Razor-sharp roaster Wanda Sykes slammed the controversial comedians from Netflix’s Roast of Kevin Hart not for crossing an ethical boundary, but for their laziness.
“It’s not ‘Am I going too far?’ The main thing is, ‘Is it funny?’ That is the only question you should be asking,” Sykes, 62, said on The View on Friday. “And that George Floyd joke was not funny. It wasn’t even a joke.”
“I made the point on another show that if the person you’re roasting is not in the room, you shouldn’t do the joke," The View co-host Joy Behar declared, noting Saturday Night Live alum Pete Davidson’s roast joke about Charlie Kirk was also in poor taste.
“Boom. That’s it,” Sykes replied, pointing at Behar, 83. “Why are you bringing dead people into it?”
MAGA comedian Tony Hinchcliffe delivered a roast joke involving George Floyd, which drew criticism from comedians—and even some of his fellow roasters—for being “racist.”
“The Black community is so proud of you,” Hinchcliffe, 41, told Hart, 46, adding, “Right now George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard he can’t breathe.”
Chelsea Handler, who repeatedly attacked the conservative comedian in her own set, said Hinchcliffe and Shane Gillis, who told his own controversial “lynching” joke, were “racist,” “bigots,” and “sexist” shortly after the event.
On his comedy podcast, Kill Tony, Hinchcliffe responded to Handler’s accusations.
“I got called a Nazi, gay, a racist over and over again. I’m none of those three things, a little fun fact,” he said on Monday. “They are fat, ugly, Black, and Jewish.”
Nikki Glaser, the breakout star from The Roast of Tom Brady, called out this year’s Netflix roasters for their “racist jokes” in a similar way.
“I don’t believe that jokes can’t be made that are racist jokes,” she said on Tuesday. “Ironically, racist jokes–the problem is not that it’s racist. It’s like sometimes you’ve got to find a way, if you really want to do a joke, you’ve got to find a way to make it make sense. You can’t just like say it, and it’s out of nowhere.”
Hart himself finally addressed the backlash this week, defending Hinchcliffe and Gillis.
“The George Floyd joke, it wasn’t a tasteful joke to our culture, to our audience,” he explained on The Breakfast Club podcast on Tuesday. “But our audience that’s watching the roast, if you’re watching the roast, you get why they’re doing it. You get why the racial humor is on the table. Like, it’s not... I wasn’t shocked.”
“I hate to say this, but I’m going to because we’re being honest. People are talking about that joke. Talk about a set. Tony Hinchcliffe arguably had the best set, or one of the best sets,” Hart added. “Would I tell those jokes? No. But do I get why they’re being told? Yes.”
