She might be an idiot, but have you seen Halle Berry’s rack recently? I swear, even I was hypnotized. http://dlisted.com/node/17113

Asking me if I have seen halle Berry’s rack is like asking me if I can spell rack. The answer is always, “Of course!”

Isn’t she pregnant?

Now, if she had said this is my cousin, only “kikier”…now that would be funny.

Actually, that would have been funny.

I don’t know if Coulter actually believes every thing she says. It is hateful and vile and makes me ill, but I think a large part of her shtick is saying provocative nonsense to incite the base.

Berry, on the other hand, was speaking off the cuff and that is much more telling about the state of affairs in this country. As you smartly point out, the adding of the laugh track is the worse offense.

I know, right? The gall of NBC and The Tonight Show to smooth it over for us, to make it seem, light-hearted, to act like there was nothing wrong with that statement.

Maybe Halle does have a cousin who happens to be Jewish that bears a striking resemblance to the photo….ermmm…

So in the aired version, she says, “Here’s where I look like my cousin”? Followed by laugh track?

I heard she’s an anti-dentite also.

Those dentists are so sensitive. I’m looking at you, Dr. Vargas.

Nice theory, except she specifically said her assistant backstage made the joke.

hello?…monster’s ball anyone?…

i’ve digitally remastered it to replace billy bob thornton with salma hayek and subsequently made a fortune on the Aussie DVD market.

I’d scramble either one of their eggs anytime…

As What Would Tyler Durden said, Halle Berry “…could kick a baby down the stairs and I’d still try to get into her toaster. I don’t care if she hates Jews, the Irish, Eskimos, kitty cats or rainbows, it’s still Halle Berry. I could walk into her bedroom and see the Nazi flag and a head in a jar and I’d still take my chances”

Hmmm this is very interesting. With Jewish and black jokes I think sometimes people in those “minorities” tend to think that if people from those groups make the jokes about themselves its ok or funny but if say a white person makes the same exact joke and the joke isn’t funny then it’s racists (not that Jews are a race).

As “The father of all Jews” your boy and the guy I learned everything about Jews from, Woody Allen once said, “comedy equals tragedy plus time”. He was very much against laugh tracks as seen in Annie Hall

So when Borat does his thing pretending to be racists Jew hater even though he is Jewish, what do you think about that one. Oh and Sarah Silverman’s black face that I put up on mine. Dear God I’ve never laughed so hard, but I heard Rev. Al Sharpton (emperor of all blacks) is calling for a boycott of the show. This I can not do, due to the fact she’s hot.

I just finished watching the first season of the Sarah Silverman Program and have decided I want to have her babies. She is the funniest Jew I have ever seen outside of my boy Woody Allen.

My thinking, honestly, is that it’s ok to make jokes about your own race/culture/ethnicity because you OWN it and its history.

The Halle Berry comment was unfortunate but not something that should have been blown up like it has. The laugh track DOES make it worse, however.

The whole “owning the insult” is complete bullshit, though. If it’s insulting, it’s insulting. Gays shouldn’t say faggot and blacks shouldn’t say nigger, but for some reason, it’s been deemed okay by the pop culture zeitgeist at large.

Two more points - I can’t believe I just wrote “the pop culture zeitgeist at large” and Halle Berry is ridiculously overrated. Plus the bitch can’t fuckin’ act for shit. She got lucky that Monster’s Ball was the “political year” of the Oscars.

Did any of that come off as horrendously offensive? I didn’t mean for that if it did. Sorry, buddy…

Not offensive (to me, anyway) but I disagree with you. Who are we to say that gays, blacks, Latinos, Asians can’t say what they want to each other? It’s highly arrogant of us to say certain groups of people shouldn’t say certain words (remember, they’re just words) to each other.

It’s like talking sh*t about your family. I can bitch as much as I want about my screwed up family, but someone else better not, or I will cut them. Don’t insult my people! I am still a product of that mess, so saying something negative about them is saying something bad about me.

That’s a good analogy. Like I can still beat up my 25-year-old brother but if anyone laid a hand on him I’d kill him.

second Lemmonex,

now tell her to go make me some watermelon pie for the next HH… wait what?

I think Jay should have responded with the joke: “Well, you weren’t chosen for a reason.”

