United States, who himself has a wife and two daughters, goes onstage to calm down the crowd and admonish said comedian, albeit very flaccidly, then tells Bernie Mac in the next breath, “I’m just messin’ with you, man.”
Senator Obama, when you are going to find a spine and stand up to this sort of misogyny and sexist, objectifying, insecure crap?
How much longer are women going to be subjected to this filthy, denigrating behavior?
Never mind. I just answered my own question.
But Bernie Mac is not alone in treating women this way. Women are comedians’ favorite fodder. As a society we are used to it and even laugh along. Female comedians laugh at men too – but what roles do we perpetuate for them? ‘My hubby never grew up he is still Peter Pan’ nonsense. They cannot see in three dimensions. They are sloppy. They don’t listen. They need to watch the ballgame.
How does that compare with the male version of this diatribe? Terrified of being left, cuckolded or criticized by women, male comics mount a preemptive offensive one cannot fight against: You’re not pretty enough. You talk too much. You don’t suck my dick enough. You’re a gold digger. You are old. You are fat. You are boring. Other women don’t like you. You don’t like each other.
Divide and conquer.
Bill Maher is a perfect case in point. I find that Bill Maher looks like an aardvark, but it is still acceptable for him to criticize a woman’s appearance or attractiveness. He delivers sexist rants on his HBO show, putting women down, calling them filthy names; not to mention flirting with the ‘more attractive ones’, objectifying them, thereby distracting from the message and qualifications of his female guests.
Dana Carvey currently has a new HBO special, most of it hilarious. Of course, he had to do the obligatory political riff. He made fun of just about everyone: Reagan, Bush I & II, Gore. He pretended to take a swipe at Obama, calling him Urkel, but was otherwise almost reverential. Was this a comedy hour or an award ceremony? It was as though he was actually afraid to say anything else. Why Dana – was someone going to call you a racist?
Dana was performing in Northern California, clearly Obama country, and the audience sat silently through his comments about Obama, protective, waiting. So after the Urkel snark, he raced off the subject.
The Clintons however, were not so lucky. Of course, we had to hear from Dana how Hillary’s delivery is so robotic. This is to be expected. Naturally in this country, we prefer style over substance. Never mind that the person he was referring to no longer exists and has been replaced by a much more self assured politician, comfortable connecting with audiences out on the campaign trail. Dana, don’t let that stop you.
Unavoidably, we were, ten years after the fact, subjected once again to Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretion.
But here is my favorite part. Dana Carvey then sh*t on his own wife, his kids and all women when he basically said, ‘Well, look at Hillary. Can you blame Bill for what he did?’
The audience laughed.
I see. So since Hillary Clinton does not resemble Angelina Jolie, she should expect this kind of treatment? Should all women expect it, too?
Senator Clinton was running to be President, not to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And having stood next to Senator Clinton, I can tell you that she is a very attractive lady. Dana Carvey knows this, but he got his cheap laugh at her expense so he could then move on; satisfied. I wonder if Dana’s wife is pear shaped, too, and took offense at his filthy swipe at another woman?
Do you think any women in the audience, aged 60 or otherwise, who also might not look like swimsuit models, took offense? Or did they just laugh along, to protect themselves from being beat up like Hillary has been?
Recently, after Senator Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Wright was reluctantly revealed by the media, the cretinous Chris Matthews and none other than the bullying Chris Hitchens, among others, floated the theory that Obama’s relationship with this divisive, racist Reverend is Michelle’s fault. It must be her influence.
Well, forgive me, but if a 46 year old United States Senator, millionaire, best selling author, husband and father cannot pick up his round behind and leave a place he doesn’t want to be, regardless of what his wife is doing, then he has no spine – and no business running for the office of President of the United States.
In Obama’s constant need to people please his current audience and curry favor with whomever he considers the most important person in the room – in this case, Bernie Mac – it was perfectly acceptable to give this behavior a nod and a wink.
Bernie Mac happens to be a gifted comedian. Are you really trying to tell me that at this kind of a venue, he could not find other material that doesn’t extol the idea that women are low and deserving of abuse and ridicule?
While I do not wish to be hamstrung by political correctness, there is a time and a place for everything. Frankly Senator Obama, Mr. Hopey Changey, has to stop running on the message that he represents ‘a new kind of politics’ and wants to ‘change the world,’ when it is obviously okey-doke with him to treat women as second class citizens.
Actions speak louder than words. Corrections by his staff after the fact will not smooth over his numerous gaffes and insensitivities. But then, you can’t know what you don’t know. If Senator Obama really cared about any of this, misogynist commentary would not get a pass in the first place.
His disrespectful behavior on the campaign trail, his sexist put downs of Hillary and the fact that he pays the women on his staff less than the men indicates very clearly that he has no problem with anything Bernie Mac did or said. It looks as though Senator Obama has no problem with anyone being put down as long as he is elevated by comparison.
This is not the kind of behavior I expect from any decent man, much less a Presidential candidate. Senator Obama needs to take this new kind of politics back to the playground, where it belongs.
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