. Such a small lie can't affect you individually or hurt you... Until it does, and the only people we can really blame are ourselves. Lance Armstrong was an icon and not just for his closet full of yellow shirts. He was the cancer survivor, the unfaltering chatterbox of positivity
who got us all (well, you all. I hate yellow) to buy rubber band bracelets showing support. When the news broke that he wasn't living strong as much as juicing strongly, he forfeited half his wardrobe and we all went back to decrying Tiger Woods for perpetuating half a stereotype. No harm done, right? President Clinton was just a simple case of a horny guy cheating on his ice queen wife. It was natural, so who cares? It's not like we expect our politicians to tell anything other than half truths and whole lies, and Anthony Wiener didn't even try to lie after a while. But why care? That's just how politics and the media work
, since they're so intertwined, it's OK that they are so similar. Yes? No.
We still have entertainment and politics as two entities in our minds, and we treat political messages from entertainers with the same lack of scrutinization as we do as song lyrics or movie dialog. When a politician gets caught, we do the opposite, and it's hurting us. In the aforementioned examples, Lance Armstrong basically stole from millions of people, and the former President had an extramarital fling WHILE putting money in our cumulative bank
. They tried to impeach the lesser of the two evils, and the monotesticled media mogul looked sad on Oprah and we all moved on. Why does any of that matter? Because when a ridiculously obscene comedian, Sarah Silverman, blatantly lies about receiving less pay for the same work as Todd Barry at a New York Club, she's stoking a fire that's trying to die. The gender wage gap is quickly dwindling to nil, even reversed in many fields, and Ms Farthumor McJewjoke just needed attention. Don't misunderstand, I've seen both Sarah Silverman and Todd Barry live, they are both hilarious (and not equally so. I'm looking at you, Barry) but to tell such a boldfaced lie about such a sensitive topic when their routine consists almost exclusively of gross-out humor that levels gender differences, it makes them seem disingenuous. It's a misrepresentation at best, sexist and misandrist pandering at worst. If we don't demand action from this, we'll just fall victim to it again
. The next time you climb up on the cross, Sarah, tell a lie that's harder to disprove. In the meantime, I'll watch someone else's standup.
 |
| Pictured: A bitch |
