Stop "Old" Jokes Now!

The time has come to stop making "Old Jokes." I shouldn't have to say that. In most societies old age is respected for accrued wisdom. Not in ours. In ours you get ridiculed, marginalized and completely discounted as though wrinkles and other natural aging processes disqualified a person from being a member of the human race. Worse, that normal aging qualifies the rest of the world to make fun of you.

There are many reasons to dislike John McCain. His age is not one of them.

In my youth, as a card-carrying member of the "Youth Culture," I may have fought against the older generation, but I never thought they were laughable. They weren't. They were in control, they could and would send me to certain death in Viet Nam.

This all started when people began laughing at the "I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up" commercials. I was in my 40's when they were running and I could never understand what was so fucking funny about an older person who was unable to get up off the floor after having fallen. I still don't. The heartless cruelty a person must have within them in order to find that amusing escapes me. And I'm the guy who wrote, "Grandma Turns Pet Dog Inside Out Looking for Lost Lottery Ticket" for a supermarket tabloid. THAT is funny, sick and funny, but not in the same way.

Jon Stewart should know better. His hair is getting gray. He's over forty, or looks it. He is the worst of the offenders. I understand others, the Sterns and Mancows of the world whose job it is to be cruel. But Stewart should be above making fun of someone simply because that person is old. It is symptomatic of why "The Daily Show" is shrinking in its popularity. Once you no longer have Bush to kick around, you have to go looking for targets, real or imagined. Since the writers' strike ended, they don't seem to know what's funny or what to do to be funny. So they take the easy way out, "old" jokes. Fat jokes, too.

I wish you could feel what it does to a person of age who is at least as aware as any 25 year old, and in most cases more aware. It doesn't feel good.

Try this: substitute the word, "Nigger" or "Jew" or "Bitch" or "Sand Nigger" or "Dago" for "old," either literally or conceptually. Now how does it sound? Still think it's funny?

One of these fine days, all of the folks who make "old " jokes will look in the mirror and perhaps pause, suck in their breath and say, "Oh my God. Did I really say that stuff? Look at me. I got old." And then they'll look around and find that people younger than they are pushing them out, not paying attention to them, discounting their talents and making fun of them, in public, on TV....everywhere.

I don't have to wish I were around to see it. I know it will happen.

Their smugness will be gone. Their snark in retreat.

Perhaps if they stopped the "old" jokes now, they might be better able to live with themselves later on.

I don't expect this will happen. I am a better writer, TV producer, radio DJ than I was when I was 30. I will not have the opportunity to prove that. Nobody wants to hire an old guy, no matter how good he still is. "Old" jokes feed this idea. "Old" jokes are a result of this idea. They even think there should be an age cut-off for driving a car.

So shall it be for those who now laugh. That's my only consolation. That and making fun of those stupid wool-hats the indie-boys wear.

Comments

[ProfessorDuh]

McCain is as menacing as a mummy in a horror movie.

[AswanHDam]

GIVE ME IMMORTALITY
OR GIVE ME DEATH!

[colossus]

Old jokes are funny sometimes and we're all headed in that direction anyways. Not quite the same as making fun of someone for their skin color or culture or sexual orientation.

[AnnMedlock]

To Collossus--Ah but the young don't really think they'll ever be "like that," wrinkled, forgetful, a bit deaf... They really think they'll always be the way they are now. I know. I was young awhile ago.

[dadw5boys]

Age is relevent to this election. I have never accepted a rope hanging from a tree as a sgin of our acceptences of racism. Old people in southern states still live by those rules. Walk the streets with a black man in Missippi or Alabama for a few weeks and see how your treated by old white people.
I am a disabled vet the V.A. has held me as a prisoner in pain for over 30 years without much to offer till recently after the Walter Reed story broke about Veterans Care. I have now received several scans and x rays. They operated on one knee and doing the other soon.

They even gave me 2 hearing aides that I have needed for over 30 years finally. It was a schock when the Doctor handed me the 2 hearing aides. He said " YOUR HEARING HAS NOT CHANGED MUCH AT ALL SINCE WE DID THE HEARING TEST ON YOU AFTER YOUR DISCHARGE FROM THE MARINE CORP. HERE ARE YOUR HEARING AIDES THESE WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE MUCH MUCH EASIER."

Many of my problems over 35 years with schools, people, job, the wife, the kids, bosses, employees, and even the government stem from NOT BEING ABLE TO HEAR!!!!!!!!

Mc CAIN HAS BEEN IN OFFICE HOW LONG????? ONE OF THE FEW VETERANS IN CONGRESS!!!!!!!!!!
HE ALLOWED THE V.A. TO TREAT VETS LIKE THAT FOR OVER 30 YEARS ????

