Roasting is the modern equivalent of the medieval public flogging. And, by roasting, I don’t mean to slow cook in the oven, although the process and end result is essentially the same: the subject is put on fire and emerges fully-cooked at the expense of ravenous bystanders.
We love to hate others, especially celebrities whose flaws can’t ever match our own. Roasting, where one celebrity puts down another with teasing, insults and, often, dark humor, is all jokes. Isn’t that what bullies say when they try to get out of trouble? Don’t they say it was only a joke?
The best roasts are said to be the meanest; the funniest roasts are the cruelest and dirtiest, and they often jab at the celebrity’s biggest weakness, their behavior or a socially unacceptable feature.
It shouldn’t be the entertainment industry’s cause to allow and propagate the immature act of poking at someone’s flaws and insecurities. Roasting is not a new concept; it started in 1949 with the Friars’ Club roast of Maurice Chevalier, a French actor, singer and entertainer. So, while it’s not a new thing, it’s evolved into this public shaming that’s the only socially acceptable form of bullying.
We’ve come from roasts such as Anthony Jeselnik’s of Roseanne Barr in 2012, where she took his fat jokes in stride and only laughed, to Kevin Hart’s verbal spanking of Justin Bieber, which will air later this month, and the resulting controversy surrounding Hart’s claim that Bieber cried afterward.
Using our own insecurities to justify watching celebrities make fun of other people is not enough when it comes to the emotional damage done by even slight, “good-natured” teasing. Yes, celebrities agree to be put on stage and made fun of, and, yes, they often laugh it off, but who’s to say that roasting doesn’t actually hurt? Celebrities are also people, believe it or not. They have emotions that are just as fragile as our own.
How far will it go until, eventually, we see campaigns like the one launched by the Canadian Safe School Network where children read Jimmy Kimmel Live!-style Mean Tweets, exposing the unpleasant nature of such a comedy bit? It’s not funny when you call it what it is.
Celebrities aren’t all saints, but they also aren’t immune to ruthless insults and comments against their character; just ask those who have read tweets about themselves on Jimmy Kimmel Live! The number of celebrities who throw an insult back versus the number who laugh them off shows that it isn’t okay to say such cruel things, no matter who it is or how bad their personality is. More celebrities take the insults seriously than those who take it as a joke.
It’s not OK for a kid in middle school to tell a classmate to kill themselves, online or in person, and it’s not OK to put a child on a stage for millions of people to see and put him down for the way he looks or acts, what he enjoys or where he comes from. Looking at roasting from this perspective, it’s obvious that roasting is just a bad example of what humor should be, and it sends the message that there’s nothing wrong with getting bullied.
Comedy Central is known for its satire and dark humor, but roasting puts out the wrong definition of humor. Humor should never be sought after at the expense of others, even when the satirical and exaggerated nature of the teasing is done in jest. If it wasn’t a bunch of celebrities on the stage taking hits, roasting would never be allowed to happen.
