While Michelle Wolf delivered one of the most eloquent and revolutionary roasts the White House Correspondents Dinner has ever seen, I think it is even more hilarious how the majority of the headlines surrounding the roast are about how vulgar, X-rated and out of line Wolf's jokes were. My favorite article that I read was about how the most controversial of the set was in regards to White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and how her ‘perfect smoky eye’ is made out of the ash from the facts she burns, implying how her daily press briefings are bullshit. Whiiiiich, they are. But the reason the joke is especially harmful is that women can’t possibly roast one another. ‘Why that wouldn’t be very feminist of you,’ she said in a voice sounding eerily similar to a bad Tammy Lauren impression. This aside, we can't deny one of the most powerful messages Michelle Wolf includes in her set: being a woman doesn’t automatically disqualify you from being an asshole.
“I’m not trying to get anything accomplished. So, everyone that's here from Congress, you should feel right at home.”
We have conjured up this idea that if someone is a minority (or half the population), they have a societal ‘pass’, and are free to conjure up any bullshit they please. Because they aren’t assholes, but rather ‘breaking the norm,’ and deserve a celebration as opposed to condemnation. Nope; you can still be wrong. Kellyanne Conway? She expedited this mess. Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Perpetuates this mess as normal and acceptable. Ivanka Trump? An eloquent word that’s synonymous with ‘useless.’ But, we’re afraid of calling these women out on their faults because if we do? We ‘set ourselves back’? Again… nope. To make any sort of progress, everyone has to have the same idea of what that progress looks like. And when literal Nazis are being rebranded as ‘white nationalists,’ this seems unlikely.
“Like an immigrant that was brought here by his parents and didn’t do anything wrong, I gotta get the fuck out of here.”
So I guess now I’m at the point of asking, what do we do now? We know that people are willing to lie and cheat their way to the top of this messed up social ladder we’ve created, but what can we do about it? We have options, but as a start, let’s call people out on their bullshit. Place value on the actions of people, not the ideologies they’re supposed to represent. And, write some jokes along the way. Life is hard and we can all use a laugh.
In short, Flint still doesn’t have clean water.
