Patton Oswalt Went On A Huge Twitter Rant In Defence Of Trevor Noah

Since news broke a couple of days ago that South African TV host and comedian Trevor Noah would be taking over the reigns at Comedy Central‘s flagship news and political fly catcher The Daily Show once incumbent host Jon Stewart steps down towards the end of the year, people practically instantly began digging through Noah’s past to assess his worthiness.

In the process of this, an array of Tweets – from many years ago, it should be noted – containing a lot of really terrible jokes on a bunch of soft topics. The kind of jokes a twenty-something male with extremely limited comedic experience tend to gravitate towards. For better or worse they’re certainly not anything we haven’t seen before, and as stand-alone gags their quality is fairly low.

Regardless, the storm of outrage that followed has been fairly all-consuming, causing Comedy Central to go into bat for their new golden boy.

Last night, Patton Oswalt went on an impressively long Twitter rant that clocked in at 53 posts (the exact length of which he knew in advance, which is some A+ forward planning, frankly) that skewered the machine of outrage that follows making a bad joke on the internet.

The rant comes at a particular poignant time for Australian comedy as well, given the recent shitstorm of should he/shouldn’t he surrounding comedian Ray Badran and a joke about stereotypes that a lot of people who weren’t there to see it performed live have ripped apart for being a straight-up rape joke; the ensuing mountain that’s erupted from a slight mound has been nothing short of remarkable.

Oswalt’s rant begins with this.

“Man” in my previous Tweet should not be construed as privileged, misogynist or anti-trans. Nor should there be ANY assumption of said man’s race or religion. It could be an African American man, Asian, or anyone of the vast multi-cultural mosaic which make up the world we live in today. “Man” was simply an archaic placeholder for the “subject” of the joke, and thus should not denote privilege nor exclude any sexuality, religion, nationality or offend any feelings the joke listener may or may not have or ever have experienced in the past.

Furthermore, the action of “throwing” is NOT meant in any way to imply an exclusion of the differently abled, or even someone who may have felt excluded from or knows someone who was thus excluded.

And the choice of “butter” as the object being thrown was in NO WAY an insult to those with a strict lacto-vegan diet or ANYONE who may be lactose intolerant, might KNOW someone who is lactose intolerant (or knows someone who is ka to-vegan [sic]) or may meet someone of those two persuasions anytime in the future. Also “butter” does not mean the joke-teller is unaware of, or insensitive to the abuses in our current factory-farming dairy industry, including neglect of animals or additions of hormones, pesticides or other contaminants.

Also, PLEASE accept this pre-emptive apology if the word “butter” was a trigger for any time in the past the joke recipient may have been called a “butter face” or knows someone who was insulted in such a fashion. Aesthetic shaming is real and bullying hurts us all.

Also, again, privilege. What else? Oh yes…

“Out the window” was NOT meant as any sort of insult to the homeless population, in that the phrase “out the window” could EASILY be construed as placing the butter-thrower in a house which the butter thrower owns. The triggering potential for “out the window” is not to be underestimated.

Nor should the act of THROWING AWAY food, which can read as a violent, corporate-centric status manoeuvre.

Privilege. Privilege. Privilege? PRIVILEGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’nnn

The pronoun “he” in the 2nd part of the joke should, again, NOT be taken as a patriarchal assumption.

Parts 28 through 36 will simply be the word “problematic” for your use in any other interpretation of the pronoun “he.”

Problematic. Problematic. Problematic. Problematic. Problematic. Problematic. Problematic. Problematic. Problematic.

“See” is, we all know, VERY POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING to any seeing impaired or blind people hearing the joke. And, again, a pre-emotive apology is meekly offered. And the fact that Twitter does NOT offer a Braille version of its website is part of a larger problem, which the joke was IN ABSOLUTELY NO WAY making light of.

Finally, the fact the man wanted to see butter “fly” implies a flippant attitude towards mental illness or the subjects lack of abstract or symbolic/empathetic thought which was NOT the aim of the joke or the joke-teller. But context, as we know, does not matter. Only individual words and feelings do, so as always, and from now on, no matter what the intent, aim, or satirical content, the deepest apology is offered to ANYONE, ANYWHERE, for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER who found offence in the previous joke.

Jokes should always entertain. EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HEARS THEM.

A simple series of clarifying post-joke Tweets like the ones I just sent out will insure EVERYONE a gentle, comforting chuckle.

But the bottom line here is that maybe, just *maybe* because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.

Or not, who knows. Fuck it. Fuck everything. Into the bin.