Sheer brutality

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The Comedy Central Roasts have got to be one of the funniest shows the Comedy Network has today and, from the bottom of my heart, I have the utmost respect for every celebrity that appears on these episodes. The jokes that are told are so personal, so vulgar, and so rude, there is no way I could even imagine myself in the shoes as a roaster or getting roasted.

I’ve got a great sense of humor, but some things go a little too far for my liking during the Charlie Sheen episode. It eventually got to the point where I actually felt bad for the tiger-blooded rock star from Mars and a few of the other roasters.

For those of you that might not know, the Comedy Central Roast is a show where one celebrity is continuously getting roasted – or, more simply, getting made fun of – by eight to ten other celebrities. The most recent episode, and the one I’m going to talk about, is the Charlie Sheen roast.The roasters were Jon Lovitz, Tony Jeselnik, Steve-O, William Shatner, Kate Walsh, Iron Mike Tyson, Jeff Ross, Patrice O’Neal, Amy Schumer, and the host, Seth MacFarlane.

The first issue I had with the roast was a Kate Walsh joke. For the most part, Walsh was extremely funny. Being one of the first roasters to take the stand, she based her whole stand-up skit off of her Grey’s Anatomy character, and roasted other celebrities by “diagnosing” them with a joke. I thought this was creative, because she did more than just the standing up and talking into the microphone. But, she delivered one joke that had even Sheen saying, “too soon.”Walsh commented on Sheen abusing his lungs, his kidney, his liver, but yet the only thing he’s had removed from him are his kids.

Oh snap! If there’s any way to instantly get under my skin and piss me off, it’s making fun of my family. The joke wasn’t a shot at myself, but I put myself in the shoes of Sheen.There’s absolutely no way I could possibly tolerate a joke like this while not having the authority to speak up instantly. The look in Sheen’s eyes after this joke practically screamed, “Here we go…” And let me tell you, he was in for one hell of a night.

Essentially, Walsh’s joke bugged me, but not as much as the jokes about dying.To me, joking about death is no laughing matter. To begin, Seth MacFarlane made a comment about watching Sheen’s pretend funeral on Two and a Half Men. He then went on to say that if you wait, you could just see the real thing in two months. MacFarlane even used Amy Winehouse’s death in one of his jokes. Honestly, I think it was lucky that Sheen wasn’t on stage yet. This was way, way too far, way too early in the show. Maybe I think too much, but I always wonder, “What if?” How bad would MacFarlane feel if Sheen did pass away in two months? It’s a joke now until something bad happens, then it’s distasteful. Yes, I understand I am stretching out MacFarlane’s joke a little farther than it has to be, but trust me, I’m only trying to prepare you for the worst.

Another death joke came from roaster Amy Schumer. Schumer said to Steve-O, “I truly am, no joke, sorry for the loss of your friend Ryan Dunn. I know you must have been thinking, ‘It could have been me’, and I know we were all thinking, ‘Why wasn’t it?’”

The look on Steve-O’s face was absolute disgust. The crowd laughed, but I think they laughed only because they were on TV. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard this. If anybody on this planet made a joke about someone I know that’s deceased, I’d blow up on the spot. I didn’t like Schumer before she took to the stage, and I definitely lost all respect for her after her joke directed at Steve-O. I know I keep using the words “disgusted” and “distasteful” to describe how I felt about the death jokes. So, I’m going to continue to use them to describe how I felt about Schumer’s diabetes joke to Patrice O’Neal.

Schumer began by sating Patrice O’Neal is destined for success and also diabetes. Further, she claimed the Sheen Roast was also a farewell party for Patrice’s foot. O’Neal, like Steve-O, didn’t even laugh at Schumer’s joke. Even as I write this article, I cover my face in anger at what an ignorant being Schumer is. I cannot name one person I know with diabetes that would even remotely find any laughter in such a joke. I know Schumer was trying to be funny and controversial, but her distasteful, childish jokes made herself look absolutely stupid. Dumb one-liners like this make me want to flip the channel over to Monday Night Football and flip back when someone with a real sense of humor is on.

Apart from Mike Tyson’s profane stand up act that sounded like “bleep, bleep, drugs, bleep, bleep, Charlie Sheen, bleep, some word that starts with the letter S, bleep,” the most redeeming quality of the entire evening was Charlie Sheen himself. I loved watching Charlie Sheen, who was being roasted throughout the entire show, scorch his adversaries at the end of the episode with his genuinely funny line, “It’s true, I’ve hung around with a lot shady people over the years, losers, drug addicts, dealers, desperate whores, but to have you all here on one night is really special.”

Although my anger was fueled by ignorant jokes and I’ve lost a lot of respect for Amy Schumer, my level of respect for Charlie Sheen increased greatly. I remember hearing Jeff Ross say to Charlie Sheen that because he’s taken so many punches during the roast, Sheen has proven to his family, friends, and fans, that he is the new king of comebacks. Anyone can call Sheen crazy, a drug addict, a loser, or any other demeaning trait they can think of. But, whether they like to admit it or not, after watching what he endured during his roast, Charlie Sheen has proven that he is made of pure granite.

Colton Hordichuk
Contributor

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