One of the saddest things in comedic history is to see comedians apologizing because a joke, sketch, or movie didn’t age well. Unwilling to accept that it was appropriate for the time and place or differentiate between then and now is shameful. Yet that’s exactly what some of SNLs “great” comedians from the 80s and 90s are doing now.
Reaching back to 1992, Dana Carvey apologized to Sharon Stone for a skit they did with Kevin Nealon, Rob Schnieder, and the late Phil Hartman. In the sketch, Carvey played an Indian security guard, and Stone was having problems with security and stripping off layer after layer to pass.
“I want to apologize publicly for the security check sketch where I played an Indian man and we’re convincing Sharon, her character, or whatever, to take her clothes off to go through the security thing…It’s so 1992, you know, it’s from another era.” Co-host David Spade jumped in to cringe at what he deemed to be an offensive skit.
Oddly enough, Stone seemed largely unphased by the skit or the fact that she was protested against for her monologue on the episode as she was one of the faces of AIDS activism. Even now, her response to the situation and the apology is proof that she gets it.
“I know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony. And I think that we were all committing misdemeanors [back then] because we didn’t think there was something wrong then. We didn’t have this sense. That was funny to me, I didn’t care. I was fine being the butt of the joke. Now we’re in such a weird and precious time. Everyone is so afraid and are putting up such barriers around everything that people can’t be normal with each other anymore. It’s lost all sense of reason.”
Stone’s reaction is the only appropriate one. The lack of reason in comedy and people demanding we cower to them being offended is horrible for our nation. It only serves to weaken our population and make victims out of everyone.
