Comedian and host of “The Tonight Show” Jay Leno is being brought to court after a joke he made that referenced a Sikh temple in India. Dr. Randeep Dhillon apparently took exception to the depiction of an Indian temple as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s summer home and has filed suit against the comedian. The doctor’s lawsuit claims that the joke caused damage to his reputation and self-confidence.
No monetary figure has been released so far, however Dr. Dhillon has said that he is suing because the broadcast was “published with oppression, fraud and malice.” This of course isn’t the first time a late night host has come under fire for the content of their show. David Letterman and former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin got in a skirmish over a joke that Letterman told about one of Palin’s daughters. A few weeks ago “Late Night” host Jimmy Fallon and his house band got flack for playing a less than flattering song as former GOP candidate Michele Bachmann’s walk-on music.
In the interest of full disclosure, it should be said that I am someone who puts themselves squarely in the Team Coco club, meaning I’m a big fan of Conan O’Brien. During the “The Tonight Show” fiasco of 2009 and 2010 in which Conan was shown the door and Leno was given his old show back, I was appalled by Leno’s actions. No one was more pleased to see the PR machine backfire on Jay as he tried to play the victim in that scenario than I was. I’m not a fan of his style of comedy in general, and I’m mostly bored by his show. I mention this because it should be known that no one is a harsher critic of Jay than I am.
That being said, this lawsuit holds very little merit and actually could set a very dangerous precedent. Every late night host makes jokes at someone’s expense. It’s a comedian’s job to tell jokes about the world we live in. Sometimes that means taking a shot at a famous athlete, celebrity or religious figure or tradition. Catholics, Protestants and Jewish people have traditionally been made fun of in the late night setting from time to time. This wasn’t Michael Richards losing his cool and spewing unfunny, hurtful racial epithets at patrons in a comedy club. It was a harmless joke on a late night TV show.
One could make a strong argument that if it’s okay to make a joke about one religion, all religions should be fair game, but in this case, that argument isn’t even necessary. Jay’s joke really was not at the expense of the Sikhs, but rather Mitt Romney;, it was trading on the image that Romney is an out of touch millionaire.
In all fairness to Dhillon, I too was offended by Jay’s joke. Though, I was more offended by how hackneyed and obvious it was. There wasn’t much to the joke other than a simple statement of “Oh, Mitt Romney’s that rich guy in the race, he must have a big summer home.” If Dr. Dhillon was suing Leno over the trite nature of the joke, I’d be fully in support of his suit. Sorry, that must be some old residual Leno rage left over.
All joking aside, this is a lawsuit that will hopefully be tossed out of court before the lawyer’s phone lines get warm. The joke was not malicious, as Dr. Dhillon claims, at least not towards Sikhs. As a melting pot society, there will be an occasional joke or two at every culture’s expense, and while slander and liable should never be tolerated, good-natured jokes or comical observations should not be subject to lawsuits.
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