A year ago, James Corden could do no wrong. He was arguably the most popular late-night talk show host, and the crown jewel in CBS’s programming. There were rumors that CBS executives wanted Stephen Colbert and Corden to switch time slots, with Corden taking the more prestigious 11:30 slot (CBS and Colbert denied those stories, but the stories lingered for months). But things have really shifted over the past year, as the situation in America grows more dire, and more comedians are feeling the need to lean into political humor, which has never been Corden’s thing. Plus, I feel like Corden’s shtick is wearing a bit thin (much like Jimmy Fallon’s shtick, honestly). There’s being an upbeat, positive comedian in troubled times, and then there’s completely misreading the national mood.
So, I’ve been feeling that the knives have been out for Corden for months now. And they stabbed away this weekend, when Corden did a bit on stage at an amfAR gala honoring Julia Roberts. Corden decided this was the moment to crack some “jokes” about Harvey Weinstein. Sample jokes: “This is a beautiful room, this a beautiful night here in L.A., it is so beautiful that Harvey Weinstein has already asked tonight up to his hotel room to give him a massage.” And: “It has been weird this week, watching Harvey Weinstein in hot water. Ask any of the women that had to watch him take a bath, it is weird to watch Harvey Weinstein in hot water.” And: “Harvey Weinstein wanted to come tonight but he will settle for whatever potted plant is closest.” Har-har, sexual harassment, abuse, assault and rape are so funny to James Corden!
Straight out gate, host @JKCorden with Harvey Weinstein jokes. Too soon? Some laughs, some groans #amfARLosAngeles pic.twitter.com/nx88w5UwUe
— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) October 14, 2017
People were offended. People were yelling at Corden all weekend. Rose McGowan tweeted this:
1) James Corden is a close friend of HW’s
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 15, 2017
Is that true? If it is, that might be why Corden seemed to be in a rush to make Weinstein’s crimes into a “funny joke.” In general though, this is the conversation comedians have been having amongst themselves and with the public for a few years now: when does “political correctness” stand in the way of a good joke? If you’re going to mock a sensitive subject like decades-long sexual harassment by a powerful Hollywood producer, should you try to ensure that all of your jokes are “punching up” at the perpetrator and never “punching down” at the victims? I don’t have a problem with making jokes at Harvey Weinstein’s expense, but these are not those jokes. Corden issued an apology on Twitter:
To be clear, sexual assault is no laughing matter. I was not trying to make light of Harvey’s inexcusable behavior, (1/2)
— James Corden (@JKCorden) October 15, 2017
but to shame him, the abuser, not his victims. I am truly sorry for anyone offended, that was never my intention. (2/2)
— James Corden (@JKCorden) October 15, 2017
That was bare-bones. And for the love of God, STAHP with “I am sorry you were offended” and all of the variations of that stupid non-apology. If you don’t feel like apologizing, don’t. Own that. Because “I am truly sorry for anyone offended” is not the same f–king thing as “I am so sorry that I was offensive.”
Photos courtesy of Getty.
The saddest thing is not that James Corden (essentially) said “If you don’t like my rape jokes you should leave”, the saddest thing is that no one left.
I can’t stand Corden. Never got the hype. He seems to be an opportunist, no true moral compass. I cancelled him for good when the whole Spicer thing went down.
Go away now James…
He’s overrated and what I cannot stand is his poor interview skills.
Time for a long holiday James.
I cancelled him way before Spicer, when he claimed as his own the credit for the brilliant ‘Gavin & Stacey’.
Enough with this ignorant, opportunistic dick and his ‘apologies’.
The intent doesn’t really matter, the effect does. It’s been a week where women have publicly relived traumatizing events AND the cavalier attitude/willful blindness of those who knew and did nothing. There is a way to acknowledge this through satire in a way that makes HW the butt of the joke. This was NOT it as it trivializes women’s trauma.
Did you see SNL this weekend? Kate McKinnon made a joke about the HW situation that was funny. Her character, an aging actress, stated that the women had a secret code for warning each other, it was “he raped me” while the men pretended that they couldn’t hear them. I laughed and then my heart was broken.
