Last fall when Top Five came out, I forgot to mention how Jerry Seinfeld’s cameo was the least funny part of the film. Even in an R-rated setting, the dude couldn’t muster up a laugh with his sardonic comments. I try to forget Jerry was a part of the project.
Jerry is still complaining about how stand-up comics have it rough these days. Yesterday, we talked about how Jerry feels college campuses are too sensitive, and kids don’t understand what “racist” and “sexist” mean. Jerry can’t believe people won’t let him shine. Seriously, can’t a guy stand on a stage, joke around, and make millions of dollars without being held accountable? People called Jerry out.
Jerry “clarified” his statements last night during a visit to Late Night with Seth Meyers. He still can’t stand political correctness, and he didn’t mean to simply call out college kids. Jerry thinks the problem is a larger one, and now everyone is too uptight. Seth started out by saying comedy is all about “pushing the line.” Jerry believes comedy has been hampered by audiences moving that line, just for fun:
“They keep moving the lines in for no reason. I do this joke about the way people need to justify their cell phone. ‘I need to have it with me because people are so important.’ I say, ‘They don’t seem very important, the way you scroll through them like a gay French king.’ [Exaggerated hand gesture.] I did this line recently in front of an audience, and comedy is where you can feel an opinion. And they thought, ‘What do you mean gay? What are you talking about gay? What are you doing? What do you mean?’ I thought, ‘Are you kidding me?'”
“I could imagine a time where people would say that’s offensive to suggest that a gay person moves their hands in a flourishing notion, and you need to apologize. There’s a creepy, PC thing out there that really bothers me.”
[From YouTube]
Journalist David Remnick agreed with Jerry and thinks the internet (especially Twitter) makes the PC brigade worse. Remnick makes an interesting point. The internet can amplify any sentiment. It can highlight the worst and best of humanity. It’s still not a comedian’s place to tell people how they should feel about his jokes. Nor should anyone belittle a group who feels offended when a comedian mocks them.
I guess we’re supposed to feel bad for Jerry though. Woe is the privileged comedian who can’t adapt to his audience.
Here’s the clip of Jerry whining to Seth Meyers.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN
Jerry should be so happy that social media wasn’t what it was when he was dating a teenager.
It’s funny cause he has a 16 year old daughter now and she can google the hell out of his lies. Sigh, I love it.
Seriously. The man has a track record and he better hope no one is as kind to his daughter as he was to other girls.
So much whining.
So much man-tears.
Boo hoo hoo.
Won’t someone think of the wealthy white male comedian?! What kind of country have we become?!
A white male comedian thinking the world is too PC? Colored me shocked?
Exactly what I said Yesterday, Is a Number of those guys That find Themselves SO VERY OPPRESSED YOU GUYSES , By not being able to make their bad taste Jokey shitty statements/observations on everyone else Not Like Em… such Oppression, Much pity 😢😢
Stephen Colbert’s ‘Oppressed White Male Alert’ comes to mind.
@Amy So because he has an opinion different to yours it’s man tears? Plus you are all proving his point you are all getting offended over him saying this. He isn’t saying he wants to abuse gay men and women you’re all getting this from his comments.
@harhar Didn’t Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy and a number of other black comedians say the same thing recently? So it’s more of a comedian this than a ‘cisgender straight white man not checking his privilege’
@Bedhead who are you call someone out for whining what is this site about? Whining about Miley Cyrus or telling Bradley Cooper that needs to come out of the closet because he’s a weirdo?
No Mark,
Because his opinion is the cliched stereotype of ‘person in highest class of value according to status in US whining over nothing’ it’s man years. It’s creating an issue to evoke victimhood where there is none. According to his own words the crowd didn’t boo, didn’t create some petition, didn’t lambast him on the Internet. They just – didn’t – laugh.
I’m offended an adult can be this whiny, as others have said he’s skated on many of the things he could have actually been put through the ringer for including the dating of a 17yr old when he was nearly 40.
Abuse gay men? He can barely tell an offensively funny gay joke, I doubt he can abuse anyone. * scrolls effeminately on her phone*
So everybody else has the problem. Huh.
Maybe the joke wasn’t hilarious? If you have to explain a joke, it didn’t work.
Clearly the problem is that people are too PC and not that Jerry isn’t funny.
