April 29, 2018

Michelle Wolf’s Scathing Comedy Set at the WHCD Provoked Outrage, Glee, and Everything in Between

The Daily Show alumna called Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders an “Uncle Tom, but for white women who disappoint other white women.”

The furor over comedian Michelle Wolf’s divisive comedy set at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner shows no signs of abating.

On Saturday night, journalists, celebrities, lawmakers and more gathered in Washington for the annual event, a black-tie affair typically attended by the president. Both times the dinner has been held during his presidency, Donald Trump has bowed out, instead holding campaign-style rallies in battleground states he won in 2016: Last year, Trump went to Pennsylvania, and this year, he rallied in Washington Township, Michigan. At this year’s dinner, Wolf, an alumna of the Daily Show, delivered an at-times raunchy, sometimes funny, and definitely controversial roast of the president, his staff, the political press, and more, provoking an outpouring of both support and outrage from across the internet.

Wolf’s jokes about Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders have prompted the most debate. Wolf compared Sanders to “Aunt Lydia,” an anti-feminist villain in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” called her “Uncle Tom, but for white women who disappoint other white women,” and made a joke that mentioned the press secretary’s eye makeup, evoking criticism that Wolf attacked Sanders’ appearance:

Wolf pushed back on this allegation on Twitter:

The set caused journalists from a number of networks to call on Wolf to apologize to Sanders: 

Others have taken issue with the outpouring of outrage against Wolf, calling it hypocritical to criticize blows delivered by a comedian when the president himself has regularly made crude comments about women.

https://twitter.com/bryansafi/status/990625710585729025

And of course, the president weighed in on Wolf’s set from his Twitter account on Sunday morning. She “bombed,” he said, and proposed that next year, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld host the dinner. 

You can watch Wolf’s entire White House Correspondents’ dinner set above and judge for yourself. 

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