I think that was the only funny rape joke that I have ever heard because it wasn’t mocking survivors, it wasn’t punching down, it was taking down rape culture. My sister and I (both incest survivors) laughed really hard and winced at the painful truth.
@Pedro45 I am sorry to learn about what happened to you and your sister. But I agree, this is the only, and probably the last, rape joke that I have laughed at in my life.
Thank you, Renee. I appreciate your kind words.
Yes!
Let’s be mindful that while comedy wasn’t the place in this circumstance, it was a male comedian (Hannibal Buress) that actually JOKED about Bill Cosby’s drugging and raping of women that brought that entire issue to the forefront. So, whatever one’s thought are about comedy, it did—in that circumstance—shed light upon a situation that led to a more seriously discussion and legal developments. Yes, no one is ignoring the larger discussion at play as to why that became the vehicle for this topic to enter the national conversation, but comedy did serve a purpose in that circumstance.
Yes!
Maybe I misread his tone (didn’t watch the videos) but it sound more to me like he was mocking Harvey instead of the victims.
Agree..(the potted plant line is punching victims..?) of course, they weren’t funny… I don’t think ridiculing that pompous pile is off limits
There’s a way to do this without referencing the victims in any way, shape or form. In comedy it’s called ‘punching up’. Tone doesn’t matter at all. Cordon wasn’t just mocking Weinstein, he was making a joke out of the actual ordeal/experience of the victims. A shitty, callous thing to do.
I’m sure that was his intention but he is a lazy writer (or has lazy writers) and so he was crass. All his own fault and I have no sympathy. If you’re going to do those jokes, make them work. It’s hard to be good enough to make these kinds of jokes work and if you’re not good enough, don’t bloody try them. Or at least, don’t whine about it when you get told they weren’t funny.
I saw someone say something like this (sorry, should look for it, but this is the gist) – “Patriarchy is Ruth Jones singlehandedly making Gavin and Stacey iconic while James Corden is the one who became a Hollywood star”.
Saw that quote too yesterday, about the patriarchy; you remembered it well.
In this instance it feels like patriarchy is getting away with sexual assault & then getting to laugh it off later.
Didn’t give two farts about JC, his carpool shtick was sort of amusing the first time I saw it. He’s a shrug. Whatever.
After seeing his dumb rape jokes I do feel something. Rage & contempt. Let his career go the way of Megyn Kelly’s.
He is an attention seeker to the nth degree. I genuinely believe his heart is in the right place but that need for attention is always going to trump his common sense and lead him into these kinds of pratfalls.
He found his metier with One Man, Two Guvnors – a real feel for farce and perfect (intentional) pratfalls with great comic timing. I know the lure of Hollywood is strong but he should probably have resisted. Further to fall in the inevitable fall, you know?
Ugh. It was way too soon. He’s an ass.
His HW jokes were awful. What’s up with him, anyway?
@Indiana Joanna, I had a dream last night that your name was on my neighbor’s mailbox. So weird!
As for JC, his humor misses the mark for me. Carpool Karoke makes me cringe.
LOL. Maybe ’cause it’s so close to Indiana Jones?
My last name is Jones, so maybe it’s close enough, lol
Ahhhh, the tried and true non-apology of “I’m sorry if YOU were offended”.
How he or anyone advising him thought these “jokes” were a good idea, I do not understand. It was a bad idea to begin with and he made it worse with “if you didn’t think that was funny, you should leave now”, which just shows how dismissive and tone deaf he was -if you don’t think this is funny, it is clearly YOUR problem.
He actually said I’m truly sorry for anyone offended. Not I’m sorry if you were offended. Let’s be honest there are people who were not offended.
But how much better to say, “I’m sorry, I realize now my words were offensive to many.”
how stupid can you be? Read the room, man!
As somebody on twitter pointed out, those tweets were most likely not written by Cordon as he’s English but used the American spelling of behaviour.
Not conclusive proof but honestly would you be surprised if he passed this off to an intern?
Could have his phone set to US English though, considering he’d likely have bought it in the US. The spellcheck portion would be based on location/language chosen.