I’m not sure if I find the cell phone thing offensive or just plain boring. Maybe if he would come up with some actually witty stuff he wouldn’t need to complain about his audiences all that much.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with him, I just can’t stand him and don’t find him funny. Plus I hate the fact that he dated a 17 year old girl while he was in his 40’s and then married a woman who had recently just gotten married, but when saw a bigger paycheck, left her husband for Jerry. How did he get away with that unscathed? Ugh!
The creepiest thing is that he now has a daughter that is the age of the girl he dated when he was in his forties. I love when people like jerry become irrelevant and it makes them whine about it.
lkaye- I don’t understand it either. I’ve never liked Jerry. He creeps me out.
If this, is truly your only problem, you’re doing well pal. Shut it.
I don’t even think it actually is his problem. People may find Seinfeld funny or not but i think we can all agree he is not offensive in his comedy. If Louis C.K. or Frankie Boyle said this, i would understand and probably defend tham. I think he is just bring paranoid, or trying to be a part of ‘cool unPC’ crowd
I don’t understand the joke.
Is he referencing a famous gay French King? Which one?
Edited:
Oh, I guess when one watches the clip one can understand the joke better. In print, I didn’t understand what he was trying to say at all. But I don’t get what he’s complaining about — he said you can “feel” the audience’s opinion. It doesn’t sound like the audience launched any verbal grenades at him. He’s mad that people didn’t laugh, but it’s not like the audience is obligated to do so just because they paid you money.
It’s amazing how dated Jerry Seinfeld feels now, especially considering how people viewed Seinfeld the show as comedy genius. Whenever I see him I just hear his whiny voice saying “what’s the deal with (fill in the blank)”.
After watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, I realized what I loved about Seinfeld’s show was probably all from Larry David.
“what’s the deal with (fill in the blank)”
(my irrelevance)
Sounds like he can’t get over the fact that it isn’t the 90s anymore.
Interesting. Its ironic how so many comedians can’t adapt to the times as they age. Don’t Rickles seems to have done it well. He still cracks me up on talk shows
I think because you really have to understand where we are as a country. I hardly think we’re fixed or too PC but I do think we’re more aware of what impact our words have.
If an older comedian stays in their lane and manages to be hilarious it’s great. But if an older comedian like say Joan Rivers makes a scathing comment about the Cleveland girls we don’t laugh because we’re too PC, we laugh because it’s not funny.
Don’t pout and whine if you don’t make the joke. Make the joke not landing THE joke! I remember Mitch Hedburg and Zach Gallifanakis did really well with that, teasing the audience and themselves for the disconnect between the joke they thought would kill and the silence they were met with.
Don Rickles is hardly PC.
@GRACE
Don Rickles! The Best!
why is he acting like any of his work is blue? nothing in his comedy is even CLOSE to controversial. he is a hack.
Shut it Jerry.
You know what else is creepy? Dating a minor.
Thinking the same thing. Even before that, I thought he was smug and creepy.
+1
Is he serious?! In the 90’s, yes, it was considered acceptable to make fun of homosexuality. A lot of comedians relied on this lazy way to get a laugh. Society has progressed. We’ve all realized that bullying is the worst and frat-boy humor is no longer so popular. So grow up, Jerry. The rest of us have, and your audience is dwindling. Either get with the times or shut up.
+1
Comedians who are notoriously non-PC have an audience. Because they are funny. Frankie Boyle comes to mind, whom I love but he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But he is funny.
Jerry just isn’t. At least to me.
Wow. Now that is out of touch.
While I don’t think Seinfeld is really the person to be complaining about this, I do think that there tends to be a knee-jerk hysteria over many PC issues that obfuscates real discourse and prevents intelligent discussion. Everything has become very binary and as a result, very simplistic definitions of what constitutes racism/sexism/ageism/gender discrimination, etc. What I find to be the problem is that it creates a victim culture, which makes people very passive, and it becomes a defining feature of who the person is.
I’ll push through and probably say something very contentious: campus r*pe is a good example. Many girls I speak to these days have such a hyper-sensitive definition of r*pe that they don’t understand the infinitely fine line between making a poor decision due to whatever combination alcohol, a douchebag guy, and personal issues that have led her to that point of getting involved in a situation that all logic says get away from, and r*pe. There is a spectrum of non-consensual s*x, that ranges from “I wish that hadn’t happened” to life-defining acts of violation. But many girls I talk to have no sense that this spectrum exists, and as a result, allow the current binary discourse that would mark them out as victims to operate in a way that denies female strength to overcome the attempt to force misogyny on her.
THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE, and not a fully fleshed out one at that. There is a terrific value in the raising of awareness of the need for politicized voices, but there’s also a danger of losing track of all of the nuances. Sometimes these issues are very simple; most of the time they are not. Twitter-ized political correctness doesn’t allow for that.
A hypersensitive definition of rape?
Rape is rape.
It is until it isn’t. Most 19 year olds I talk to (and I talk to a lot) can’t tell the difference between bad s*x and r*pe. And they also don’t understand that a guy encouraging a girl to drink to lower her inhibitions isn’t the same as getting someone drunk to assault. And there is a difference. We are supposed to be liberated, but the stigma of sl*t still holds, and there are women get drunk to justify banging a shamef*ck or to cover the fact that they’re horny and culture doesn’t teach them how to process it. Look at the Columbia case. It’s a mess, and nobody knows what happened, even the two kids involved. I say that a big part of that is down to an over-simplified education on these issues.
Ok, so, I read something the other day where a girl and guy were at a party. They’d been flirting, hanging out. They’re off in a corner talking, he puts his arms around her, tries to go in for a kiss, makes contact and she’s not into it and pushes him back. People told her that wasn’t ok, he didn’t ask first to get her consent and she had for sure been sexually assaulted.
Do you realllly, in your heart of hearts, believe that is sexual assault? For real? Because this is the reality of what is going on, of how the discussion is going, of how acts are getting labeled. And I think that’s what T.Fanty is getting at, about the lines becoming so blurred.
@Claire
I just 100% honestly do not believe that that story or any one like it is truly representative of what’s happening in the real world. I think it’s the kind of story that people like to repeat to perpetuate a narrative and so it gets more attention. The reality is that most sexual assaults still go unreported.
When I was 19, I went out with close friends and got too drunk. I walked the 10mins home alone because I knew I just needed to leave right then and there. I made it safe and sound to my own bed and passed out. When i woke up, my roommate – someone I was very close with and who had been out with me previously that night – was in my bed with his hands in my pants. The next morning I cried in the shower. He said he didn’t know how it happened. I never reported anything. In fact I went on to have some sort of confused semi-sexual relationship with him for the next 2 months. I absolutely never considered what happened afterwards to be assault because in spite of the fact that I was doing it to try to make sense of the situation and not because I really wanted him, I was still a consenting party. That first night though, that was definitely assault. And I think that experience is FAR more typical. The fact that people are now able to understand how something like that IS assault is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
Thank you for sharing Claire, I think you explained it well.
The extreme and unusual incidents are just that, extreme and unusual, but they’re an outlier in an area where the real assaults are still not taken seriously or properly punished. Focusing on the outlier makes it easier to ignore that main issue.
@Lee1: sorry that happened to you and of course that is sexual assault. But that’s not at all like what I described and the fact is, that these types of conversations are happening and people are pushing for expanding definitions to what I described. And I don’t know about you, but I think that is a really dangerous precedent.
@Claire
I do agree that what you described would set a dangerous precedent, I just don’t buy that it’s a realistic portrayal of what is happening. There are always going to be outlier situations as someone said above. I just think experiences like mine are far more common than the one you described and I think if more people are recognizing those types of situations as assault that’s a net positive in spite of a few people who may also over-extend the concept.
@Lee1: totally respect your viewpoint. it may just be that this vocal minority is who is shouting the loudest, but it does worry me.
fair enough. 🙂
I’ll push through and probably say something very contentious: campus r*pe is a good example. Many girls I speak to these days have such a hyper-sensitive definition of r*pe that they don’t understand the infinitely fine line between making a poor decision due to whatever combination alcohol, a douchebag guy, and personal issues that have led her to that point of getting involved in a situation that all logic says get away from, and r*pe. There is a spectrum of non-consensual s*x, that ranges from “I wish that hadn’t happened” to life-defining acts of violation. But many girls I talk to have no sense that this spectrum exists, and as a result, allow the current binary discourse that would mark them out as victims to operate in a way that denies female strength to overcome the attempt to force misogyny on her.
