On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Brad Beam <[email protected]> wrote:
> Terry Gross had a WHCD post-mortem sit-down with Larry on today’s “Fresh > Air.” > > > <http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-presidential-comedy-20150425-story.html> > > > http://www.npr.org/2016/05/03/476598311/larry-wilmore-on-breaking-taboos-at-the-white-house-correspondents-dinner > I was preparing comments yesterday when I saw this link posted. I decided to delay comments until I listened to it. His explanations do not change my comments. 1. Whatever Larry Wilmore's strengths are in comedy, stand-up is not one of them. 2. The comedian at one of these events has to walk a tightrope - simultaneously make fun of a target in the room and keep him/her and the audience on his side. Obama did it with Jake Tapper and Wilmore failed with wolf Blitzer. Both politics and journalism are going through major disruptions and that makes practitioners of both insecure about their status and future. Roast-type jokes are very risky with that crowd. 3. I had no problem with the end of the routine. Wilmore made the point that an African-American perspective on the Obama presidency differs from a white one and he made his comment from that context. Even though it was said in front of a global audience it was intended for only a small part of that audience. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
