WASHINGTON – Two Washington Post journalists are apologizing and
their satirical online video series has been canceled following
criticism of a joke they told aboutSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.PostExecutive Editor Marcus Brauchli killed the “Mouthpiece Theater” series Wednesday after pulling the latest episode from the paper’s Web site Friday.
In the video, columnistDana Milbank andWhite House correspondent and blogger Chris Cillizza appeared insmoking jackets to discuss the kinds of beer politicians might drink. Milbank said he couldn’t reveal to whom PresidentBarack Obama would serve a drink called “Mad B—- Beer.” That line was followed by a brief picture of Clinton.
The
group Women, Action and the Media complained to the Post in a letter
signed by 32 women. They called the video “sexist” and “tasteless.”
IT ALSO WASN’T FUNNY. I mean, I’m sorry, the entire “Mouthpiece Theater” gag was your classic “nerds who can’t read a room trying WAY too hard to act cool and embarrassing not only themselves but everyone watching” sitch in the first place. And then in the second place, wow, way to be edgy there, telling a joke Rush Limbaugh told back in 1992and told better, actually.
I’m not saying sexism would have been okay if it had been original and amusing, but somehow the fact that overall it was just stupid makes this whole episode worse for me. Instead of making me outraged it just made me tired, that this is the Washington Effing Post and this was the best joke they could come up with.
A.
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I would really like to go back in time to a point where it wasn’t acceptable to call a woman a bitch on tv. I kind of got pushed over the edge by the sober, respectable panel discussion on one of the news channels of whether it was okay or not, and one of the panelists’ entire argument was “But what if she is?”
It’s also totally frustrating because there is no specifically male-oriented insult that carries quite the same weight as “bitch.”
Technology now makes it possible for everyone to think themselves a master moveie producer – even those that should never see the light of day
the parody was good tho. are we viral yet?
“Mouthpiece Theater, Or: MimickingThe Daily Show Is Harder Than It Looks!”
Know what makes edgy humor edgy? 2 things:
1) Going after the powerful by
2) Exposing how they are compromised.
Going after those on the ouside looking in isn’t edgy. Neither is lazy repetition of elites’ conventional wisdom. (Hillary is a bitch!) In order for their little experiment to work they would have had to mine the kind of material…that got Dan Froomkin fired.
Anyway, maybe now they’ll stop trying to come up with jokes and go back to what they do best: Beinga courtesan for lobbyists.