I love the shit out of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert…but last night, Stephen Colbert did a spiel that kinda threw me off. Apparently, because Mexico is attempting to take away the world record of country with the most world records, Colbert started an insult contest where he vowed to become the talk show host with the most insults directed toward Mexico.

It started off with Colbert making insults with a little mariachi at the bottom of the screen keeping count. And I started squirming. Some of the jokes were funny (I need to go to a library and check out a book–”Why does Mexico suck,” and others were just poor taste (burrito jokes, come on).

But then he ended up the whole spiel with this:

And BAM! I get his point! And I laughed! I still don’t know as if I entirely appreciate the humor–but I also am aware now of how little patience even those of us who consider ourselves “sophisticated” viewers of pop culture have with “waiting for the pay off” of a joke. In other words, when Comedy makes an uncomfortable joke, Comedy better make the payoff fairly quickly so that I understand where Comedy is coming from. Waiting thirty minutes to get to the payoff seems like just too much to ask. Especially when it comes to racialized humor.

But is it really? Are we that sensitive?
What do you think?

(and “serial flea to my dog,” Lou Dobbs? Fucking really???? No wonder these people are coming to get you.)