After Tweet Mess, Comedy Central Backs Trevor Noah

Critics go after old jokes as racist, misogynistic
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 31, 2015 2:44 PM CDT

Yesterday, Comedy Central announced that Trevor Noah would be taking over the Daily Show, a fresh, biracial—albeit male—face to add to the late-night pantheon. But that was yesterday. Today, there's a tempest brewing over Noah's Twitter account, in which he says things like this, as spotted by Buzzfeed's Tom Gara:

  • @Trevornoah: "'Oh yeah the weekend. People are gonna get drunk & think that I'm sexy!" - fat chicks everywhere."
  • @Trevornoah: "Messi gets the ball and the real players try foul him, but Messi doesn't go down easy, just like jewish chicks. # ElClasico "
  • @Trevornoah: "So now that Adele is singing, does that mean it's over?"
  • @Trevornoah: "In Thailand hookers are so cheap, even cheaper than food. Tough choice between Big Mac or Quarter Poundher Deluxe."
  • @Trevornoah: "Originally when men proposed they went down on one knee so if the woman said no they were in the perfect uppercut position."

Reactions ranged from those accusing Noah of misogyny and anti-Semitism to those accusing him of just being lame, notes the New York Times. Comedy Central, though, stood by him. Noah "pushes boundaries; he is provocative and spares no one, himself included,” says a statement. "To judge him or his comedy based on a handful of jokes is unfair." Roseanne Barr, for one, tweeted that "U should cease sexist & anti semitic 'humor' about jewish women & Israel," reports Politico. Noah himself responded this morning in a quickly deleted tweet: "Twitter does not have enough characters to respond to all the characters on Twitter." In a Slate piece, Jessica Winter writes that while, sure, "Twitter is a space for comics to try out material that isn't fully baked," and Noah by no means has the monopoly on misogyny in comedy, "the problem is that Noah’s jokes are so annihilatingly stupid. Are they even jokes? Are they meta-jokes, like the “My arms are so tired” airplane joke he made on his first Daily Show appearance? Or did he mean that as a joke, too?!? Trevor Noah: ontological mystery." (More Trevor Noah stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X