Last updated on January 3, 2023
I never said David Letterman was slutty.
No, really, has this ever happened to you? I know it has. David Letterman is a naturally funny funnyman, and I used to watch him religiously. Not sure when I stopped, but haven’t seen him in a long while. (I watch Jimmy Kimmel instead, but sometimes he’s just stupid or gross.) Anyway, Letterman does have good writers and good Top 10 lists, but it was really really inappropriate to have him include a joke about Arod (Alex Rodriguez) and one of Sarah Palin’s daughters! Who cares whether it’s the 14 year old or the already kid-out-of-wedlock 18 year old mother – to get knocked up suggests something horrible for a teenager when a 33 year old man is involved; she’s either been seduced, raped, or is a Lolita herself. Worse, she’s now preggers and in a pickle that will change (ruin) her entire life.
On the other hand, his comment about Sarah Palin looking like a slutty stewardess is funny to me because of the alliteration, and the fact that her hair and sometimes clothes have that fifties feeling of Come Fly with Me… But I’m surprised his writers picked that up. And of course that’s also insulting, but she is a public figure, and a grownup.
It was his first attempt at explanation: I WAS JUST KIDDING! that got to me. I think men say that too much. On the other hand, I don’t think he had to apologize formally to her. A simple, sorry, I’m a dumbass comedian, would have been fine.
The Cartoon I redrew/rewrote this slightly, to change “mad” to “upset”. She’s obviously crying. What a crass man her significant other is! Obviously, I’m exaggerating the situation for the cartoon, but I think a significant amount of women have had one of these comments hurled at her at one time or another. Even if the comments weren’t this mean, I have heard “I was JUST KIDDING!” way too often in my short life!
I don’t think you’ll ever see a cartoon like this in the mainstream papers. Sigh. It’s topical, it’s newsworthy, it’s true, and I hope it’s a little bit funny. Great colors, too. On the other hand, I had been asking Uclick (who supplies the cartoons for Slate) to please put a category in Slate for Entertainment. Not just in Los Angeles, the biz is a big business, newsworthy in every sense of the word, and one of my favorite topics. So they finally did with this cartoon, so go Hollywood, kids! (they only have 7 cartoons in there so far, as it’s new starting last week.)
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