[CONTENT WARNING: This post contains harsh language.]
In December of last year I wrote a post entitled “Meet Whitney Cummings: Up-and-Coming Comic Who Steals Jokes about Handicapped Babies.” The gist of it is that at a roast for Quentin Tarantino at the New York Friars’ Club, the comedienne had this to say about Sarah Palin and her son Trig, who suffers from Down syndrome:
[Tarantino has] produced more retarded things than Sarah Palin’s vagina.
Regarding her choice of targets, I summed it up this way:
Who is the butt of this joke? A toddler who suffers from down-syndrome and the mother that chose not to destroy him while he was in the womb. Yikes. Regarding Trig: Lay. Off. The. Kids. Okay? Regarding Mama Palin: Is it possible to write a more obvious joke on a more obvious target? I’m sure Ms. Cummings fancies herself irreverent; what would be truly irreverent is if she would harness a little of that hate that dwells in her dreary heart and direct it toward someone who is actually in power. Here are some possible targets she may want to consider: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden (notice how I’m not mentioning Obama’s children?). If she insists on resorting to humor that’s main attribute is shock-value, why not try a target that might actually shock someone?
What makes this joke even more embarrassing for one of the comedy world’s rising stars is that Cummings had stolen the hideous one-liner, as I explain in the post.
Yet, Cummings’ comedy has apparently struck the fancy of executives at NBC and CBS, as both networks have readied TV shows with her for this upcoming season. First, she’s the star, writer, creator, and executive producer of the NBC sitcom “Whitney,” set to premiere in September. Here’s a preview:
“I love you so much, I’m not going to marry you.” Wow. Not only is she funny and attractive, she’s so progressive. As you might have been able to guess, the buzz on this one is bad… very bad.
Cummings is also the Executive Producer and Creator of CBS’s upcoming “2 Broke Girls,” starring Kat Dennings. The show is set to follow “How I Met Your Mother” on Monday nights, also beginning in September. The buzz on this one is that it has tested very well:
This preview’s a bit funnier, though the “you’ve been robbed! No wait, you just have a really messy place” joke is hardly original.
As the anticipation of Whitney Cummings TV Takeover approaches its boiling point, here’s something worth keeping in mind: Cummings’ attack on Trig had a very similar tenor to the more high-profile jokes at the expense of the handicapped toddler levied by Wonkette last month. For those of you unfamiliar, writer Jack Steuf’s mockery of Trig Palin on his birthday led to the formation of the twitter group known as #TrigsCrew, who hounded advertisers to pull their sponsorship from the Wonkette blog. Dozens removed their ads, and Steuf and Wonkette parted ways a couple of weeks later. As John Nolte put it, “other than the most craven among us, Wonkette has brought many together in agreement that the use of a child as a partisan political bludgeon is not [fair game].”
By that logic, we can count Whitney Cummings in the “most craven among us” crowd.
You can look forward to seeing her all over your television starting this September.