Tasteless and Offensive Humor Is One of Our Precious Freedoms

Editor’s note: Tony Kornheiser is on vacation this week. The following is a previously released column.

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Just got a letter from someone in Virginia accusing me of betraying an anti-Italian bias. I couldn’t believe it. I went immediately to my editor, Salvatore “Tommy the Cyst” Speziale, and asked if there was any merit to the complaint.

We looked back, and sure enough--along with making fun of Bette Midler (a known woman, a Jew and a Hawaiian), J. Edgar Hoover (another known woman), Al Gore (a tree), David Koresh (God) and myself (a bald, potbellied egomaniac)--I had heaped scorn upon Joe Piscopo, Dick Vitale, Tony Danza and Joey Buttafuoco.

“Am I being too sensitive?” the letter-writer asked.

Of course not. Especially not in these sensitive times. Upon rereading, even I was offended, and I sat down and wrote myself an indignant letter.

In my defense, when I think of Joe Piscopo, I don’t think “Italian” first. I list: 1. Total no-talent. 2. Biggest has-been since Erik Estrada (Whoops, borderline anti-Latino?). 3. Preposterously pumped-up muscle-head. Italian is, like, No. 46.

With Vitale, I don’t think “Italian” as much as: a voice like two alley cats ripping apart an accordion on a tin roof. With Danza, I don’t think “Italian” as much as: not exactly Olivier.

OK, you got me on Buttafuoco.

But the point of this is that I am not anti-Italian. I love and respect Italians. My name is Tony! Some of my best friends in high school--many of whom left early for opportunities in the private waste-management business--were Italian.

But seriously, folks. This has been a tough year for humor.

I don’t tell jokes anymore. The risks are too great. Here’s the closest I’ll come to a funny joke: “An Irishman, a Korean grocer and a Puerto Rican nun are in a canoe. . . .” That’s as far as I go. I’ll get them into the boat for you, but you have to fill in the rest.

Listen, I don’t defend nasty humor. I recognize that racism and sexism are pervasive problems, and that ethnic baiting is hurtful. All true. But so is this: Humor is redemptive, and humor is about looking at the way people behave, and recognizing how wonderfully illogical and pretentious and affected we are. We lose the ability to laugh at this, and we lose the ability to laugh. Stereotypes are funny not because they are true, but because we recognize them to be untrue. They’re ridiculous exaggerations of laughable prejudices.

Let’s imagine a country, Greater Banania (the larger of the Banania Islands), whose citizens are called Big Bananas. They are a notoriously stupid, clannish, cheap, unhygienic, inbred, drunken group of effeminate felons with thick, comical accents and bad skin.

Here is a Big Banana joke:

Q. Why should you never run over a Big Banana who is riding a bicycle?

A. It might be your bicycle.

The Big Bananas love to tell this one about Gabookians, who are famously money-hungry, and their arch enemies, the Flengulls, who are known to be cowards: The Gabookians and the Flengulls are having a tank war. One tank from each side charges up a hill, and they crash into each other. The Flengulls jump out and immediately say, “We surrender.” The Gabookians jump out, screaming, “Whiplash!”

I guess you’ve got to know the Gabookians.

This is how bad things have gotten. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case about parody involving Roy Orbison and the foul-mouthed rap group 2 Live Crew. All you need to know about this case is that it involves a song parody, and that in the future, all parodies just might be illegal, unless you get prior permission from the person you want to parody.

“Mr. Manilow, I really admire your profound writing, particularly lyrics like, ‘I made it through the rain, and found myself respected by others who, got rained on, too, and made it through.’ I don’t know why anyone thinks of you as a simpering twit. I’d like to write a parody of your song ‘Mandy.’ I want to replace ‘Oh, Mandy, you came and you gave without taking, and I sent you away’ with, ‘Oh, Andy, I’ve got pictures of Fergie, they’re randy, and your Mum’s gonna hurl.’ Can I, er, have your permission?”

Perhaps I am wrong about this. Perhaps humorless, sanctimonious people are not threatening to turn us into a humorless, sanctimonious world. Perhaps you don’t think “Buttafuoco”--or “Kornheiser”--is a funny name.

If not, I feel sorry for you.

And I’m not joking.