HERE, HERE!
When my Fed Ex package didn’t arrive, because they left it at someone else’s back door, their non-apology was “I’m sorry YOU can’t find your package.” SMH.
What makes a joke successful? I’m pretty sure if people aren’t laughing it’s not PC-culture, it’s just a bad joke.
It wasnt too soon, there are ways to handle this though humor. His jokes were just not smart enough. And I think people are tired of lazy punchlines.
Not funny, will never be funny.
“Inexcusable behaviour”? Inexcusable behaviour could very well mean something like farting and burping on purpose to disturb the people around. Rape, sexual assault and molestation, blackmailing people and subjecting them to humiliation is not inexcusable behaviour, because there is nothing to “excuse”. Those are crimes.
Goodbye JC.
Right!?!?
Another way to minimize sexual assault.
“It’s not really a crime, just impolite. Harvey doesn’t need jail time for breaking the law, he just needs to learn some manners…”
Another facet of rape culture manifesting as the boys club.
Yes, it’s ‘criminal behaviour’.
Cordon is just lazy – they were lazy, easy jokes that trivialized what had been happening all week. He should have known he didn’t have the comedic talent (or life-experience) to do jokes involving victims of sex crimes.
There is a way to punch up at HW and the culture that allowed his behaviour to continue for decades, and he didn’t even try.
He’s as funny as Ellen degenerous 😒
Excuse me? Why are you bringing in someone who won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Unless you’re trying to tie her surname to “degenerate,” well aren’t YOU the funny one.
We have to stop trying to censor comedians. They are supposed to do this. Laugh or don’t laugh, but you can’t decide what can and cannot be brought up in comedy, which is a social commentary. We are policing the wrong things. It doesn’t take away from the seriousness of it at all. I’m black. Many of our comedians joke about police brutality and racism in general. So, we don’t take it seriously?
I agree.
No one is saying that Corden shouldn’t be allowed to say whatever he wants. We are saying his jokes were poorly constructed, poorly presented and poorly thought out in terms of who or what he was trying to lampoon. Comedians are not immune to criticism and saying we shouldn’t call them out when they say something unfunny and offensive is no better than saying they should be censored.
I laughed. I don’t watch his show so Im not sure of the anonymosity brewing toward him, but the jokes seemed pretty tame and par for the course with a hosting gig like that.
You do have a point. Look how many jokes were made about Michael Jackson and little boys.
Look at all the OJ jokes and this man killed two people. There are even jokes about Jesus Christ. I don’t see the outrage over these jokes.
I will say that maybe it’s too soon. But I do believe his jokes were intended to make HW the laughing stock, though I just didn’t find his delivery funny.
A lot of us didn’t find OJ or MJ jokes funny, and Jesus of Nazareth, if he lived, has been dead a long, long … I mean long … time.
Also, comparing jokes about alleged murderers/known wife beaters/alleged child molesters to jokes about a revered religious figure from the ancient past?
@Whoarethesepeople. Well a lot of people did find those OJ / MJ jokes funny, hence while to this day they are still being told. And yes I can compare jokes about our savior Jesus Christ to the others because some people consider it all in poor taste. BTW it doesn’t matter how long Christ has been physically removed from this earth, people of great faith consider him as still being with us.
I agree with you.
Just because one is not offended doesn’t mean we can tell someone not to be as well. Who are we to tell victim Rose McGowan “to chill” or “let them do their job”?? It’s been an emotional journey for rape survivors and I am pretty sure they are as traumatized as the day they were assaulted. If they fell the jokes are bad tastes then be it. Rose is on a mission because of what happen to her and others and now she is free to unload and try to take the blanket off HW and I am sure the many others rapists/pedophiles that are still lurking .. Because HW is barely the tip of the iceberg. We should be aware to the rape and assaults survivors sensitivity. We should respect their feelings about when it is bad taste or too soon etc..They are wounded. They have been victimized. They had to develop thick skin and try to go on with their lives when they were not believed or when they remained silent. Women are trying their best to find solace in finally speaking up and adding their voices among many others.
