MovieChat Forums > Rob Lowe (2016) Discussion > "We only roast the ones we love."

"We only roast the ones we love."

posted 8 years ago by huckfunn
5 replies | jump to latest

Ross and other Friars have said this often. This, by extension, usually includes the roasters, who, though they tear at each other, share mutual admiration and respect. Where did Coulter fit in? She was SO out of her element, and the disrespect toward her was palpably genuine. Including her in the roast (even if she was down with it -- and even if she is a stone cold bitch) was inappropriate, cruel, and, perhaps most critically, unfunny.

Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.

[–] therefdotcom 8 years ago

not always. greg giraldo (RIP) for example made it clear in his roasts, when he honestly did not like someone. the larry the cable guy bit for example was brutal. or take hanibal buress' bit at the justin bieber roast. while hilarious, that was honest and btw well deserved hatered. :D

and no, anne did deserve every milisecond of it and they jokes themselves were spot on and hilarious.

[–] huckfunn 8 years ago

IMO, putting Anne into the roast was an extraordinary situation because the dislike of her (by roasters and audience) was so intense that it led to a lot of jokes that were basically clever ways of saying, "Coulter is a pariah." So, to me, it was mostly just a bully fest.

To the contrary, Rob Riggle's jokes about Anne's "big, angry bush" were freakin' hilarious to me (as was his whole routine), because they ridiculed her without saying she's a worthless human being.

I don't know who made the decision to have Anne in the roast, but, on the Lowe Roast Aftershow, joke writer Mike Lawrence says that the roast needed a "fun target" (like Mike Tyson, The Situation, or Steve-O), where people will think, "What the f--k are you doing here?"

Lawrence also offered as a "fun fact" that Coulter refused to use any of the jokes written for her by the CC staff. She used jokes she (and friends) wrote. I think Coulter would have bombed regardless of the material because of the audience antipathy, her own antagonistic personality, and because humor doesn't come naturally to her.

Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.

[–] therefdotcom 8 years ago

it was her agent, that got her the gig. most people involved were actually surprised that she agreed. i don't think that the intention was to set her up. the comedy central roasts are always brutal, but everybody gets a chance. true, some people are a better target than others, but except for the situation, who basically tanked himself, you named two people that went out "winners". steve-o was great and let's face it, you can not hurt his feelings. as for tyson, he stole the show and he was able to slay people who have 10-20 years in the business. or take jewel for example, she was misplaced as hell and she killed it.

anne is vicious as hell, so who could have predicted, that she would tank THAT badly. she had gotten a full set of writers, but declined all their jokes and replaced them with her usual nazi schtick bs. what did she expect would happen? the problem wasn't even that it was "right-leaning" and i am very very fair here in my choice of word, most of it does not even count as "jokes". i don't know if you are familiar with him, but they had nick dipaolo on the roast at least once and he is one of the few, maybe the only funny right wing comedian. he always kills and he is funny as hell.

it's a roast. they will pick your weak point. the "big angry bush" thing is a generic joke, that's just filler material. it's a roast, it's personal. she's a despicable human being, so that's what they'll aim for. for christs sake, nothing's off limits UNLESS you express that upfront. roasters and the person being roasted are asked upfront for a list of topics, that are off limits. so for example no rape jokes were allowed in the case of tyson, no daughter jokes in the case of joan rivers, no hep c jokes for pam anderson ....etc. and being a "despicable human being" just isn't such a sensitive topics. amy schumer wished that steve-o would have died in a car crash instead of his friend ryan dunn in one of the last roasts. THAT was brutal. anne did this to herself, plain and simple.

again, take the larry the cable guy roast. almost every person there, actually hated him, yet he came out on top ... and he was the person of focus.

[–] huckfunn 8 years ago

Interesting discussion. You seem well informed of CC roast history, the roasters and roast-ees. I really don't have much more to say other than to repeat that the combination of Coulter's innate unfunniness (with or without professional help) with her misanthropic persona -- and the near-universal dislike of her by Hollywood celebrities -- equated to, again, in my view, a bullyfest that edged on eclipsing the roasting of Lowe. Yes, it was often funny, but in that perverse way we laugh at videos of people stupidly hurting themselves ... e.g., here's Ann throwing herself into the lion's den.

I've seen Nick DiPaulo perform. Funny guy. Never noticed a right-wing slant. He comes across a little like he really could be pissed off at the world.

I have to question your "almost every person there actually hated him" statement about Larry. His shtick is largely a put-on. A lot of comedians, as well as regular folk, find his humor to be just straight-out racist, sexist, classist insults that feed those impulses in his audiences. Like Trump, if Trump were funny. People may not find Larry to be clever or funny or any kind of comedy role model, but they take issue with his act, not the individual behind it. In fact, the real Larry (I forget his name) is supposedly quite likable. So it's not an apt comparison with Coulter, whose core being was trashed.

Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.

[–] therefdotcom 8 years ago

thank you very much. i agree, it is a delighting discussion. something which i actually rarely find here on IMDB.

yeah, i love the CC roasts. great concept, rooting in a long comedic tradition that started way before cc even existed, with an awesome set of comics, friends of the person being roasted and random celebs that seemed interesting and fit for the task.

once again i have to disagree on the "bullyfest" terminology though. she was the biggest target ever, that much we are the same page, BUT it was a game of equal chances. the last time someone took a similar beating it was with "the situation", with the only difference being that there was less personal animosity. the jokes were similarly brutal, though. from a fairness standpoint, he was even in a worse position. i mean, who would have thought, that out of all people ann would be tanking so bad in a contest of being the most vicious?!?! in direct comparison: mike (the situation) might be a backstabbing idiot, but vicious? ann has made a career out of being a relentless, irresponsible hate monger.

ironically i hate nothing more, than when people express their "schadenfreude", when random people hurt themselves. there is a huge difference though, since in this case it is rather a case of vengeance, because that's what ann has been to doing to whole groups of people, with significant damage to our socio-political system. nevertheless, it was just jokes, so even vengeance is too harsh of a word. comic relief might be the most fitting word.

and it's not, like any of the jokes in question were any harder than what we had heard before on the roast, it's just that the sheer volume might have made it seem that way.

sorry to repeat myself, but her being ill prepared was what made it looks so hard and that was her own fault. sure, out of all people ever invited, she was the most widely hated by the lineup, but to segway into the next point you made, she wasn't the first person that people had serious ill feelings about. i recommend the denis leary roast in comparison, especially the deleted scenes. i am sure you are familiar with the whole bill hicks friends/fans vs leary debacle.

nick has quite a few right leaning views, but he makes am funny and i like him a lot. :D

as for larry, it is more than a shtick. except for maybe ron white, the blue collar comedy crew are quite wide on the right, with larry in particular expressing racist and homophobic in his programs, especially in the earlier ones. this lead to multiple clashes with other comedians, in particular with david cross.

as for likeable in person, that's a completely different beast altogether. i don't doubt that, but that does not make it any better. larry surely isn't as bad as ann, but it's not all act.

it would be different, if we would be talking about andrew "dice" clay, gilbert geoffrey or the like, where there's a clean line between onstage persona and private person.