Hosted by Colin Jost of “Saturday Night Live,” the 2024 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner will take place Saturday night. The show will be staged at that shrine to comedy, the Washington, D.C., Hilton. The event, which lets comedians mock powerful people (and lets powerful people, like President Joe Biden, live-action role-play being comedians) is usually a flaming hot mess atop a dumpster floating, languidly, in a lake of chunky sludge.
How often in history could this even happen?
Let it remain so, always and forever! I mean, how often in history could this even happen? How often could a jester even dare and try to land one satiric drop kick to the maw of people holding the nuclear codes? How often do class clowns re-emerge decades later and exact vengeance on their obviously more intelligent and cunning high school classmates: the members of the nation’s news industry?
The WHCA Dinner is the Media Train Wreck Waiting to Happen that America Wants. And needs. The annual event rarely goes off without a hitch. In fact, the hitches are the whole reason for enduring its pomp and pretension (and Connecticut Avenue traffic).
Depending on whom you speak to, comedian Michelle Wolf either bombed or spoke truth to power in 2018. Her lacerating performance earned a rebuke from the usually demurring President Donald Trump himself. Event organizers vowed to no longer feature comedians at the event.
In 2016, Larry Wilmore used the N-word in reference to President Barack Obama. The slur, Wilmore insisted, was used endearingly. Chaos ensued, as did a national conversation in which some Americans were first introduced to the concept of the “hard r.” Seth Meyers famously lit up Trump in 2011 for his birtherism. Later, Meyers would suggest (as did Republican operative Roger Stone) that his barbs spurred Trump to run for office.
Hasan Minhaj certainly got a few off in 2017, and alleged that he was told to cut it out by the president of the WHCA. Was it this joke that set off alarm bells? “Is Steve Bannon here? I do not see Steve Bannon. I do NOT see Steve Bannon. Not see Steve Bannon. Nazi Steve Bannon.”
NBC reports that pro-Palestinian activists, as with environmentalists last year, will protest the event. They have every right to demonstrate. I believe their goal of shutting it down, however, is misguided. Suppressing art and/or political speech, especially when the speech is neither an incitement to violence nor targeting any one group, is a terrible idea. The aforementioned hitches suggest to me that many groups will be offended by evening’s end. From the Israel Defense Forces to Columbia’s tent dwellers to the Democratic Party to Donald Trump to mainstream media outlets — everyone had better duck. Comedy almost never achieves its noble ends, but when it does, lots of people get punched in the face. And being victimized by a punchline is preferable to an actual punch. In some cases, it might be the best way to foster self-reflection. Suppressing art and/or political speech, especially when the speech is neither an incitement to violence nor targeting any one group, is a terrible idea. And besides, the WHCA Dinner may have a socially redeeming function. The anthropologist Victor Turner observed that among the Ndembu people of Zambia it was customary for the king-elect to be subjected to a period of ritualistic humiliation. The purpose of the insults they absorbed — and rumor has it these monarchs got roasted hard by their soon-to-be subjects — was to instill humility. The initiation served to remind the anointed one of his sacred duty to rule judiciously. So let the show go on. Let Biden, that lyrical criminal, rock the mic, and slay with his rapier wit. Let Jost gain even greater fame among his growing (and unique) fan base. And let all the celebrities, journos and pols who come to the Washington Hilton on Saturday visit the surrounding neighborhood after the show. As anyone familiar with the area knows, it boasts a colorful selection of local commerce in the form of cannabis boutiques, alcohol shops and a strip club. That and the irreverent comedy provide a fitting display of the indulgent freedoms many Americans hold dear.
Jacques Berlinerblau is a professor of Jewish civilization at Georgetown University. 