Dude, your Brohemian Rhapsody video was great but I couldn’t finish watching it at work. So what I meant to say was, the first minute of your Brohemian Rhapsody video was great.

She looks like a girl that got killed on CSI (the first Method Man episode). I’m fairly sure that’s not something she’s going to put on her resume.

But the thing is, an insult is an insult is an insult. I’ve heard the whole tired story of the minority reclaiming it as a pride thing blah blah blah, but I constantly hear both the F and N words used by their specific groups as their original negative intent. Just this weekend I heard an African-American coworker call another AACW “Toby.” I was offended and I’m about as WASPy as you can get (you know this). Imagine the fireworks if you change the skin tone.

Why is it okay for racism, sexism, bigotry, or hate to be used if it’s “just a joke” or within a certain grouping, but the second the negativity spreads to an outside group, its unforgivable? There’s no real logic there. I hear the insults used as insults probably more than in a loving or joking manner.

I’m not trying to tell people what to say, I just honestly don’t see the point in excusing hate language because of the color of your skin, the Holy Book you read, or the sex of the person you sleep with. Hate is hate is hate, man.

And yes, she is pregnant. I’m pretty sure the father is Gabriel Autry. And her tits are massive.

Granted, they’re not Salma Hayek territory, but I don’t think the state of Delaware could match Salma Hayek’s pregnant breasts.

A Chinese man and his Jewish friend were walking along one day when the Jewish man whirled and slugged the Chinese man and knocked him down.
“What was that for?” the Chinese man asked.
“That was for Pearl Harbor!” the Jewish man said.
“Pearl Harbor? That was the Japanese. I’m Chinese.”
“Chinese, Japanese, you are all the same!”
“Oh!”
They continued walking and after a while the Chinese man whirled and knocked the Jewish man to the ground.
“What was that for?” the Jewish man asked.
“That was for the Titanic!”
“The Titanic? That was an iceberg.”
“Iceberg, Goldberg, you are all the same.”

I agree with Sisco about “sanctioned” slurs…if you don’t like hearing it don’t use it. There’s no need for another double standard.

More importantly, was that Halle Berry’s “guffaw” or “gaffe”?

Isn’t it funny the You Tube video has been removed due to a “copyright claim”?

No, I’m not cynical in the slightest…

Arjewtino… you=hilarious.

The thing is that *super* hpyer-sensitivity gets us nowhere, fairly often you have to draw some lines in the sand. And YOU, my not-actual-friend, YOU draw those lines. And I love your blog and I stalk you (almost) every day. Not as much as El Guapo. And, I’m sorry, but Argentina must suck, because EG=my hero. But you’re a funny man. Well done. WELL DONE!!!!!

I am a WASP and tend towards absurdist, exaggerating jokes. I also have a huge number of Jewish friends and, along with commenting on my White Oppressor heritage, will often joke about my friends’ horns*/ownership of Hollywood/running of the entire world. We all understand that this is because I wholly fail to understand anti-Semitism and actually went to temple, as a kid, with my Jewish friends. How does this fit into what is or is not fair/right for race-/ethnicity-based jokes? Shouldn’t audience, as part of the context, play a role in the determination?
After all, reminding a Jewish friend to keep her horns covered while touring France is a mitzvah, right?
*I didn’t know about this myth until Borat.

Why be surprised about the laugh track? Jay’s needed a laugh track for years.

Having grown up in Delaware, I’d just like to point out: the state is 90 miles long, so it should be able to contain Salma Hayek’s breasts. Barely. Rhode Island, though? Not so much.

So let’s say you and a shiksa friend are playing with the photobooth thing; she does the nose-enlargement, and you say, “See, that would be you if you were Jewish.” You both chuckle (because it’s kind of funny, but not side-splitting). Later on, she’s showing said picture to her friends and says, “Arj told me this is what I’d look like if I were Jewish.” I don’t think anyone would bat an eye, but apparently if she fails to cite her source, she’s a raging Nazi? I don’t get that.

