There’s a difference between saying “selfish cunts” as a misogynist epithet and saying it as a joke about people who are sekrit misogynists under a veneer of respectability.
I bet you knew that. Not everyone gets it though. Some people see the latter and think it’s a justification for the claim that “cunt” is not a misogynist epithet. Some people see Jon Stewart doing the latter and think it’s the same as doing the former and therefore it’s a justification for the claim that “cunt” is not a misogynist epithet. Siiiiiiiiigh.
You see what Stewart did there, right? The demographic that went for Romney. Married women. Fox News women doing commentary, saying “responsible,” “concerned about their children, and the future of the country…”
And Stewart says, in mimic vein – you know how his face and gestures change when he’s being not himself but the object of mockery – with a big shrug, “not just selfish cunts.”
It’s irony. Attribution not use. He’s paraphrasing what the Fox commentators are really saying under the verbiage. That’s why it’s funny. It would not be funny if he simply called the commentators cunts, for instance.
That’s because it’s a misogynist epithet. Using it “sincerely” is not funny.
Oy. How is this not obvious?