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A man takes a stage and spews racism, sexism and homophobia, as an enormous, raucous audience hoots and hollers at his every word.
Contrary to what you might be thinking, this isn’t a description of a recent meeting of the Ku Klux Klan. It is the scene any time “comedian” Jeff Dunham takes the stage.
Dunham’s ventriloquist dummies — that’s right, he’s a ventriloquist — have earned him a large and devoted fan base. Now his upsettingly popular act has been turned into a TV show where he and his puppets travel off the stage and into the real world, interacting with actual people.
Audiences across the nation squeal with delight when, for example, Achmed the Dead Terrorist shouts his catch phrase: “I kill you!” And that’s about as deep as his material gets. His skeleton Muslim makes jokes demeaning Middle Eastern culture; cranky old man Walter hates blacks and gay people; the redneck Bubba J drinks beer and hates everyone.
And all the while, Dunham stands next to these characters, speaking the vile words without moving his lips and pretending to be shocked. He’s a coward. He’s a mass-appeal racist who profits off the fears of white, God- and minority-fearing Americans while using some pieces of felt and a few puzzled looks to distance himself from his own hate speech.
On the show’s first episode, a therapist admits that he is gay to the puppet Walter, and the audience groans and shrieks, because they know what’s coming next: Intolerance!
Meanwhile, Achmed takes the stage at a comedy club and makes jokes about having sex with goats and selling his wife. His impression of President Barack Obama consists of him saying, “I am not a Muslim, dawg.” Again, the audience gasps for air between uproarious belly laughs.
Next we see Bubba J at a shooting range. He rests on Dunham’s arm as he stands behind a black man shooting a gun and asks, “Are you practicing to get drugs?” (The man’s ears are conveniently plugged.) Then Bubba meets a man who shares his love of guns, and we’re treated to a romantic montage — which is funny, because Bubba hates gay people.
And in the rare instances where Dunham’s creations aren’t spewing bigotry, the jokes just fall flat. A segment where the hairy purple puppet Peanut meets Brooke Hogan lasts three dreadful, humorless minutes, but it feels like an eternity. It’s almost as if Dunham is physically incapable of writing jokes for a situation in which some group isn’t being derided.
The audience is at fault here, too. They aren’t laughing because they think it’s absurd that someone would say such hateful things in this day and age. They’re not laughing at the puppets. They’re laughing with the puppets. They find him funny because he voices the underlying fears they all feel in a nation that’s slipping from their grasp. Jeff Dunham is the FOX News of comedy; he provides a haven where the elite can mock and deride a culture shifting toward equality and harmony.
Comedy Central should be ashamed of themselves for airing this filth, as should audiences for tuning in (unsurprisingly, the premiere’s 5.3 million viewers was a record-high for the network). But is fame and fortune worth it if you get there by propagating fear and hatred?
6 comments
Contrary to what you might be thinking, this isn’t a description of a recent meeting of the Ku Klux Klan."fwiw it also sounds like the RNC