Trevor Noah is not apologizing.
The host of The Daily Show is the latest vocally anti-Trump celeb to have their old jokes dug up to stir outrage, following the firing of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn and the Twitter exit of Rick & Morty co-creator Dan Harmon.
So what did Noah say? Was it the terrible tweets about “fat chicks” that came out when he was first hired?
Related: Billy Eichner’s Political Mic-Drop Amid Alt-Right’s Successful Bid To Get James Gunn Fired
No, the new outrage is from a bit in his 2013 standup special in which he’s talking about all women being beautiful — but singling out Aboriginal women in a very unflattering way.
In the widely shared clip, which has now been deleted from YouTube, the South African comic says:
“And I know some of you are sitting there now going, ‘Uh Trevor, yah, but I’ve never seen a beautiful Aborigine. ‘Yeah, but you know what you say? You say ‘yet,’ that’s what you say. ‘Yet.’ Because you haven’t seen all of them, right?’ Plus it’s not always about looks, right? Maybe Aborigine women do special things, maybe they’ll just like, jump on top of you and [makes didjeridu sounds].”
Yeah, not good.
The premise of the bit is that all women are beautiful but he’s conceding that one racial group isn’t? Ick.
We can understand why Australians in particular (and people in general) would be offended.
But Noah is increasing ire against him by refusing to say “sorry” — choosing instead to respond with a more nuanced defense which takes into account his growth past the 5-year-old material.
During an Aussie radio interview on Thursday, Noah explained:
“We live in a world where people want to unearth things that have already been unearthed… What I understand about outrage, though, what I mean is that people don’t generally want to listen or understand from their side. They go, ‘No, we’re angry.’ And regardless how many times you speak about the thing, they still want to be angry and so all you can do is fall back and say, ‘I’ve addressed this.'”
He tried to clarify what he was trying to say in the original bit:
“I was trying to make a joke about how all women are beautiful and I was responding to comments about certain women being called unflattering [things] in South Africa. It’s one of those things where, if you were to make the joke again you would probably make it better.”
He also explained he had already learned how the joke had been hurtful:
“I always go back to intention. So, if you’re trying to hurt people, then you would carry on doing the joke. If you’re not trying to hurt people, then you don’t do the joke… That’s what all comedians do, we work on material to try and get to the place where we’re telling the best possible joke. And so, what I can say is ‘thank you, to the first person who educated me on the joke and how differently it can be seen in Australia.'”
Earlier in the week he did respond to someone, explaining just how much he’d previously recognized his ignorance:
@joewilliams_tew you’re right. After visiting Australia’s Bunjilaka museum and learning about aboriginal history first hand I vowed never to make a joke like that again. And I haven’t. I’ll make sure the clip from 2013 is not promoted in any way.
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) July 22, 2018
But that wasn’t “sorry.” So many continued to call for a boycott.
We wouldn’t tell people NOT to be offended by terrible comments. But are we demanding someone learn and grow and change 5-10 years after they’ve learned and grown and changed?
We certainly haven’t heard anything so ignorant from Noah lately. (Nor any “fat chick” jokes, thankfully.)
Hmm.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that it’s once again a Donald Trump opponent whose old material is being spread around.
Noah isn’t the only anti-Trump comedian who has responded with no apology after his old jokes were brought up this week.
Michael Ian Black specifically called out NRA defenders as being behind his jokes (which he admits are sometimes “offensive”) being passed around:
Here’s what’s true: 1. I make offensive jokes. I’ve been doing it for 30 years and although I’ve slowed down in recent years and gotten more reflective about it, I still do it. Like when I say I do butt stuff with your mom. I don’t *really* do butt stuff with your mom.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) July 22, 2018
So be it, fuckers. I know what I’ve done in my life. And I know what you’ve done in yours. The NRA is a terrorist organization culpable in tens if not hundreds of thousands of American deaths. You want to shit on me for some bad jokes. Have at it. My hands are clean.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) July 22, 2018
A few days later one of Sarah Silverman‘s old jokes made the rounds as well, along with supposition she’s pedophile:
Hey, is it considered molestation if the child makes the first move? I’m gonna need a quick answer on this.
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) July 7, 2009
Sarah isn’t giving in. She wrote Wednesday night:
Some very odd people R saying I’m a pedo, re: a joke from a time not that long ago when hard absurd jokes by comedians were acknowledged for what they were — jokes — not a disengenuous national threat to people fake-clutching their pearls (whilst ranting the country’s too PC)
— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) July 26, 2018
Is the goal for Disney to fire her from Wreck-It-Ralph 2 promotion? We don’t think so.
We don’t even think the goal was to get James Gunn fired from his Marvel projects — just to get him off Twitter, no longer speaking badly about our (alleged) criminal president.
And considering the filmmaker hasn’t tweeted since his firing, it worked.
No one is defending Trevor Noah’s bad old jokes, not even Trevor Noah. But who is going looking for these things??
Keep your eyes open right now, bbs.
[Image via Comedy Central/YouTube.]
