Live From New York, It's Deeply Offensive

I just got around to this week's NBC Saturday Night Live. The Weekend Update sketch about David Paterson was... well... Here, if you haven't seen it, judge for yourself:



Seen it? Good. Here we go:

I didn't find this funny. If you did (and I'm sure many did), this doesn't make you an anti-blind bigot. People who laughed at Amos and Andy weren't necessarily racists. We instinctively respond to stereotypes that are ingrained in the culture, and there's nothing conscious about a laugh. We don't choose what we find funny and don't.

Having said that, this ranks as one of the most offensive portrayals of a disabled person in the history of television. It's garbage like this that makes it hard for people like me to get a job. I'm lucky enough to have several right now, but it took a hell of a lot of work to get them, and I'm in the vast minority.

The first problem is the cheap laugh. I would be the first to admit that the governor occasionally appears disoriented. I probably do too (although, my vision being superior, not nearly as often). He is not actually disoriented. He has a facile mind, an outstanding memory, and one of the sharpest wits in politics. He would have written a much funnier sketch.

Besides, making fun of someone who appears to be disoriented because he's mostly blind is a little like making fun of FDR for being wheelchair-bound. It's not funny on its own. Now, if you're writing a Sketch where FDR's wheelchair gives him super powers... or if Paterson were secretly Daredevil... I don't know. But the mere fact of his looking a little lost is just a crappy thing he has to deal with.

Next, the governor is not a "freak." He is blind in one eye and mostly blind in the other. He also has degrees from an Ivy League university and a law school, but was turned down from his first job because they didn't think he could handle it. Maybe they thought he was a freak.

Third, Governor Paterson was not"comically unprepared" to become the governor of New York State. He was the Lieutenant Governor. He was the minority leader of the New York State Senate, a veteran of public service for over twenty years, and one of the only Albany politicians people actually liked or respected. Upon being thrust into office (yes, by a sex scandal), he quickly made peace with the Republicans in the state senate. And while Albany has since returned to its usual bickering, Paterson has already proposed his recession-minded budget, weeks ahead of schedule.

Most bizarre to me, the sketch gets a few things just plain wrong. It implies that Paterson is from upstate. He's from Harlem. It also refers to him "loving cocaine," and, yes, he admitted to having done it. How many politicians have admitted that now? Isn't that a requirement for office? He doesn't do it anymore. And the implication that he's often in the middle of sex scandals is a funny idea in itself, considering that the only one who ever reported that he cheated on his wife was him.

Governor Paterson is not perfect, and Saturday Night Live is not evil. Paterson is considering cutting the education budget by nearly $700 million, and SNL put on a vaguely funny sketch about a lamp musical. I can't help but think, though, of those ridiculously low employment numbers for the blind and deaf, and then wonder if Lorne Michaels and company have any idea what it's like to mention the words "partially blind" or "Legally blind" and hear a potential employer's jaw drop from across the room.

David A. Paterson, odd as he may look, is the nation's most prominent advocate for the rights of the disabled. It's offensive enough to make cheap jokes at the expense of his eyesight. It's even worse to reinforce the stereotype that faulty eyes imply a faulty mind.