“If you can take a dick, you can take a joke.”
Tracy Morgan, A&O’s Winter speaker, seemed a little too eager to come to Northwestern, but it’s still unclear whether we were ready for the 30 Rock star and his brand of humor.
A&O seemed determined to not let anyone in a minute before — or even few minutes after — the clock struck seven on Saturday, as the crowd outside Pick-Staiger Concert Hall grew and the temperature plummeted. A single microphone, a stool with a glass of ice water and a piano bench sat poised on stage awaiting the comedian’s arrival.
Morgan took the stage around 7:30 p.m. with two escorts from University Police and a warm reception from students. One particular female student declared her love for Morgan, to which he promptly replied, “Show me your titties.” This set the tone for the evening. Morgan quickly noted how close the stage was to the first row of seats, an opportunity he would take advantage of later in the set.
After pointing out the only two African-American students he could find in the front row, Morgan quickly launched into a rather typical, albeit raunchy, stand-up performance. He questioned Tiger Woods’ recent stay at a sex therapy clinic, explaining that everyone but babies and the elderly are sex addicts.
Morgan also informed Northwestern students that if his 18-year-old son ever does try to fight him, the fight would take place in the nude and his son would have to live with the fact that his father’s balls touched his leg.
The tone of the night took a noticeable turn when Morgan asked for the gay men in the audience to cheer. He explained that while he harbors no hatred for homosexuals in general, he doesn’t appreciate when they try to “suck [his] dick.” Morgan repeated the joke several times, and the laughs became more and more hesitant.
Morgan then turned his attention to the front row of the audience. Labeling one of the girls a “fat ass,” Morgan asked if she had swallowed a black girl. No one left Morgan’s crosshairs unharmed. White, black, Asian, gay, handicapped, there were few groups that went un-stereotyped or without ridicule. The comedian said that it was all in good fun, healthy even, that we need to be able to laugh about these things, but Morgan sensed the tentative laughter, graphing out the level of laughter with his hand. “Fucking laugh at everything I say,” Morgan said.
The obvious white majority in the crowd didn’t escape Morgan’s racially charged humor for a second. He spoke about “white rage” and the need to get laid, pointing out a particular male member of audience as a potential shooter.
The SNL alum touched on several other “topical” subject matters such as 9/11, the search for Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush’s inadequacies as a president. The set came to a close with an overlong, gross-out joke about Morgan’s first “baby girl,” who had a tiny arm, a dialysis bag, leg braces and a voice box. “She was fucked up, but she was my baby girl,” Morgan explained.
Though the evening was filled with laughter, it wasn’t clear whether it was because Morgan was funny or the audience didn’t know what else to do. The one thing people seemed to be able to agree upon was that they were lucky their seats weren’t in the first row.
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We were so excited for him to come, too. Or you can return home.
Should’ve come to the SASA Show!
Well
February 7, 2010 at 10:07 pm
my seat was in the front row and i spent the whole time cowering in fear because i thought he was going to pick on me!
?
February 7, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Doesn’t sound very funny to me. But then again I wasn’t there, so I wouldn’t know.
Lyn
February 7, 2010 at 11:07 pm
For those of you that are offended: You went to a standup comedy show. Comedians, for the most part, are offensive. If you can’t take a joke, then why the hell are you going to a show anyway?
If you go to a show, you should expect jokes and sarcasm. And if you can’t take the jokes, then I’d recommend saving tickets for people who actually want them next time A&O brings a comedian to campus.
Jonathan
February 7, 2010 at 11:41 pm
If you read the article, Johnathan, it states that he clearly goes beyond merely “jokes and sarcasm” and into the realms of distastefulness. A lot of people I know went because they were expecting to see similar humor to that of SNL or 30 Rock, and this was much more vulgar and offensive than that.
A Turnip
February 8, 2010 at 12:07 am
Anyone who went expecting Tracy Jordan or Brian Fellow should have known better. A little Googling or Youtube surfing is all they needed to realize that. Maybe if they’d seen the articles about audience members leaving his November performance at Carnegie Hall because it was too raunchy they would’ve thought twice about wanting to shell out their $10.
When actors do stand-up they don’t just perform as the characters written for them on TV. This is nothing new. If you went to see Bob Saget’s notoriously dirty stand-up routine expecting to see Danny Tanner you’d be in for a rude awakening, that’s for sure.
C
February 8, 2010 at 12:23 am
Well, if you went expecting to see his character from a show that’s on basic cable, then you’re a moron. If you find his humor distasteful, then you should have either: 1) not gone to the show, or 2) develop a sense of humor. Honestly, if you can’t laugh at jokes about yourself or your identity, then you need to loosen up. And remember that Tracy Morgan is a comedian, meaning he makes jokes. Do you actually believe he believes the things that he was saying? Of course he doesn’t, he’s trying to make people laugh, that’s his job. Anybody who was personally offended by the show just seriously needs to get over themselves.