It’s a joke, a relatively obvious stereotype play, and really not that funny, but it’s not outwardly malicious, either. You don’t hear people jumping down throats for making the Irish/drinking connection much, do you? Is that any less culturally offensive? Point and laugh at the Guidos, but that’s no less an appearance-based stereotype of Italians than the big-nose-equals-Jewish thing. Sure, now it’s more of a Jersey joke, but I promise the original Guido wasn’t Swedish. Or Jewish, for that matter.

From Weingarten:
Chicago, Hoping My Sense of Humor Isn’t Too Poor: My son came back from a professional soccer game on Saturday night with a promotional gift — a deflated soccer ball.

The ball was molded into a half a globe.

My comment:

Oh, they gave out Soccer Yarmulkes for the holiday!

As a goyim, should I spend time confession in a few days or figure that God doesn’t care?

Gene Weingarten: Q: Why do Jews wear yarmulkes?

A: Because those little propellers cost extra.

This is, in my opinion, the perfect example of a tellable ethnic joke, for the simple reason that the stereotype is ludicrous. It doesn’t hurt because it’s not true: Just like the “your mom is a whore” taunt.

Am I wrong for thiking the Halle Berry thing is kind of like that, and therefore the furor is more than a little overreactive?

I have often heard Jewish referred to doubly as religion/culture and ethnicity, but people who are themselves Jewish. I’m a little surprised Bien reacted so strongly to what is, really a unique term and something that’s hard for people to fully understand.

In my defense, he is a Republican.

GO SOX!

Something’s different about you in that photo, but I just can’t pick it. Have you had some work done?

What happened to the Jew with a boner who ran into a wall? He broke his nose.

Nice. I’m kind of surprised it took so long for the soft Jew jokes to start.

you know you’re going to look like that when you’re old, right?

that said, i think anyone in any type of minority is allowed some “oversensitivity” to slurs- whether perceived or actual. i think that it’s okay- i mean any type of minority in any area is bound to be persecuted at one time or another. what’s wrong with being somewhat defensive? of course there are some people that take things too far and totally spazz. one can’t be held liable for things like that. some people just need to learn to be a little more PC and others need to learn to be a little less sensitive.

Read the Dick Cavett piece in the Times today about Imus. As Cavett correctly points out (and got blasted for it), another example of ridiculousness. You might not think her joke was funny, but playing on an ethnic stereotype (Irish=drunks; WASPs=stiff, can’t dance, etc.) is the basis of about half of the jokes I’ve heard (the other half are about sex, so if we really want to police this, about all we will be left with “chicken crossing the road jokes.”) Get over it. It’s not like she made a joke about Jews kidnapping Christian children or something like that, people (”Jay, this picture of me with a glass of tomato juice reminds me of my Jewish cousin killing those innocent babies and drinking their blood in one of their Satanic rituals”).

What a crash course into the Jewish psyche and how sad. You should stop writing if you don’t want to fan the flames of anti-semitism.

First off the Barry joke. Yes I agree it was inappropriate, but I will be dead honest and found it funny not unlike any other stereotypical, racial jokes. I’m asian so I’ve had my share of slanty-eye jokes and such and some of them are funny. I doubt you ever go on a tirade to defend other racial jokes do you? Don’t Jews poke fun about their nose too? Grow up and learn to take a joke like the rest of us “goyim”.

Second you make a stink about Leno adding a laugh track, but you seem to have forgotten that according to your own post, Leno removed the Jewish part out while adding the laugh track in. Thus it would seem the audience would be laughing merely at the picture itself and not because of the Jewish joke comment so why are you having a fit over Leno adding a laugh track?

Apparently your superiority-complex laden, self-righteous, neurotic mind couldn’t make sense of such a simple fact?

My description of you is based sufficiently on just one tasteless comment or joke you made regarding the“Jews 101: How Not to Offend the Chosen People”. Yes I find that tasteless and certainly not funny, but what would you care about a goyim’s opinion?

You even have a fellow Jew adding another tasteless joke: “Well, you weren’t chosen for a reason.”

Wow what a crash course into the world of the Jewish psyche. Is this the kind of sick joke you Jews talk amongst yourselves whilst laughing at the goyim, shiksas and gentile?

If you said that to my face I would tell you to go f— yourself. By any standards you are a douche to make such elitist comments. What a joke.

If you ever read my blog again I’m going to find you and make Jewish jokes to your face.