Los-Angeles-Shooter wrote:
Maher is routinely quoted and is widely-quoted on the web. I've never seen him criticized in the mainstream media for his gutter mouth or gutter behavior. Recently he spewed out vitriole about women, including calling Palin a "cunt" along with various insults about her intelligence.
Look at the hypocrisy: can you imagine how the mainstream media would carry on if a leading Conservative referred to Hillary Clinton or Oprah Winfrey as a "cunt"?
Maher routinely uses vile language, but the mainstream media never calls him to account for his gutter language, gutter behavior, or anti-women statements.
See below for a discussion of his gutter mouth and misogynistic statements.:
Real Time host Bill Maher wasnt talking about energy efficient light bulbs when he used the term 2 watt in reference to Sarah Palin on his show, and he wasnt expressing a wish to see her next Tuesday during a weekend performance of his stand-up act. The late-night comic/political pundit often uses shocking language to cultivate an edgy persona, but his gender-based attacks on conservative women like Palin and Michele Bachmann threaten to alienate the many pro-vagina viewers in his audience.
According to a review by The Dallas Voice, Mahers use of the slur constitutes fearlessness:
Its that fearlessness he acknowledged that some people would probably be uncomfortable with some of his remarks about religion, not to mention calling Sarah Palin a cunt (theres just no other word for her) that makes Maher the most dangerous person in comedy.
Shock humor is a staple of the stand-up comedy world, so policing the language of stand-up comics is an impossible task, and an undesirable one. Stand-up comedy is art, and is due the same latitude as other art forms.
But, as Newsbusters Noel Sheppard points out, Bill Maher isnt your typical comic:
Maher is indeed doing political commentary. When he gets interviewed by CNN, MSNBC, or any of the broadcast network news programs, its not to do one-liners.
It is instead for him to offer his political views about current events in a venue made for such a thing.
Yet, when he makes a comment that crosses the line, hell conveniently hide behind the comedian veil and folks on the Left will wittingly give him a pass.
I disagree with that last part, of course, since Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers immediately comes to mind as someone who has denounced Mahers attacks. Misogyny isnt just a left/right issue, as the recent #MooreAndMe flap attests.
However, I will concede that there are some who have differing standards on language, depending on the speaker and the target, but thats also not a left/right issue. Sarah Palin is a great example of this from the right.
But on the subject of Bill Maher, Sheppard is absolutely right, Maher is too far out into the political punditsphere to be able to jump back behind the stand-up comic wall when it suits him, and verbal violence like this has no place in politics.
Besides, Ive seen this kind of thing from Maher for a long time, and his use of shocking language and jokes, more often than not, is used as a replacement for actual material, rather than as an enhancement.
Maher isnt likely to stop any time soon, unless some of his guests begin to confront and call him out for it, like Dana Loesch did over his use of the term Teabagger, or until he stops getting a reaction.
Maher is routinely quoted and is widely-quoted on ... (
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Without getting into a big in depth discussion I'll just say that Bill Maher is a comedian first and foremost and I've never heard him duck any criticism. Is his comedy informed by his political position? Yes. Is he sarcastic and snarky? Yes. Is he worse in that regard than Greg Gutfeld? Hell no. At least Bill Maher is funny. And just for the record I've seen more than one guest challenge Bill on a point which resulted in an intelligent conversation. I'll also say that there have been times when I have disagreed with him, this being one. Calling Sarah Palin a cunt is a little beyond the pale of good taste even for Bill Maher.
Next time please use your own thoughts instead of cutting and pasting an article that you've read.