actually, the Onion's Tweet and McFarlane's jokes were the opposite of each other

I'm disappointed to see a lot of smart people (like Alyssa Rosenberg, for one example) equating The Onion's controversial Tweet about Quvenzhané Wallis with Seth McFarlane's ugly (and lame) routine from the Oscar's telecast last night. In fact, the jokes work on completely different levels. The Onion Tweet was funny because its sentiment could not be mistaken for true. McFarlane's jokes weren't funny (and were troubling) because their sentiments frequently are mistaken for true, when in fact they're just offensive.

In other words, the Onion's Tweet was based on the fact that its premise was ridiculous and that nobody believes it. McFarlane's jokes were based on the idea that his premises-- that Jews run Hollywood, that women need to starve themselves to be attractive, that the violence against women in Django Unchained is similar to Chris Brown's violence against Rhianna, etc.-- are true, and that we know they are true but are too polite to agree with him publicly. The former works on the shock of disbelief, the latter on the shock of recognition. What makes The Onion's joke funny is that no one could reasonably believe its premise. What makes McFarlane's jokes unfunny is that he clearly thinks that he's being a slightly cheeky truth teller when he's just a clown; what makes them disturbing is that so many people in his audience agree with him. Many people do think Hollywood is a conspiracy run by Jews, many people do think that actresses are valuable only because of their tits, many people do think being smarmy is an excuse to be an oaf. That's not just lame, it's dangerous, as it lends credence to ugly ideas.

Meanwhile, nobody, I hope, thinks Wallis is a cunt. In fact, nobody possibly could think that a 9 year old who hasn't had the opportunity to speak out much on her own is a cunt. Otherwise there's no joke! Tell me: what is the joke, if not for the straightforwardly ridiculous nature of the idea? If they had Tweeted "Anne Hathaway is a cunt," people wouldn't have found it nearly as offensive, but they also would have said "they forgot to include the joke." Because some people actually think that. A 9 year old? Of course not.

People find funny what they find funny, and I expect and encourage people to complain about what they find offensive. But to so badly misunderstand the basic mechanism within these two very different kinds of humor, or to understand the difference but equate them and their attendant problems anyway, risks lending credence to the stupidest complaints about political correctness: that people scolding The Onion and McFarlane are doing so out of pure joylessness, or that they make no distinctions within their analysis, or that they complain only to assume a stance of righteousness. When we try to unpack and respond to these situations, it's imperative that we do so carefully, or we do the other side's work for them.