———————————————————————————————————
Are you for real with this?
“There is a spectrum of non-consensual s*x” ?????????????????????????????????????????
This is the sh*t those MRA scumbags use to make an argument about women lying about rape and sexual harrasment. WTF?
Yes, and it goes both ways. I’m married, and I’ve absolutely had s*x with Mr. Fanty to shut him up, or just because I think it’s been too long without it, and haven’t been in the mood, or I’ve felt that he’s needed the comfort. Likewise, Mr. Fanty didn’t want to have s*x with me throughout my entire pregnancies because he was frightened about hurting the baby, but he did it and told me a year later that he hated it every time. Those examples are absolutely on the spectrum. It’s all about the grey area, and by not discussing these things fully, and falling back on simplified arguments, we lose the chance to discuss, educate, rehabilitate men who don’t think they are r*pists, and move forward collectively. Don’t simplify what *I* am saying by thinking that I am excusing all r*pists. You’re proving my point.
Does this really happen though?
I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t given in to sex at least once when she really didn’t want it. I don’t think any of those women (myself included) would ever call that “rape” though.
T. Fanty, you’re making it easy for people to absolve themselves of responsibility with your example (perhaps not your intention). What you described was still you and your husband making choices, and that is not a grey area. It doesn’t sound non-consensual, but more importantly, YOU got to define that, not someone else, and that’s what Damn is saying. No one gets to define someone else’s spectrum; hence we have those MRAs and their rape-denying allies.
All fair points (@OKitt: does what happen?). Non-consensual sex isn’t a spectrum. But consent is, and I think that’s what I’m trying to address. Does that make more sense?
“It is until it isn’t. Most 19 year olds I talk to (and I talk to a lot) can’t tell the difference between bad s*x and r*pe. And they also don’t understand that a guy encouraging a girl to drink to lower her inhibitions isn’t the same as getting someone drunk to assault”
I was relating your comment above to your earlier assertion that many young women don’t know the difference between consensual sex and rape–or did I misunderstand you? I thought when you were sharing your anecdote about you and Mr Fanty, that you were trying to say that there’s a spectrum of consent, but some women still get confused about that “grey area”.
I agree about the grey area and the spectrum, but from my experience, women have a very clear understanding of what is rape/assault and what is…not rape, even if within the “not rape” area there exists a spectrum.
Not to get into a semantical thing, but I think I’m getting hung up on your use of the term “consent” which is such a loaded word in the context of a rape discussion. Maybe “spectrum of permission” would be less incendiary and MRA-y? The term “spectrum of consent” could be twisted to support the idea that consent is fluid or open to interpretation by the person who is requesting it, and as such dilutes the definition of the word as a simple “yes”.
Or am I PCing the hell out of you? 😉
“I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t given in to sex at least once when she really didn’t want it.”
I certainly have on a few occasions. I never referred to them as rapes.
For what it’s worth, I’m only speaking from my experiences.
When I walk down the street or I’m on the train, and some moron yells “twink!” at me, I don’t think of myself as a victim, but other people do. “Poor Hawkeye, having to deal with this!” is a typical answer, instead of “what can I do as Hawkeye’s friend/listener to make sure that these perpetrators don’t get away with it and are held accountable?” And that’s what I think victim culture really is – a way for people to redirect their attention from things that make them uncomfortable. In the case of the rape that you’ve described, it’s easy to focus on the victim, make them feel responsible for making us feel better by proclaiming their strength, etc. and put them on the spot instead of redirecting the spotlight on the rapist. Rapists aren’t aliens from a different planet – they’re our parents, children, friends, neighbours, and coworkers, and very few people want to confront the reality that in our midst, we are raising rapists, love rapists, and co-exist with rapists.
On the topic of hyper-sensitive definitions, I think you’re right but I suggest that it’s a spectacular failure of adults to explain to young people what healthy sexual relations are supposed to look like (vs what you said in your comment about bad decisions). Not enough sex ed at schools, not enough frank discussions at home, and I say this as a bona fide church pastor. We’re failing kids because we’re too embarrassed to talk to them; we’re failing kids because it’s more comfortable to say “boys will be boys;” we’re failing ourselves because we think kids can figure this stuff out on their own. You said you talk to girls who don’t understand the spectrum of healthy relationships, and to that I say, I’m not surprised; they’re probably surrounded by adults who don’t think talking about is important or appropriate.