SEE WHAT OLD FARTS WILL DO TO KEEP THIER JOBS!!!!!!!!!!!

[rgersmrk]

I'll take Jon Stewart over Leno or Letterman any day. At least he still is relevant and funny.

[fpie]

The punch line I can't get out of my head was in the movie "A Prairie Home Companion". Dusty and Lefty were singing the song "Bad Jokes" (lord I love 'em) and the joke was burried behind back stage conversation but the punch line... ,"She offered Grandpa 'super sex' and Gramps said 'I'll take the soup' ".
The thing is I'm starting to know what he means. It's times like these that I try to take my Dad's advise to learn to laugh at myself. Besides I like soup.

[bmora]

I think Tom is taking himself way to seriously.

[cynara]

Agreed. I'd never vote for McCain, but thats because I've examined his voting record, and found there are plenty of things that I was none to pleased with (anti-womens reproductive rights, anti civil rights, and somehow voting against the anti-torture CIA proposalt(!?)). The man's age should have nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, old age bias remains prevalent in this country.

For better or worse, all the candidates appear to be on an equal playing field of bigotry - there are certain Americans that won't vote for them out of prejudice. I don't know whether sexism, ageism or racism is more prevalent in this country today. But with so many terribly important issues facing us - the war in Iraq (that has cost us 3 trillion dollars, that could have gone to addressing our domestic problems - infrastructure, school funding, etc), the housing crisis, the shredding of habeas corpus and rights guaranteed under the constitution, the falling dollar, the falling stock market, etc, etc... it is depressing to think we may be willing to decide an election based on something to trivial as someones gender, the color of the skin, or how many birthdays they've had. Our country is in crisis, and our electorate wallows in the shallowness candidate personality stereotypes, and gotcha sound bytes. You'd think we'd have bigger things to think about...

[Desiderata]

Stepping out of the shower before the fogged mirror,
The condensate on the glass blurs the old nude;
And allows an illusion of it's youth so dear,
Before too much time and the wrong kind of food.

I, too, am drawn to young women,
All young enough to be my granddaughter, though.
Perhaps I rightfully belong among the labeled "dirty old men"
But I have no place else to go.

Still, as the mirror chills and the fog disappears,
To restore the truth of a body no longer firm and lean;
The truth be told as my eyes fill with tears__
Some nudity is best left unseen.

[jvarga]

One of the issues at play is that (I think) it is easier to excuse McCain as being old and crazy saying the things he does. It's less pleasant to think that the man is stupid and evil and that that is why he says what he says.

[Stefano]

We are watching the process of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Every old coot blog I read, every old age joke i see on Letterman, the daily Show etc, and all i can think, my parents WILL be voting, will you? Obama's unitentional gaffe may hurt his chances with rural voters, all this age bashing may hurt our chances with the elderly (Florida) The DNC has written off Michigan and Florida's primary. Where does this all stop. remember this, in 2004, many more people 65+ voted than 18-24. Obama's energy may neutralize some of this, but why are we going out of our way to drive people away. I'm so frustrated lately with all this. If we lose in '08, we can only blame ourselves.

[Durango]

Jon Stewart losing audience? Au Contre.

Stewart can make those jokes because he is a friend of John McCain. Doesn't share his political views. But respects him as an individual.

Besides old jokes are like lawyer jokes. The older folks know and tell more of them than anyone else.

[AnnMedlock]

Yeah there's that thing--we can josh EACH OTHER about the absurdities of an aging body. But that's not the issue. It's the assumptions The Young have about who oldsters are. The blanket categorization "Old People Are Like That" endangers our health in the medical system--fixable problems are dismissed as normal for our age.

More widely there's the assumption that we're all selfish & demanding, don't care about the young, aren't quick on the uptake, are generally befuddled--one gets tempted to kick some young butt with the news that we're individuals, that we've had infinitely varied experiences, that we know stuff that might be amazing-- even valuable, and that a lot of us don't fit a single humorous stereotype of Old Folks.

So, yes, anybody under 50 can now stop with the Old jokes.

[Arguman]

I don't think he's exactly a friend of McCain. McCain has aagreed to be on the show many times and Stewart would be stupid to turn him down. He's great fodder.
And the "old" jokes are funny. If viewers are stupid enough to vote based solely on someone's age, that's their problem. And its not just TDS that does the old jokes, Colbert does as well. They don't just do old jokes, either, but it is a concern to have a possible President that could die in office because of his age. Unfortunately it didn't happen to Reagan, but I'd rather have a President a bit younger and in decent physical condition where their health wouldn't be a reason for concern during their Presidency.

Not that I'd vote for McCain anyway, of course.