Jonathan
February 8, 2010 at 12:37 am
You’re spot on, Kevin.
Krislyn
February 8, 2010 at 12:58 am
I went with the complete expectation of it being raunchy and racist and sexist and all of that. I usually enjoy standup like that, but the problem was he just wasn’t very funny. A joke would start out promising and then go too far or just end as a dud. Also, a lot of his pop culture and politics related jokes were outdated and overused. I expected more than the couple of laughs I got in that hour and a half. I was relieved when it ended. I have never felt that way about a comedy routine before.
JB
February 8, 2010 at 1:01 am
lol people at this school need to chill the fuck out. white guilt, you have it. congratulations.
ht
February 8, 2010 at 1:07 am
I completely agree with JB. I found a lot of the show pretty awful, but I definitely agree with Kevin’s assessment of the gay jokes standing out as especially bad. Gay humor isn’t always bad, and being gay myself I love laughing at it. But that just made me extremely uncomfortable. The only line I found funny in that segment was “if you can take a dick, you can take a joke” and those are Immortal Technique lyrics. Hardly original stuff, and the jokes I did laugh at were pretty cheap. Anyone can stand up on stage, say “fuck” a lot, and talk about dicks and pussies for an hour, and they would probably get just as many (or few) laughs.
C
February 8, 2010 at 2:17 am
This is a poor excuse for news journalism. NBN, stop trying to lump opinion in with your reporting. It’s incredibly unprofessional, not to mention difficult to read. Lord knows you have enough wannabe-Entertainment Weekly writers on staff that you could have one actually report what happened in a fair, unbiased way and another (or two) write columns voicing their opinions on a controversial topic.
‘Til then, you’re second fiddle to The Daily.
medillion
February 8, 2010 at 3:06 am
RE: medillion
If you look at the top right of the article, it’s labeled as a “Review” and not a report. Reviews are supposed to have opinions.
For example, my review of your comment is that you’re a dumbass.
RE: medillion
February 8, 2010 at 4:16 am
Were you actually at the show, or did you just get a transcript and choose things to take out of context? Morgan got a STANDING OVATION!! Get your panties unbunched, Kevin, and learn to write
urdumb
February 8, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Kevin, well written.
I completely agree with C. For all those who expected a taste of Tracy Morgan’s characters on SNL and 30Rock, you should have done your hw. A simple YouTube search would reveal Morgan’s raunchy, arguably offensive, and definitely curse-filled humor.
As for urdumb’s comment, receiving a standing ovation in this case does not mean that Tracy Morgan did a good job. It could, or it could not. I still hold firm that NU students laughed because they didn’t know what else to do. Some parts were funny, but most of his set were coated with fuck, pussy, shit, gay, and other filler-words.
Who Dat
February 8, 2010 at 3:49 pm
i don’t really think tracy morgan got a standing ovation….people were just standing immediately so they could get the fuck out of there.
lyle
February 8, 2010 at 6:38 pm
i thought this was really well written. i was there, and i thought the article captured the mood of the show and audience pretty accurately.. you weren’t negative where it wasn’t (maybe slightly) warranted. this is why i LIKE nbn.
gp
February 8, 2010 at 8:46 pm
I definitely only stood because it’s awkward staring at people’s asses, and everyone seemed to stand very hesitantly / grabbed their jackets as soon as they stood. Yes, maybe some people appreciated Morgan’s humor, and I had loved what bits I had seen in the past. There was just something missing from his jokes that made them way more offensive and much less hilarious than I had hoped for.
JB
February 8, 2010 at 9:09 pm
It really hurts to read some of these comments. ht has it right, people here need to chill the fuck out. Yeah Tracy’s stand-up was dirty, it was also funny as fuck. The only thing that would have made it better is if I’d been one of the people up front who got busted on. Sorry to those who got offended, but maybe you should do your homework before going to a stand-up comedy show if your idea of a crazy Saturday night is coming back late from the opera and staying up until 2AM playing Uno.
G
February 9, 2010 at 3:56 am
To “G” above me- I didn’t go to the show, but you’re telling people to chill out while being “really hurt” by their reactions to a comedy show. Take your own advice.
Also, it sounds like he was just plain unfunny. Anyone can just get up there and use shock value to get cheap laughs. Also, Northwestern students will give ovations for everything…even professors that get 3.5s on CTECs get standing ovations when they make their “and now you’ve learned about the geology of Pluto…you’ve been a wonderful class” speech. So I don’t consider the standing ovation at all relevant.
H
February 9, 2010 at 2:19 pm
I thought this was a great article, I was also there and it definitely captures the mood appropriately. I for one didn’t even hear his “baby girl” joke I zoned out so hard. Maybe I was one of those people who didn’t do my research, and thus didn’t appreciate it, but when a comedian is doing a college tour, I feel like he needs to take his audience into account a little more.
nutella
February 10, 2010 at 6:30 pm