Friars Defends Tradition as Roasts Come Under Fire : Controversy: Critics argue that racist and sexist jokes such as those at the Goldberg and Arnold events are offensive and harmful. Club members say no malice is intended.

“Sexual Correctness” is on the cover of the current Newsweek, but the political variety is still the “hot” correctness. In government, social groups and workplaces, insensitivity toward minorities and religious groups is out of style. Tolerance is fashionable.

However, there remains one solidly rooted bastion, in Beverly Hills and New York, where political incorrectness is the order of the day--where a dirty joke about minorities, Jews or those of other faiths, or about women will be greeted by guffaws and a slap on the back. More surprisingly, these establishments are a revered part of a community that prides itself on its liberalism and political correctness--the entertainment industry.

Behind the exclusive doors of the Friars Club of California and New York, comedians, show business legends, Hollywood power brokers and selected others can make an off-color gag about minorities or women without fear of reprimand by or recrimination from fellow members. The fabled Friars roasts honoring prominent personalities have a particularly anti-PC atmosphere--one in which racial and religious jibes, peppered with X-rated language, are tossed around with neck-breaking velocity.

Executive members of the 89-year-old Friars Club maintain that they are not a racist or sexist organization, and that they welcome women and people of all ethnic backgrounds. The roasts are affairs expressing love “with daggers,” they said. No malice, prejudice or bigotry is intended by the humor.

In recent years, particularly after women began being admitted to the previously all-male club, some attendees, including guests of members, have winced at the raunchy tone of the roasts. However, the tradition has gone largely unchallenged--until now.

The New York Friars roast earlier this month of Whoopi Goldberg in which boyfriend Ted Danson appeared in blackface and used racial slurs, and a Beverly Hills Friars Club roast last month of Roseanne Arnold in which several jokes were aimed at Sandra Bernhard’s sexuality and appearance, have brought the Friars tradition of no-holds-barred humor against minorities and women under closer scrutiny.

“This is not good, clean fun, saying these kinds of things,” said attorney Gloria Allred, who became the first female member of the Friars in Beverly Hills in May, 1987. “These are the old boys sitting around chuckling about their prejudices. It’s not just offensive but harmful to the rights of people they’re attacking.”

Sandra Evers-Manley, president of the Beverly Hills-Hollywood branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said: “I love humor. Humor is a good thing. But not all things can be made fun of. It can be painful. Because this country has not dealt with a lot of things like racism and sexism, you have to be careful on how far the jokes go. The Friars Club should not be exempt from this.”

Despite the furor over Danson’s antics and the comments about Bernhard, the Friars in New York have defended the tradition of the roasts, adding that they have no plans to change the type of humor to something more politically correct. Members said Danson’s stunt was the work of Danson and Goldberg, who said she wrote his material and hired his makeup artist. Members also said that although outsiders may have taken offense, the humor was done with affection.

Some in attendance apparently felt otherwise. Talk-show host and Friars member Montel Williams walked out of the event, as did New York Mayor David Dinkins, who said it went over the line.

Others, however, reserved their criticism for Goldberg and Danson. Director Spike Lee, who did not attend the roast, said the responsibility falls on the actress. “The Friars didn’t tell Whoopi to do what she did,” Lee said. “This has to do with Whoopi and not with the Friars. It wasn’t funny. African-Americans have been through too much for this kind of thing to be seen as funny.”

In an interview to air today on Black Entertainment Television, Goldberg said: “Most people seemingly don’t know what goes on at a Friars roast. Most people were somewhat surprised that there were sexual, racial, anti-feminist (jokes), all kinds of over-the-top stuff . . . . For 89 years, the Friars have been doing this.”

Goldberg added that the event is for the entertainment of the roastee and friends. “It’s not a public forum. It was never meant to be a public forum,” she said.

The New York Friars Club last week placed full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter defending the roasts: “Sometimes the language is the bluest, the insults the basest and the jokes the most embarrassing, but they are all said with great love and affection and gracefully accepted by our Roastee . . . . Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg had every reason to believe that all of the guests were fully aware of this tradition and prepared their material accordingly, which they deemed suitable for this event and this event only.”

The ad also said that moneys raised by Friars functions “go to many deserving charities serving people of all races and creeds.”

Jack L. Green, dean of the New York Friars, said the ad had been planned before the roast to thank Goldberg and Danson and was slightly altered after the roast came under attack.

“We were under no pressure to place the ad,” Green said. He said calls to the office after the roast were mostly positive. “It was mostly from Friars who wanted to know what all the uproar was about.”

One veteran Friars member is African-American comedian Slappy White, who said he has never felt the humor at the roasts to be in bad taste or prejudicial. “Hell, I was a Friar before I got off the back of the bus,” White said.

The controversy has unexpectedly resulted in another uproar, Friar members say. A roast has suddenly become a hot ticket.

Irwin Schaeffer, 53, the first vice president of the California Friars, said: “There are friends of mine who know I’m in the Friars who are begging me to get them in. And they want it to be the dirtiest, nastiest kind of roast.”

Buddy Arnold, a member of the Friars since 1946 who has served on the club’s entertainment committees in New York and California, said: “If you abolish that kind of humor, then you may as well abolish the roast. Those kinds of jokes are the heart and guts of the roast.”

Arnold said all the jokes are told with affection. “Someone can say something to me in here that makes fun of Jews, and I will be the loudest one laughing. But if they said the same thing to me on the street, with a different intonation, then I would be mad.”

Jack Francis, chairman of the Friars entertainment committee in Beverly Hills, said: “People are warned beforehand that the humor is double X-rated, that it’s vulgar, don’t bring the kids.”

However, even members of the Beverly Hills Friars said they were bothered by the Goldberg roast and the resulting backlash.

“It was an unfortunate situation,” said Saul H. Burakoff, president and dean of the California Friars.

Arnold said: “It was a one-joke bit that didn’t work, and then (Danson) kept the blackface on through the whole thing. He should have taken it off.”

Other members agreed that Danson’s antics will have at least one effect on future roasts:

“I don’t think you’ll see anyone getting up in blackface in the future,” Francis said.