Yes. Basically these jokes, which are told by men, make sexual assault and harassment “funny.” They minimize and whitewash. We’re talking about criminal behavior here, Weinstein is under police investigation, just — find another way to go about it, GUYS.
I experienced an incident with an older man at work, reported it to my manager, who worked through it with HR. Months later, the site’s general manager makes a big joke about it in front of me and a group of other (male) managers. “Hey, guess what that old guy did….” etc. I was furious and appalled – what a pig. Most of his audience seemed uncomfortable, which was the only saving grace about this. If it were me now, I would have gone over his head for violating my privacy (and probably company policy too).
When men make these “jokes” they don’t see it as a power trip, but women re-experience it as a violation. Guarantee they wouldn’t make these jokes in front of an all-female audience. They’re doing it to make the guys laugh, which means they find it funny, too. And that’s the problem.
In all fairness to @Allie B she isn’t saying people should be or should not be offended. She is saying that we shouldn’t try to censor comedians. We should take care not to a accuse people of saying something they didn’t say.
I somewhat agree in that I think there should be some areas of entertainment, like comedy, that aren’t censored/sctunized–I think there’s a place for that in our society–but I think the key is that it has to be funny. Who is the messenger? What is the context? How is it delivered?
The problem with Corden is that he wasn’t funny, his jokes fell flat. I also think that he could have waited a bit to make these jokes–feelings and emotions are still really raw right now. Again, timing and context.
ITA. Comedy shouldn’t be censored, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be critiqued!
I don’t see this situation as “censoring” comedians. If there were censorship, that would be self-censorship. Many people have to self-censor or not speak their minds because they would face critical repercussions, including death, imprisonment, torture, or bullying, getting fired etc.
Sexual and gender violence, because this is what this whole HW situation is, should not be joke material, regardless of where and when it occurs. Instead of jokes, there should be blunt, public and widespread condemnation and the perpetrators should be punished.
I see it as censoring whenever a comedian has to apologize. If he bombed then he bombed, but since when do they apologize for that? I guess when they need that Network check.
Apologizing is a reaction, while self-censorship implies refraining from saying/writing facts or opinions out of fear of retaliation. Censorship is executed by a party other than the person who expresses their opinion/facts and that party has “authority” and “force”. Neither self-censorship or censorship have a place in a free society, unless the publication/speech may impact national security. When it comes to “joking” about the deep trauma experienced by so many women, men, children, yes they do have to apologize. Not only it is traumatic to live the consequences of rape or assault, because survivors suffer from depression, PTSD and have to “deal” with it alone or get little help, there are cases when victims of rape commit suicide, are killed e.g. in honor killings. Again, they have to apologize, assess themselves and become better people. Ignorance is not an excuse. There is no comic value in joking about rape, sexual assault, harassment and such. JC should be ashamed and so should be the network for vetting the jokes/broadcast.
There is a case for black humour. The U.K. comedian Chris Morris has done some incredibly “edgy” stuff about pae@dophiles and suicide bombers for example. Definitely not to everyone’s taste but he’s razor sharp and makes one cringe and laugh simultaneously. With Corden I just cringed. I’m not sure why he’s so popular. But he isn’t Chris Morris, his persona is based on a much more mainstream appeal and it looks like he miscalculated here.
On comedians and censorship…
Did anyone ever see the movie about the most famous joke ever told? It is scatalogical and just….awful. Google it, the aristocrats.
From wikipedia:
“The goal [of the joke] is to significantly transgress social norms.” (Including jokes about incest and rape)
I think we forget the origins of comedy are in vaudeville – as a way to shock, provoke, being the best in performing – and fighting censorship, even back then.
Comedians are supposed to push the envelope and test out material to get these reactions. If they are playing it safe, then it is like the mirror to society and what is transgressive never came out.
Am I saying i enjoyed The Aristocrats? No, but that is comedians doing their thing.
Also, James Corden did make a movie with HW, he probably knew about some shadiness, like everyone else, and yeah, these jokes are godawful.
