New York Mayor Eric Adams earlier this month suggested immigrants could help fill the cityโs lifeguard shortage because they are โexcellent swimmers.โ
โOuch,โ was the initial response.
Not from comedian Carlos Mencia, a Honduran-American.
โThat joke has two sides to it. One side is, โWhoa, what is he trying to say.โ The other side is all my immigrant family saying, โNo, heโs right. Weโre very good swimmers,โโ Mencia said.
The anecdote has made its way into Menciaโs new show, โLaughinโ and Livinโ,โ which he brings to Desert Diamond Casino on Saturday, May 25 โ his first Tucson show since 2016.
Depending on the audience makeup, the joke will land one of two ways, he said.
Younger people or people who have white guilt will think, โOh my God, that seems so offensive,โ he said.
But his core audience, the folks who have followed him since he started his standup journey in the late 1980s and through his Comedy Central show โMind of Mencia,โ will be the ones who applaud when he says, โClap if you were not born in the country.โ
Heโll follow up with asking those who clapped, โHow many of you are good swimmers?โ
โAnd you will see that they will all clap. And then I will find somebody who speaks English with a really thick accent and I will go, โWere you offended by this?โ And the cool thing is itโs not always somebody from Mexico,โ Mencia, 56, said during a phone call last week.
โThe other day, a guy from Latvia said, โI am from Latvia and I am immigrant and I am great swimmer. Great swimmer,โโ Mencia said, effecting a Latvian accent. โThatโs the beauty of what Iโm talking about, my ability today to be able to take reactionary moments, moments that are like hey man we are not supposed to be like that and โฆ talk about the humans that this affects. Let us not be the arbiters of what is offensive to other people.โ
In an environment of ultra sensitivity coming out of the pandemic and the tumultuous few years that followed, audiences have become quick to balk at jokes they perceive as offensive. But Mencia said he has learned that itโs not the joke that offends; oftentimes, itโs the person telling it and where they are telling it.
Mencia recently appeared at an LGBTQ+ event and watched comedian after comedian tell LGBTQ jokes. When it was his turn, he asked the audience why it was OK to tell those jokes there but not at his comedy club shows.
โSomebody said because here we know they are one of us,โ Mencia recalled. โAnd I said, โSo Iโm not one of you?โโ
The response was something of an epiphany for Mencia. Comedy cannot be contained in a bubble. It has to be given license to put a mirror to all of society, not just segments of it. More importantly, it needs to free us to laugh even when the joke is on us.
โThatโs where Iโm at now; Iโm free,โ he said. โYou donโt have to go to a Latino show. You donโt have to go to an urban show. You donโt have to go to a redneck show. Come to my show and itโs like all those shows put together. Weโre going to laugh at each other and ourselves and thatโs it.โ
โMy intention is good, and if you donโt understand that then I donโt know what to say,โ he added. โI am a comedian. โฆ My intent is to make you as happy as humanly possible doing what I do.โ
He said he believes audiences are open to that idea especially in a world in which we are so quick to label one another this โismโ and that โphobicโ for the simple crime of laughing at a joke.
โDonโt tell me Iโm a mean person because I chose to laugh,โ he quipped. โShowing people that thatโs the case is amazing, especially young people who have been told, โDonโt laugh at this, itโs going to hurt peopleโs feelings.โ Then to come and see Carlos Mencia and see that, as long as we all are open to it and accept it when the joke is on us, itโs OK. Itโs a pretty cool revelation especially to young audiences.โ
Mencia takes the stage at Desert Diamond Casino, 1100 W. Pima Mine Road, at 8 p.m. Tickets ($25-$35) are available at ddcaz.com.
Tucson native, Emmy and Grammy winner Linda Ronstadt honored at a ceremony before the International Mariachi Conference's Espectacular Concert with the renaming of the Tucson Music Hall as The Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. Video by Kelly Presnell / Arizona Daily Star