This especially applies to an event billed as a "no holds barred roast."
According to the NY Post, the producers of the Justin Bieber promotion (he's SUCH a mensch) are going to carefully pick out jokes that offended LUDACRIS.
Is this so surprising? Not really, not in an age where Lindsay Lohan can get called a "racist" for Tweeting the title of the song she just heard Kanye West perform.
There's a bigger double-standard in the media than Rosie O'Donnell's double chin. If Edward G. Robinson was still alive, he'd be grimacing, "So, they can dish it out, but they can't take it."
If somebody is NOT a friend of LUDACRIS, then it's ok to laugh. It reminds me of Don Rickles' mock-nervous remark, "Is he laughing? Take a look." Is there a balance here? Like, if LUDACRIS wasn't laughing, but SHAQUILLE was, is it ok? What if FLAVA-FLAV and GILBERT GOTTFRIED laughed? Do those two equal one LUDACRIS, or do you have to throw in a playa to be named later?
How about this: if the joke bombed, and the audience was silent, isn't that enough of a statement? Leave the joke in. Funny (!) Jeff Ross and Pete Davidson weren't fretting afterward, "Oh Weezus, Oh WEEZUS, please, please CENSOR ANY JOKE I DID THAT BOMBED...you don't know how it hurts MY FEELINGS to have people think that everything I say isn't hilarious."
But we're dealing with the great LUDACRIS.
Rolling Stone, in hyping the March 30th broadcast, duly noted that HYPE was what the evening was all about:
"This felt more like than a networking opportunity for the participants (did you know you can buy Ludacris' new album, Ludaversal, the day after the show airs, on March 30th? You do now!)"
Right, let's not offend the man who might take out a few ads on Comedy Central promoting that album.
Rolling Stone and many other mags and newspapers made sure to copy down and repeat what they considered the best and worst jokes, smugly pointing out that the reader should be glad to get this info, because a lot of this material "won't make it to air."
Natasha Leggero "suggested that the pop star honed his dance moves by dodging coat hangers in his teen mother's womb. This was the closest anyone came to "losing" the crowd," Rolling Stone reported. Comedy Central is concerned that it might lose Wal-Mart, seller of coat hangers? Or offend the anti-abortion Hobby Lobby, who were considering taking out an ad?
Rolling Stone noted that "three jokes about the deceased Paul Walker fell flat" but didn't suggest they be removed. "Chris D'Elia," the magazine reported, "was staggeringly tasteless, touching on: rape; ISIS beheadings; Eric Garner and the NYPD; Kevin Hart killing his ex-wife; Bill Cosby's alleged sexual assaults (twice); slavery; Bruce Jenner's gender reassignment; and, finally, one last ISIS joke, for which Bieber stood to enthusiastically applaud." Take a look, did LUDACRIS stand and applaud, too? That might be crucial to how much of D'Elia's material makes the final cut.
Will Comedy Central package the DVD version of this thing with "20 extra minutes of material the censors left out"? Will we also be witnessing the usual baffling censorship that cable TV offers, such as "shit" is ok but "fuck" is not, and that NOBODY can EVER say "god damn it" because it offends ludicrous religious fanatics?
I hope at the end, the Comedy Central censor takes a bow, explaining, "I saved you all from having to hear a few shitty jokes that were (BLEEP)ed up. I stand for the average citizen who is just like LUDACRIS, when it comes to what is or isn't offensive. And I will remain in my exalted fetal position as THE arbiter of bad taste!"
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