It has been said that humor is "tragedy plus time".
The way many of us choose to deal with tragedy is to make jokes that some might deem
"going too far" or " crossing the line ". Problem is, everybody
has their own "line" -- that point where they say, "Hey, that's not
funny"! Unfortunately, that "line" is different for different people. All
through the Simpson Trial, millions of Americans -- maybe even you reading this -- were
making jokes about OJ and Nicole and Ron Goldman. How many "nanny" parodies did
you laugh at during the Woodward trial? Jeffrey Dahmer?
So maybe your "line" is different for OJ than it was for
Nannies -- or the Challenger; or JFK, Annie Frank or whatever past tragic event that you
and your friends have made into party jokes. It seems that everyone does it, and unless
it's done with hate and malice, that doesn't necessarily make it bad... It's just
America's way of venting; now that cable tv and the electronic media bring each of the
world's tragedies right to our doorstep daily -- unretouched, ugly and sad -- we seek
different means to try to deal. To attempt to lighten up the tragedy with humor is just
one of the many ways we utilize, in order to ease the shock and the sadness. Otherwise
we'd all be suicidal from "commiseration-angst"!
If the Charles Laquidara Radio Hour had
done a parody on the 1996 African Hutu/Tutsi genocide, how many listeners would have taken
the time to defend that particular holocaust? It's all relative. What's funny to you is
not funny to someone else, and round and round it goes. It is sometimes difficult doing
morning-drive radio, trying to make decisions as to what works and what doesn't -- what is
funny, and what isn't.
Obviously, when you're dealing with humor that is cutting-edge, the
market is extremely competitive. I've been doing this type of humor for almost thirty
years, and almost every single day we manage to outrage or offend someone in the listening
audience. Everybody has a different "button" -- a particular humor category
which offends and disgusts them. Ironically, these very same people will guffaw at
tasteless jokes which tend to offend others out there. It's just a matter of which button
we push on any given day.
Although we've had a few complaints about "death parodies", the
"Cadaver Derby" (which celebrity is going to die first?) is a good example, most
reaction is usually triggered by "ethnic" humor. But it really should be noted
that I am very even-handed with my insults -- no one escapes: not Italians, women,
African-Americans, Jews, politicians (from the Right and the Left),
Muslims, Catholics,
religious figureheads, Irish, Asian, gay, dwarf, etc. and I'm not rationalizing when I say
that it's all done lovingly -- there is no hate. Our regular listeners seem to know this,
and have always enjoyed the parodies we have been writing.
As to the argument that this type of satire strengthens and reinforces the
real bigots and racists out there -- I can't let that be a reason not to air it. If
Shakespeare used those same criteria, he couldn't have written Hamlet because some of his
readers might become inspired to mimic Hamlet, and go out and murder people.
I'm not so sure this long attempt at explaining is going to change the
mind of anyone who disagrees with me, but I wanted to at least try to convey the spirit of
what we're trying to do on the show each morning. It seems my only other choice would be
to let Bob Hope write all my jokes. I don't think anyone would complain then, because no
one would be listening.