Thank you. I think this is spot on. It’s the failure to have *frank* discussions that drove my example. And it is an across-the-board issue. We live in a society that now absolutely resists people taking responsibility for their actions. Everyone wants to be a victim, and as women, we live in a world where the idea of the victim overcoming her problems through super-human strength has become a romanticized narrative, and the ubiquity of sexual violence (looking at you, GoT) feeds into that. This is an insidious, subtle, and dangerous reinforcement of the fact that women are still defined by sex, and I don’t think we are discussing it properly.
I’m sure that’s totally what Jerry Seinfeld was getting at, right?
@T Fanty, I don’t think everyone wants to be a victim. I think there’s some projection at work by a society that doesn’t want to confront the fact that it’s responsible for creating the conditions for people to get away with it. I don’t want to be seen as a victim, but it’s easier and less exhausting to just go with “poor Hawkeye!” than to ask my listener to actually get off their a** and be a true advocate.
You’re right. That was a generalization – I meant in the “as a society” way. And I agree with your what you say about it being easier. There’s a Chris Brown post today, which makes me think of Rhianna, who refuses to be a victim, even when she is one. This is a Hawkeye kind of gal who will not let someone else’s misogyny define her.
And it’s well-meaning. People want to emphasize victimhood because it’s a means of offering support. But it buys into that mentality that even left-wing media outlets like Salon feed, where it’s about straight-up oppression and resistance, and there’s no middle ground. It’s a tough balancing act; on one hand, we’re progressing to a point where things that were acceptable in the past are (rightly) no longer tolerated, and on the other, we live in an impossibly fast-paced media culture where outrage fuels clicks and revenue, so every offense is turned into an outrage and amplified. That puts the onus on us, as consumers of this culture, to be even more careful and judicious in where we put our political weight.
@T.Fanty: I don’t disagree with all of your comments, although the part that did you in was where you said “There is a spectrum of non-consensual sex that ranges from “I wish that hadn’t happened” to life-defining acts of violation.”
If it’s something that a person chose/agreed to do, and consent was never revoked before or while they were doing it, but they regretted it later, that still isn’t non-consensual, regardless of gender. In order for something to be non-consensual, a person has to not be a willing participant. (Consent under duress doesn’t count as consent either).
As for the alcohol issue, I do see how that could be a blurred line. Someone deciding beforehand “I’m gonna loosen up, get drunk and have sex tonight” and then following through on that isn’t being raped. Neither is someone (or a couple) who gets a little tipsy- but still knows what they’re doing, is aware of their surroundings, and is acting on their motive- who decides to have sex with someone. That is very different from a person or people deciding to do something sexual to someone who is passed out drunk, putting something in someone’s drink to mentally or physically weaken them so they can do what they want to them, or preying on somebody who’s still conscience but they’re wasted to the point where they’ve lost control of their body and have no clue. I do think we need to make sure everybody knows that. I do agree with the rest of what you said though.
I think in many cases someone refusing to be a victim is someone refusing to get proper medical/mental health care and actually handle what happened to them. It usually doesn’t end well in this, and no not 100% of the time but often enough that in truly traumatic incidences I see it more as being a ticking time bomb.
When I see Rihanna used as an example of this I think it sort of proves the point. She clung to her abuser, she defended him, she was ready and willing for him while he had the ‘legitimate’ relationship with Tran, she was the woman constantly waiting lashing out in anger and drug use while he had fun and refusing to be called a victim. She was degenerating and struggling but propping him up to look less like a monster, I think she struggled with contextualizing what happened to her since she grew up in an abusive situation.
I am so disturbed that there is an idea that victim=powerlessness. “Rhianna who refuses to be a victim, even though she is one”. Yes- she’s a victim, why try not to be one?! Being a victim has nothing to do with what the victim wants and does NOT mean weak or any of the other connotations you gave to being a victim. This is why people use the word “survivor”. I am a rape victim, survivor and I am a strong a$$ woman. You are unknowingly supporting victim blaming and hiding the crime after the fact by supporting the idea that being a victim is a weak thing. Being a perp is a bad, weak thing. You also said girls don’t understand the difference being bad sex & rape. Its called consent and I think people know when they give it or not (and you can give consent while not “in the mood”). I don’t think you are giving 19 yr old girls enough credit to decide when THEY are giving consent. You are insinuating to get up after a rape, brush yourself off, not talk about it and not be a “victim”. Ugh……
I also appreciate the frank discussion and this a good place for it and needs to happen. The comments just hit a nerve for me…..