Shorthand: agree with first poster @Allieb
I’m proud to say I’ve never watched James Cordon or Jimmy Fallon. To be honest I don’t watch any late night television anymore. I used to be into Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, but that era has ended. I read news online, and look up tv shows and movies I choose to watch on the internet. I stopped watching morning shows, cable news, and late night tv after college. It’s just a waste of time and it makes me angry.
I think Fallon and Corden are very comparable in terms of their hokey shtick. I know some people love these dudes but I find both of them cheesy and one-note. His jokes were just bad, untimely, unfunny.
I liked Corden a lot more when he first got this gig. He can occasionally be amusing – but he’s kind of settled into really lazy territory. It’s like a big competition between him and Fallon on who can be a living meme of a person. I used to like Jimmy when I was maybe 19, but I can’t stand him anymore. He’s not funny. He seems drunk half the time (at least) and his bits are so overdone and grating. I’ve enjoyed the odd Corden video (I liked the dodgeball with 1-Direction or 5SOS or whatever boyband because it was at least a little different) but overall they’ve watered anything that could be funny down so much to appeal to as many people as possible, and pander so much to their guests, that they just come off as lame.
Wasn’t everyone ticked off last week because no one in late night would touch the topic? I think the jokes are gross but I also think it was an unwinnable situation as a comic. He tried to make HW the butt of the joke I guess but it’s just not a funny situation.
Somehow some of the better comics have found ways to handle this situation — among other things, they show their anger and don’t try to “joke around.” And that’s okay. They are not required to turn everything into a laff riot. Jimmy Kimmel is a funny guy who gets serious, so are Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert. Samantha Bee is extremely funny and also righteously angry. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have managed. At some point the class clown misses social cues and crosses the line into being an asshole, and I’m afraid that happened to Corden.
Yes!!!! These events are hard to make jokes about, and especially if you are a man. Samantha Bee was funny, but that wouldn’t have worked for a man. I mean Bill Cosby was ripe for jokes because of the hypocrisy of his image versus the crime he committed, however, a lot of those jokes bombed too because the crime is just too heinous. I understood why SNL didn’t touch the subject on the first week of it. First, I am pleasantly surprised this story has legs, I thought it was probable it would be an industry story mostly. Second it may have taken some time to create jokes that work. This subject is very tricky to tell jokes on. Corden was probably the worse to try it, as he doesn’t really do even political well.
If you’re going to wade in to a subject that’s most marked characteristic is ” too soon ” you’d better hit it out of the park. His crime is being seemingly out of touch with a huge dollop of callousness. I’ve always detected a whiff of kissing up to further his career so it doesn’t surprise me he’s piling on when it’s safe.
Yes, opportunism prevents him from being a great comic. He’ll never speak truth to a room, speak truth to power or offer any lingering substance with his work.
He’s cotton candy.
He looks like a giant baby. Nothing like a chubby virgin making rape jokes. Such fun. Idiot
The problem is they wern’t funny. For various reasons. Mostly the failed to deal with the horror women have felt for years dealing with him. Can you write a funny joke about HW…. probably. But you gotta be better at it than James Corden.
It was poorly done. And when you consider he was in a room chock full of potential victims? Also dickish.
This is interesting because I’d heard a little bit of gossip about James Corden not long after he took over the Late Late Show. Basically it was that he wasn’t the most ethical dude and his Exec Producer was kind of a problematic guy too. There’s more to this story but I can’t tell it here. I didn’t know anything about him then, but now this is all very interesting to me. First he cuddles Sean Spicer, now this. Perhaps his moral compass really is broken. Hmm…
I’m sure I am in the minority here, But I like James Cordon and Jimmy Fallon. They make me laugh and that is all that I am getting out of it. There are plenty of other comedians (Kevin Hart, Eddie Murphy, Andrew Dice Clay to name a few) have said a lot worse and people laugh about it. Where do we draw the line? We cannot go back and look at every single sentence tat everyone has said just to see if it offends anyone.
Some things are too soon and some things are just never funny.
I only got through his first massage joke before I cut off the video. It was unfunny, lazy, and so callously inappropriate when we’re still in the middle of women coming forward with their horror stories, and Weinstein is still running free somewhere out there.
By the way, Corden’s apologies never really seem to be apologies.
James Corden is funny, but, yes, this was too soon and not the right topic to make light of. That said, Rose McGowan risks becoming the Sinead O’Connor of this movement if she incessantly and reflexively starts to swing at everything. She is a terrible actress, and, absent any involvement with Weinstein, would have likely had a middling career as it were. Lest we forget that both she and director Robert Rodriguez engaged in an extramarital affair and attempted to leverage that relationship to catapult her career out of the Charmed TV doldrums that her career had devolved into. No, this isn’t slut-shaming; this shows that Rose can be a manipulator as well. Can she have been both a victim of rape at one point in her life and a manipulator at a later point? Yes, none of these labels are mutually exclusive to time-eternal. It is a crime what happened to her, but I can also judge her for her own misdeeds. She doesn’t by virtue of being a victim/survivor automatically get conferred some form of immunity that requires that we blindly follow her down her other rabbit holes of craziness.
Of course you could judge her, anyone could judge her for her misdeeds, but why wait until she is going through rape trauma to start up?
She was raped in 1997-98. No one is waiting to judge her while she is “going through her rape trauma.” And, yes, I realize the trauma can exist well beyond the date that it occurred—perhaps even all of one’s lifetime. My point is that one can decidedly call out the crime that took place in 97/98 for which she was the victim, but also see that she used her relationship with a married director in an attempt to re-start her career almost a decade later. Both situations are wrong; one is a crime.
What you’re saying is slut shaming, all for the benefit of a few unfunny, and poorly timed jokes. What’s the point of so thoroughly attacking her when one can simply ignore her existence? To feel superior?
is not that it was too soon to make jokes about it: it was too soon to make jokes about it without putting said jokes in a context of outrage, social comment and satire. Corden jokes sucked in the just as frat boy “locker room” jokes suck: just pure opportunist and offensive joking without condemning. Kate McKinnon showed him how a skilled and talented comedian looks like. Corden is one of those comedians without any real talent and skill other than their looks. In other words: he’s just considered funny because he takes advantage of being overweight. That’s his only “skill” as a comic.
I politely disagree. James is generally funny, but these jokes were tone deaf. He has the English gift of whip-smart banter on most occasions—very similar though not quite as good as Graham Norton.
What people finds funny is historically very subjective and based often in cultural differences and countries. Many find Corden funny because his country produced some great comedians and is a country a particular type of comedy that makes for a context that is already an advantage to start with for some. So yes, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Just to point out that Graham Norton is from County Cork in the Republic of Ireland….
James Corden is not fit to lick Graham Norton’s shoes.
To suggest that he’s even vaguely in his league is beyond eye-rolling,
Ah, so you didn’t see what the Brits were tweeting when reacting to this… At least those were actually funny
It is too soon if ever. But it didn’t sound to me like he was purposely discrediting the victim at all.
Do the critics understand now why SNL were reluctant to go there? I can’t believe they were seriously being given grief for not telling rape jokes.
Yeah I’m waiting for him to apologize for his truly awful new Drop The Mic rap battle show. The commercials are so painful and cringeworthy.
I didn’t found the jokes offensive but they were lame (not funny)
He’s horrible.
Genuinely curious – so what about Seth McFarlane’s joke in whatever year that was – 2013? And the 30 Rock joke?
The only crime in comedy is to be not funny, he was not funny.
I’m not sure any man could/should make a joke out of a crime that is predominately perpetrated by men against women. What a shit!
I actually like Corden a lot – he is self-deprecating, gets normally stiff serious guests into laughing hysterics, and loves to sing and dance. He’s the best of the late night lot.
Plenty of jokes about Trump going around. I don’t see the difference as he’s just as bad as Weinstein and worse still is in a position to do a lot more damage.
The problem with this man is that he’s so thirsty and so desperate to be liked and people like his, ironically speaking, do so many messed up things as a result. He’s ALWAYS pandering. Always desiring to be the most likeable person.
I don’t mind finding a way to laugh when the subject matter is bleak, but ouch…those are some bad jokes. The “apology” is even worse. I’m so tired of the, “I’m sorry if I offended you” line. Just say, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”