Yesterday I took a shot at those on the right who inexplicably feel that they have the luxury of worrying about whether there's a liberal subtext to James Cameron's Avatar. My point was that with everything else that's going on right now, you'd think that anyone serious about fixing the country would ignore inconsequential pretend controversies, at least for the time being. Well, not to be outdone -- and proving that there are overly touchy dingbats on both sides of the political fence -- say hello to what's shaping up to be the politically correct left's own Avatarian cause célèbre du jour: David Letterman's crack about President Obama's latest appointee to the Commerce Department, Amanda Simpson -- who happens to be the first transgender ever named to a federal post by the President of the United States.
Two nights ago on The Late Show, Letterman mentioned the appointment of Simpson during his monologue, including the fact that she's transgender; upon hearing this, someone behind the scenes on the show immediately jumped up from his seat in a panic, shouted, "Wait, Amanda used to be a dude?! Oh my god!" and ran offstage in horrified disgust, implying of course that he'd been intimate with "her" at some point. It was a totally juvenile gag, but one that was actually pretty funny -- not so much because it was taking a shot at Simpson but because the guy who supposedly had hooked up with her was 67-year-old Alan Kalter, The Late Show's amusingly staid announcer.
Needless to say, as soon as the bit was over you could've practically counted down the seconds before the mushroom cloud of thoroughly unnecessary liberal indignation appeared on the horizon. Yesterday the muscularly named Human Rights Campaign -- which concentrates solely on the human rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders -- sent an official letter to CBS demanding (wait for it) that Letterman issue an obligatory on-air apology. The group's somewhat dubious claim is that it's a very short hop from using transgender people as a punchline to, you know, actually punching them. Admittedly, the notion of "trans panic" has been used, unsuccessfully, as a defense in a number of cases of crimes against transgenders, but to claim that a gag about a sexagenarian (no pun intended) who fooled around with someone who used to be called "Mitch" before he became "Amanda" is somehow beyond the pale for a comedian -- that's monumentally silly.
There's been quite a bit of back-and-forth on this subject on Twitter this morning, with those who support the outcry against Letterman claiming that poking fun at a transgender -- which I don't think the Late Show bit was doing as much as it was poking fun at the most immature response to a transgender -- is the same as making a racial or ethnic joke.
Except that it isn't.
I'll catch a certain amount of hell for this, but the difference is that you can't choose your race, ethnicity or even your sexual orientation -- as in, which sex happens to appeal to you -- but transgenderism, be it hormonally enhanced cross-dressing or surgical sexual reassignment, is a choice. I understand that for many, they feel as if it's a choice that they really have no choice but to make, however there's still a conscious and informed decision at play in whether someone lives outwardly as the opposite sex. It's wrong to ridicule a person for a state of being that he or she has no control over -- and I think, by the way, that genuine ridicule and light-hearted kidding around are two entirely different things -- but if you're aware of the potential real-world consequences of a decision and do it anyway, you forfeit your right to complain too loudly. Now before anyone screams bloody murder, yes, of course in a perfect society no one would ever make fun of those who choose transgenderism, and I'm all for a more tolerant culture -- which doesn't mean that I think that trying to force people to be tolerant is a good idea. The problem, though, is that we don't live in a perfect society. I've used this example here before but I have tattoos -- 14 of them; I don't have the nerve to assume a position of righteous indignation when someone looks at me and forms an immediate and even wrong-headed opinion of me based on my decision to cover my arms in ink -- even if I see the tattoos as a form of expression that I felt compelled to commit to. People make decisions about who we are based on the image we present to the world. There's just no way around that.
I'm not sure that anyone has the right to single out dressing like the opposite sex -- or undergoing surgery to become the opposite sex -- and declare it off-limits for everyone else to notice and potentially comment on in a way they see fit or, possibly, find entertaining.
Moreover, the Letterman thing was a joke. Just a freaking joke.
But as we all know by now, if there's anyone who cannot take a joke -- and who consistently appoint themselves the gatekeepers of potentially offensive material for the rest of us -- it's the perpetually aggrieved left.
Related:
Media Matters: WorldNetDaily's Bigoted Attack on Amanda Simpson/1.6.10 (As much as I hate to defend Fox News and WorldNetDaily, once again the outrage expressed in this piece is a little over-the-top.)
DXM: Why So Serious?/4.25.09
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