@T. Fanty-I completely agree.
I had a number of sexual encounters when I was in college back in the 1990’s that occurred when I was very drunk. Some of them were good, some were okay and some were bad. A few times I was reluctant participant and regretted what happened the next day but I would not call any of these encounters rape. I made the choice to drink heavily and (even though my judgement was impaired) ultimately I made the choice to go along with the sex.
There seems to be some confusion now about what constitutes rape. IMO, having sex that you reluctantly consented to while inebriated is not rape.
A gay French king? WTF?
Terrible joke. Dude needs to come to terms with the fact that he’s not funny or relevant anymore.
He is relevant though considering he’s still touring worldwide and people still talk about him non stop
Talk about him non-stop? Really? Maybe 20 years ago…
I loved his show, but of the four main characters Jerry was the least funny, and actually played the straight man. When an episode featured his stand-up act it was usually excruciating. Maybe it’s not the PC crowd, but that he’s just not that funny.
“I did this line recently in front of an audience, and comedy is where you can feel an opinion. And they thought, ‘What do you mean gay? What are you talking about gay? What are you doing? What do you mean?’ I thought, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
So basically no one actually said anything to him, and he still feels like they’re reacting in an overly P.C. way in their silence? If you think you can just FEEL a negative opinion, that’s people forcing too much political correctness on you? Talk about thought-policing.
I don’t find the joke offensive, I just don’t think it’s funny. I don’t think he really has anything legitimate to whine about though.
You’re right, I didn’t even catch that. They didn’t laugh at his joke, so he’s projecting to try to find an excuse other than the joke simply didn’t work that night? Shrug it off and move on. He’s just whining here.
Whenever I see someone use the term “PC”, I know I am about to be subjected to bigoted whining. Being homophobic is not pushing any comedy line. Targeting ethnic groups is not pushing any comedy line. That joke wasn’t funny.
Yup.
Never liked him, didn’t like the show, it just was self absorbed and not funny. Which apparently is what he is.
But I do agree in principle with the overwrought PC-esque nature of the world we live in and the comments about social media amplifying things out of the proportion to the (often perceived, sometimes real) offense.
“There’s a creepy pc thing that bothers me”..
Well, there is a creepy old man dating 17 year olds that bothers me!
You can be funny and not offend people, Jerry. You should try it sometime. It’s not about being too politically correct, but as a society, we’re slowly coming to a realization that hurting people’s feelings is not cool.
Move with the times Jerry. Make jokes that allow the audience to laugh at and feel superior to: racists, homophobes and white privilege.
So the natural manner of scrolling through email appears effeminate? Is that what he’s saying? What does he do, stab at it in a manly fashion like a brutish Anglo-Saxon peasant?
“They don’t seem important the way they scroll through them like a gay French king”…..ummmm- I think a gay French king would be very important. Just sayin’
As I said yesterday, I agree that some people do take the whole PC thing so far. And I find it is generally people on tumblr, where if god forbid someone’s least favourite character happens to be a POC then they’re racist or certain actors are trashed for not identifying as a feminist or whatever. And sometimes you need to just be like “Calm down”. So, I do think there are some youths who only see in black or white and not all the shades in between.
That being said, that doesn’t give comedians free reign to say WHATEVER they want. There are ways to be funny and not hurt a group of people.
I have no sympathy for rich people, absolutely none. They’re rich and can say or do whatever they want. No one is STOPPING him from saying anything, they’re just saying that they’re offended. Since when do I or anyone have to change MY opinion of what I find offensive just to make him feel better about himself? He has the freedom to do whatever he wants and I have the freedom to move on and ignore his unfunny jokes. I honestly don’t get why he is so popular.
PC is a term used by people who are upset that its less tolerated now to be a bigot. The discomfort of those people is a good thing.
One of my favourite responses to morons who like to tell bigoted jokes is to tell them I don’t understand the joke, ask them to explain it, then watch them squirm trying to do so without showing their overt racism, homophobia or misogyny.