If our skin gets too thick, we won’t feel anything at all, which is the most unreasonable of expectations.
In some situations, yes, we’re humorless. Because sometimes, people can’t take a joke. I’ve stopped aspiring to be thicker-skinned, and I no longer expect or admire it in others. If you can’t laugh along, you are humorless.
We often see this when comedians want to joke about race, sexual assault, gender violence or other issues that people experiencing them don’t find terribly funny.
There is a strange idea that there is nobility in tolerating or, better yet, enjoying humor that attacks who you are, what you do or how you look - that with free speech comes the obligation to turn the other cheek, rise above, laugh it all off. But it should be obvious that the targets of jokes and insults have every right to react and respond.
Long live creative license and free speech. It should go without saying that comedians are free to say what they please. Done less well, it leaves its targets feeling raw, exposed and wounded - not mortally, but wounded. It can force us to look in the mirror and get honest with ourselves, to laugh and move forward. Done well, comedy can offer witty, biting observations about human frailties. Thick skin comes up often in the context of comedy. It’s an alluring idea to some, I suppose. If we all had the thickest of skins, no one would have to take responsibility for cruelties, big or small. If the targets of derision only had thicker skin, their aggressors could say or do as they please. Who is served by all this thick skin? Those who want to behave with impunity. I’m not talking about constructive criticism or accountability but, rather, the intense scrutiny and unnecessary commentary people have to deal with when they challenge others’ expectations one way or another. Toughen yourself, we’re told, whoever we are, whatever we’ve been through or are going through. I think a lot about how we are constantly asked to make our skin ever thicker. It is a rejection of the expectation that we laugh off everything people want to say and do to us. It is a repudiation of the incessant valorizing of taking a joke, having a sense of humor. It is a defense of boundaries and being human and enforcing one’s limits. That is not the kind of life you should aspire to have.This is not a defense of Will Smith, who does not need me to defend him. You are making yourself miserable and letting other people’s negativity define you. You are allowed to be offended by things people say, but when you decide to go through life with thin skin, you aren’t holding those people accountable. Race-baiting aside, Gay has the wrong message.
(Oh the horror!) The jokes, off-the-cuff comments, and analysis of judicial records directed toward celebrities and prospective Supreme Court justices are not exactly proof of the everyday racist sexism that black women, and apparently only black women, live through in Gay’s view of the world. The stand-ins for all black women in Gay’s piece are Pinkett Smith (a multimillionaire celebrity), Serena and Venus Williams (multimillionaire athletes), and Jackson, a powerful judge who is being questioned about the sentences she handed down to criminals. It’s a racial grievance, bending to find some angle of racism in an incident in which a black man made a joke about a black woman. Gay turns her attention to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing, at which “that distinguished jurist endured all manner of insult, racism and misogyny from Republican senators.” Gay concludes that “most black women” are “constantly a target” of “jokes, insults, incivility and worse.” The piece isn’t about thin skin or having a sense of humor. Of course, the real issues here are politics and racism. You don’t have to let them, especially if you don’t respect the person making them. Insults are supposed to get under your skin and make you miserable. You have thick skin so as not to let bullies (or, less importantly, comedians) live rent-free in your head. It is to prevent you from living a miserable life, where every comment directed against you is internalized and you are in a perpetual state of being offended. The purpose of having thick skin is not to give a pass to people who mock or belittle you (or, less importantly, comedians). It’s understandable what Gay is saying, but she is misguided. Gay writes that calling for people to have thick skin when it comes to jokes benefits “those who want to behave with impunity.” “If we all had the thickest of skins, no one would have to take responsibility for cruelties, big or small,” she writes, with “cruelties” apparently standing in for “jokes” in the context of the incident at the Oscars.