The Heckler, a sports website with a satirical take, owned by TBS, is branching out to non-sports topics. Recently they thought it would be funny to compare a female political candidate to a despised animal.
Spotted hyena and children, taking the high road.
They should’ve stayed with sports instead of making and tweeting a 24-second video comparing Hillary Clinton’s laughter to the so-called “laughing” of hyenas. Which they labeled, “Move over Donkey! There’s a new mascot in town. Via @thehecklertbs #I’mWithHyena.”
How do people think of stuff like this after the age of nine?
Samantha Bee. Amused by something else.
Samantha Bee, an actually funny person, also employed by TBS, saw the tweet and responded “Delete your account.”
This echoed Clinton tweeting “Delete your account” to Donald Trump after an incoherent, over-the-top tweet calling her “Crooked Hillary,” and indicating that voting for her would be four more years of Obama. (A selling point to many….)
TBS deleted the Heckler tweet. This is presumed to be because of Bee’s complaint.
TBS also posted what has been called an apology and even a “formal apology”:
This post was obviously a poor attempt at humor and has been taken down. Moving forward we’ll leave political satire to professionals like Samantha Bee.
Clinton playing with a Game Boy in 1993, when she had more time that she does now.
I just like this picture. I’m a fool for black-and-white.
Not an apology. The words apology or sorry do not appear. The first sentence is correct – as far as it goes. The second sentence gracefully indicates regret, but not actual apology.
What, precisely, do I think should they acknowledge and apologize for?
Misogyny. To mock female laughter is basically to mock the pitch of a female voice, which is generally higher. Shriller, you might say. The criticism? “She sounds like a girl!” Um.
The traditional comparison is not ‘hyena.’ It is ‘silver bells.’
People’s voices are their voices. You shouldn’t mock people for characteristics they were born with and can’t change. I can’t help it if I have pointy elbows. What can I do about the shape of my skull?
Epidexipteryx hui. It weighed as much as a mourning dove. This reconstruction has been criticized for too large an eye and hands in the wrong position. The Mongolian fossil is incomplete, so it’s unknown how long its fingers were. This is a short-fingered version. Be glad you didn’t enroll in Epidexipteryx University.
My behavior’s also flawed. It is not right for me to call a person a “short-fingered vulgarian.” It’s okay to call someone a vulgarian, because they could change that if they chose. But short-fingered? So far, there is no surgery for that.
When I was a kid, adult “friends” used to sing, “They call her Flipper, Flipper,” when I laughed. (Did I know who that was? No, I did not. First, I had to look up this olddddddddd, old show… ) So, yeah. Not a real fan of girl’s-laugh-as-animal-call comparisons.
I never got ANY apology, and can definitely agree this is a.) neither formal, nor b.) an actual apology. The offended do notice these things… and I *wish* no one did this over the age of nine, Sumac, but you clearly hang with a better class of people than I do.
Shutting down a kid laughing? Argh.
Argh indeed.