Dear Jon Stewart: Please stop making fun of Mitch McConnell’s face

BY JOANNA SCHROEDER

Dear Jon Stewart,

I love you, man. I just want to get that right out there. I loved The Daily Show when Craig Kilborn was the host, but you took the show and made it into a cultural phenomenon. You’re lovable, relatable, intelligent, and obviously hilarious. Your greatest skill, however, is in calling out anybody who deserves it. Not just Republicans, but also those from the political spectrum you and I both identify with. Sometimes those call-outs sting, but I think we all agree that they have to be done.

One moment when I actually stood up and cheered (literally) was when you called out Time for the horribly offensive fat-joke cover featuring Chris Christie, calling him “the elephant in the room.” I don’t think I need to explain the importance of naming identity bullying when we see it, and you did just that.

There are a lot of things about Chris Christie that can be made fun of that don’t involve his physical appearance, like every single aspect of Bridgegate, his mishandling of Hurricane Sandy relief, and his anti-gay agenda. These jokes don’t play into a cultural narrative that shames and marginalizes a group that is already dealing with systematized oppression.

So thank you for standing up to Time for that.

But here’s where things get sticky. If you don’t think it’s cool to make jokes about Chris Christie’s weight, then what’s with jokes about Senator Mitch McConnell’s physical appearance? Why the turtle joke, Jon?

Are you going to reply, “I mean, all we did, was take a photo of Mitch McConnell, and put it on the body of a turtle” like you joked about Time? And week after week after week, you’re still zinging this guy for his face.

Yes, Mitch McConnell is terrible. I mean, as a politician. His Tea Party-appeasing, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-poor voting record is atrocious. Let’s keep talking about that. We need to keep talking about that.

And we can totally make jokes about the objective of that new McConnell campaign ad (video at the top of the post), which, as you point out, is solely designed to give footage to the “Super PACs that he cannot legally coordinate with… so they can take pieces of it and use it in their pro-McConnell ads.” Yes, the ad is a bit of trickery to get around campaigning regulations.

But the fact that you think he looks like a turtle? No, we don’t need to talk about that. We don’t need to make fun of his face or even his mannerisms. Why not? Because it’s identity bullying and it’s no better than calling Chris Christie “the elephant in the room”.

Jon, the values you and I share are based upon the acceptance of people’s differences. We want to be allies for people unlike ourselves: people of color, disabled folks, LGTBQ folks, the abused and disenfranchised, immigrants, the poor and the needy, and more. We want a society where people are given equal opportunities, and where kids can grow up without fear of being made fun of for things they can’t control.

But, friend, that’s gotta start with us. You and me. We’re both parents. We’re both in the spotlight—me a teeny tiny bit, you a whole bunch—and we need to do better.

Making fun of someone’s physical appearance is cheap. It’s beneath you. And while McConnell doesn’t deserve a whole lot of respect for the pandering politics he practices, he does deserve for us to leave his physical appearance alone.

Yours,

Joanna

Joanna Schroeder serves as executive editor of the Good Men Project and is a freelance writer whose work has appeared on sites like xoJane, hlntv.com, and the Huffington Post. This article was previously featured on the Good Men Project and republished with permission.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons