anyone else see Leno spew yet another tasteless "gay joke"?

[ruggerson]

hasn't he had to apologize a number of times already?

[FreeState]

1. I did not see it but yes this is the norm for him unfortunately

He is fairly pro-gay but somehow thinks that excuses him for being a jackass.

[jeremyfive]

12. Really? You'd never know if for all his anti-gay material through the years!

Really? You'd never know if for all his anti-gay material through the years!

[FreeState]

14. Heres an interview with him on After Elton

http://www.afterelton.com/blog/michaeljensen/jay-leno-gay-rights-gay-face


AfterElton.com: I know in the past you've had controversy about gay issues but—
Jay Leno: What's odd about this is that we've always supported. We've never done a joke about gay rights. I was one of the first celebrities to show up at the gay marriage thing, and went on TV publicly. The jokes we do are always about culture or dress, never about rights. Whenever we have Melissa Etheridge or anybody like that, we'd ask, "How's your partner doing?" and we talk about it this way. If there was a joke, a gay oriented joke, it was always about fashion or something. It's not that kind of joke. I was amazed when that playwright, what's his name?

AE: Jeff Whitty.
JL: Yeah. I couldn't quite get that. I did a little investigating and apparently he'd auditioned for the show, and I guess they passed on him. I thought it was really unfair. I spoke to him and said, "What's this all about? Does this really sound like gay-baiting, or anti-gay?" I just didn't get it. He seemed overly angry to me.

AE: Has your thinking on gay jokes, has your approach to it changed over time?
JL: Yeah! We live in a different time. You can only live in the time you live in. I think it's fair to say that over the course of the years, everyone has done jokes that were inappropriate, but in the time of Obama ... You know, I think it's one of the reasons Bruno didn't do as well as people thought it would, because people go, "We don't really think of gay people like that anymore." It just doesn't...

I think it's okay to do jokes and this type of thing, but you learn where to draw the line. I think it's ridiculous that gays aren't allowed to serve in the military, that they're not allowed to get married. I think it's a human rights issue. I think people sound like Klan members when they say they're against gay marriage. I've been married 29 years. How is my marriage threatened if you marry another guy? "Well, that's it, honey. We're over because this guy I just met..." I just don't get it.

I honestly felt like Jeff blew it way out of proportion. I had Ryan Phillippe on and he said he played a gay man, and I said, "Give me that look." I've said to other males stars like Antonio Banderas, "Show me that sexy look you give when you're trying to hit on a woman." And they make a face, and that's obviously where I was going with it. When it sort of backfired in my face, I didn't mind apologizing. That's not what I meant at all.

This is a big time show. We have a lot of gay employees on the show. Some are married, some aren't. It just seemed a little unfair. And I say that to you as a representative of a gay magazine, and I don't mean to whine and complain about it, because I did apologize, and I realize it was wrong, but to keep beating on it just seemed a little unfair to me.

[Ian David]

30. It sounds like Jay's heart is in the right place on this issue. He's just a little confused is all.

I'm not giving him a pass.

I'm just saying that he's at least making an effort.

But if he REALLY wanted to stop being an asshole, he'd stop being a Republican.

[Jacobair]

2. I don't think it's a coincidence that I am, and always have been

a Letterman fan.
We're talking wayyyy back to his NBC days in the 1980's!
Aside from any gay jokes, Leno always has the Republicans on.
I'm surprised they haven't painted McCain's name on a reserved parking spot yet. barf.

[aquart]

3. McCain was on Letterman. So was Bush.

And I have to assume you missed Leno's signoff for his late show. Which was a tribute to its union staff.

[Jacobair]

5. Right, and Leno kisses Arnold Schwarzenegger's

Republican ass also.
The two people you mentioned chose to announce they were running for president and governor, respectively, on Leno.
Just because they showed up on Letterman well after the fact proves what?
You may enjoy Leno, however I think he's a raging Republican. You'll never convince me Letterman is anything but on our (at least my) side as a progressive.

[Touchdown]

4. have you checked the fall schedule?

This fucker's going to be on 5 nights a week!:grr:

[sandyj999]

6. I know what I WON'T be watching.

NBC may regret this move.

[mockmonkey]

7. Law and Order

was funnier than Jay.

[JeanGrey]

11. I know and it's great. Conan is so awful I just about gave up

on late night - now I can still have the tonight show and get an extra hour of sleep!

[closeupready]

8. Methinks he doth protest too much.

If what you are saying is that he chose his show's premier night to tell a gay joke. I didn't watch, so I wouldn't know, but I do know his track record, which - aside from the fact that he is not funny - means I have no intention of watching. He gets stressed and then releases the tension by telling a joke about that over which he's obsessing.

[litlady]

9. Leno seems like a liberal to me...

Here is a good interview about his politics:

http://www.alternet.org/media/19909

[Gedankenaustausch]

10. What was the joke?

Can someone post an example of one of the jokes... I can't seem to find any online.

[ruggerson]

15. they were doing a skit with his band leader

where they were supposedly boyfriends and the name of a gay bar they referenced was "the sphincter."

Freeper humor, in other words.

I don't get this obession they have with anal sex. As if straight people don't do it all the time.

[Ms. Toad]

17. I'd forgotton that one.

He was pretty raunchy last night, overall. He started getting really raunchy after he added John Melendez to the show, and had calmed back down. Last night was beyond anything I would choose to watch, again.

[Gedankenaustausch]

20. haha

While I'm not a freeper, I am gay, and I know where Jay's heart is, and I know where he stands politically. I think this is being taken a little bit too seriously. I actually think it's kind of funny. But, I haven't seen the skit. I just think the name of Sphincter for a gay club is hilarious. I hope that the same people that are upset about Jay's comment aren't the people who support comedians/media that are "gay friendly" but yet make ton's of really bad gay jokes. The Lisa Lampanelli's, the Kathy Griffith's, Sex & the City, etc. I've heard some things come out of their mouths that any mo could take offense to but yet, we love them and never criticize them. Just something to think about....

Yeah, what is the deal with the obsession? Breeders always seem so interested in who's on top & who's on bottom. They feel so uncomfortable with what we do, they have to put us into "gendered" roles so we can fit into their world. LOL

[donco6]

21. Yeah, and you think raids on gay bars are A-OK, too.

Hmmm . . .

[Gedankenaustausch]

23. nope

i sure don't. next time read what I post. Also, I thought about responding to your post with "Yeah, well you know what? Based on your journal entry on October 12th 2006, I think that your notion that schools should be scaled down to a maximum size of 400-600 students is absolute crap," but, the difference between me and you is I don't bring in arguments from previous threads... which is kinda a violation of DU rules... is it not? Do you make a habit of following around people you disagree with on DU and post things that are in no way pertinent to the current conversation?

[donco6]

24. Gosh! You read my journal!

I'm flattered.

[Gedankenaustausch]

25. lol

indeed.

[Christa]

28. Straight people do it

and I bet many straight men would not mind doing it with each other at all.

I know for a fact many married men go for quickies after work, with someone they just met on Craigslist, before going home to wifie.

[Ms. Toad]

16. Last night's was a parody of some heterosexual

confront your cheating spouse show I've never seen. Leno was confronting Marsalis about seeing someone else. The "confrontation" took place in a park. Marsalis' new "love" looked just like Jay - and all three were dressed in argyle sweaters.

Most of his gay jokes either suggest Marsalis is gay or that the two of them are a couple.

[mitchtv]

13. you mean to tell me he's not still doing Clinton jokes?

I tuned out after the first 15 years. Oh yeah , Gay jokes too. He has a very RW audience, too. He claims Dem, and His wife is a real women's advocate

[bullwinkle428]

18. Leno's ratings dropped by 35% from the first night to the second...

:woohoo:

[plantwomyn]

19. One minute into the skit

I turned him off and won't be watching again. Yuck.

[Libertas1776]

22. Hands down,

I have always preferred Letterman.

[Mimosa]

26. I never watch him because he is a boorish idiot

Does anybody think he's read a book for pleasure since he left high school?

[closeupready]

27. Ratings continue to plummet, haha.

>>Leno's new show averaged about 5.6 million viewers through the first four days of last week, less than half the audience it attracted when it premiered and more than a third less than the audience that NBC drew last season with its longtime schedule of drama shows. The network says the declines are in line with expectations and cautions patience as viewers discover the new time slot for the talk show king.

Local stations, whose goodwill the network depends upon to keep Leno's show on in every market, could soon grow antsy. Already hit by the recession, which has dried up advertising by such onetime mainstays as auto dealerships, retailers and mortgage companies, NBC affiliates may not be able to tolerate the financial pain that Leno is causing to their late-night news programs -- and may be forced to consider their own program alternative for the 10 p.m. hour.<<

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-nbc-affils19-2009oct19,0,1421138.story

[beyurslf]

29. I have never thought he was funny. In fact, I don't like any of NBCs comedies any more.

I just don't get why the office is funny. It bores me.

[closeupready]

31. Monday Ratings: Jay Leno Tanks Against Repeat

>>Could it really get any worse than this? Although the program faced a CBS repeat, The Jay Leno Show did the unthinkable last night: it went down. The talk show went so far down, it hit a season low in the demos.<<

http://television.gearlive.com/tvenvy/article/q107-monday-ratings-jay-leno-tanks-repeat/

[closeupready]

32. re: local news declines following Leno show's debut: 'We all knew it was going to go down'

>>PASADENA, Calif. — A study emerged Wednesday illustrating just how damaging Jay Leno's prime-time show was to NBC's local stations.

The research firm Harmelin Media said local NBC stations saw their late news audience drop by an average of 25 percent in November compared with the previous year among 25- to 54-year-old viewers. That's the demographic upon which news advertising rates are based.

The decline was particularly steep in some of the largest markets: 48 percent in New York, 43 percent in Los Angeles and 47 percent in Philadelphia.<<

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/13/leno-ratings-study-lead-i_n_422669.html

[RetiredTrotskyite]

33. Didn't See It Either...

I refuse to watch him or Letterman after their tastless homophobic and transphobic "jokes".