God to Joan Rivers: Whose face are you wearing?

[A Director]

I know family, friends and fans are i mourning.

I use to like her. In recent years, I found her nasty, bitter and tasteless at time. I found nothing funny when she said people in Gaza deserved to die and decided to ignore her. I imagine if she was still living and working, she'd make jokes about the recent beheadings. I'm sure, she'd add, "Too soon?"

I know all about dark humor with the sting of reality and truth. IMO, Joan Rivers never told those kind of jokes.

[PalJoey]

And then of course, there is my Pakistani Muslim friend Fameed, from London:

RIP Joan you're genius and always will be.

Here's her first appearance on UK TV in 1983 - I remember watching this with my traditional Muslim family who sat there stoney faced whilst I was dying laughing. Pure genius!

He posted it along with this video, but it's the image of the stoney-faced Muslim family and the very flamoyaanyt young (gay) son. I just know Joan would have loved it.

http://youtu.be/ME-c05yNOYY

[DAME]

@A Director That is not what she said. AND she wasn't joking. ( I am assuming you are referring to the TMZ thing. ). And the "too soon?" line comes from comic Jeff Ross.

[FindingNamo]

It comes from a lot of people. Like Gilbert Gottfried.

[FindingNamo]

Congrats Millennials. The comic voice of your generation tweeted this knee-slapper:

Lena Dunham Verified account

@lenadunham

That being said, Joan is gone but a piece of her lives on: her nose, because it's made of polyurethane.

[DAME]

I just know the line from the comedy central roasts where he does it in his bits.

[PalJoey]

You may not think Joan Rivers deserves your respect, but I do. I'm sitting shiva for someone who who meant a lot to me. Carry on, but please be cognizant of my grief.

[ErikJ972]

Thanks for posting that Rolling Stone link Namo. I'm in the camp that has not been a fan of Joan, especially in her later years. Reading that article didn't change my mind but it made me understand how people can be fans of hers.
Many people on my Facebook feed have shared encounters with Joan and they all paint her as a very warm, caring, genuine person.
I just wish she would have let some of that warmth show in her act. Especially as she got older.

[Liza's Headband]

Why? She owed you nothing.

Perhaps if you had been more open to her and curious to see what she was like off the stage, you'd actually do some digging... read her memoirs, watch her television show, rent her documentary, etc. Then you would know how incredibly kind and generous she was.

[ErikJ972]

LOL.
Of course she owed me nothing. Just like I owed her nothing.
Thanks for another useless contribution to the board!

[ShakinBaconGirl]

Of course that Headband troll would try to make this thread about him. It seriously needs to leave. Everyone is fed up with it.

[SonofRobbieJ]

An artist's work must be able to stand on its own and be evaluated on its own terms.

The thing about this entire thread is that I think it shows a lot of respect towards Joan's work (and really...this is about her work, not who she was personally, though I am enjoying all the stories of how warm she was to those who got to interact with her). The amount of time spent in this thread discussing her work (both pro and con) shows just how important she was to the world of comedy, female comedians in particular, and to the cultural conversation in this country over the last however many decades. Not only do I think she'd be fine with the pointed jokes and the criticisms, I hope that she'd be moved that he work caused many people to think quite a bit about comedy and the dichotomy between the public and private faces of an artist. Pun was indeed intended, if we can call that a pun.

I've found Joan very, very funny, and I've found her off-putting. But I recognize what she accomplished in this world and I really am thrilled to know she treated her fans with kindness. I've seen too many 'celebs' treat people like sh*t to not take a moment and appreciate that about her.

[PalJoey]

just how important she was to the world of comedy, female comedians in particular

She was enormously important to two huge things: (1) the advancement of female comedians and (2) the early days of the fight against AIDS.

For those two things alone, we should all pay attention to the lyrics by Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager from their "Quiet, Please. There's a Lady Onstage":

Quiet, please, there's a woman up there,
And she's been honest through her songs
Long before your consciousness was raised.
Now, doesn't that deserve a little praise?


The people calling her a "hater" should know that she was fighting for them while they were still closeted and still in denial and still too frightened to get tested. "Long before their consciousness was raised."

As Bruce Vilanch--who was there!--said in the comment I posted up above,

as near as I can tell, she was the first mainstream celebrity to do an AIDS fund-raiser.

it was in the early 80s, before rock hudson brought the disease out of the closet.

she did it because her hairdresser was sick and she was shocked that there were no systems in place to help him.

people, and government, were terrified about what this thing was.

not joan.

Now doesn't that deserve a little praise?

[FindingNamo]

Here's what Letterman had to say last night. Like a lot of people, he liked Joan's refusal to back down from things she said. He says, "There are no victimless jokes" and I really wonder if that's true?


Dave on Joan action

[themysteriousgrowl]

Namo, give it a rest. When you focus on the objectionable things, you can't focus on the non-objectionable things. Do you see?

[FindingNamo]

I'm looking at both. That's been my downfall.

[Reginald Tresilian]

I think most people have been looking at both; just weighing up the results differently.