Key and Peele: Make fun of everything
"To not make fun of something is, we believe, itself a form of bullying."
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele years ago in Time magazine:
To not make fun of something is, we believe, itself a form of bullying. When a humorist makes the conscious decision to exclude a group from derision, isn’t he or she implying that the members of that group are not capable of self-reflection? Or don’t possess the mental faculties to recognize the nuances of satire? A group that’s excluded never gets the opportunity to join in the greater human conversation…
There was the half-Hispanic, half–Native American man who told Keegan recently just how much gold there was to be mined from his hybrid culture. A young Arab man told us how much he loves Karim and Jahar (a couple of sexually repressed Arab characters we play). “You gotta do more of them!” he begged. Gay and lesbian couples tell us to “keep going … There’s plenty to make fun of … Trust us!”
Where a lot of people get nervous, however, is when it comes to laughing at other people’s culture or perceived weaknesses. That’s when we worry that we’re being insensitive–that we’re being mean.
But ask yourself again what’s worse: making fun of people or assuming that they’re too weak to take it?
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