pinheadio leftovers

One of my favorite lines from Pinheadio, is one that nobody got to read. Oh, i tried leaving it in, along with a humorous parenthetical about it being brilliant but also brilliantly racist...but i finally went with my dictum that less is more, and cut it.
The question is, was it brilliantly (or even just middlingly) racist? Before answering my question, here's the line:
"...but pinocchio was swept ashore as geppetto was swallowed by the colossal catfish, who was immediately swallowed by the dastardly dogfish, who was immediately swallowed by the lumbering lucasfish, who was immediately swallowed by the draconian disneyfish, who was immediately swallowed by the giant jewfish, who was immediately swallowed by the awful antitrustfish."

It was the jewfish bit that got cut. A surface reading of the line admittedly sets off racist alarms. So why do i find it funny? Because walt disney was allegedly an anti-semite! Add to that the fact that Disney's most famous CEO since walt died, was jewish (along with at least two others CEOs), and it becomes very funny. Add to that the fact that, unlike the lucasfish or disneyfish, there actually IS such a thing as a jewfish, and it becomes hysterical! Call my sense of humor perverse, but the fact that there's an actual animal called a jewfish, is entertaining to me. I might also giggle if you told me there was a wopfish. I'm basing all that on the assumption that the original intent of the naming was in no way a slur.

Intelligent people have long known that one way to separate the stupid from the smart, is in how they react to "bad" words. Intelligent people know there is no such thing as a bad word...only bad intentions. Any word can be good or bad depending on the context, but if you automatically make a word dirty or demeaning, you give that word automatic power over your emotions. Instead of controlling your words, you're letting them control you.

The belief in "bad words" exists in inverse proportion to intelligence.

And the original sequence would have been even funnier if i'd ended it on "jewfish"...but doing that would have actually felt a touch anti-semitic! Having the line end on "antitrustfish" send the proper message...that michael eisner has no monopoly on slimy business ethics, and that he and all his predatory ilk are an endangered species.

Just as is, coincidentally, the jewfish itself.

So by any correct reading of authorly intent, the line wasn't racist...yet sadly, a lot of people might have thought it was. And it's not even being misunderstood by well-intended folk that bothers me, as much as the thought of actual racists thinking i was one of them.
There are, of course, any number of emotionally-charged, hot-button words which draw immediate censure regardless of intention or context. "Jew" is mild, compared to some. Some words are so hot, you can't even say a word that sounds similar. I'm appalled that some public figure recently was censured (perhaps even fired?), simply for using "niggardly" in its proper context. Call it my perverse sense of humor again, but niggardly has always been one of my absolute favorite words. My brother and i even invented "the niggardly game". It's quite simple, and can stretch out over years. At some sort of annual social gathering, a contestant must conspicuously (but properly) inject "niggardly" into the conversation. The following year, it's the next contestant's turn. This goes on until the group at large finally reacts in some decisive way.

Hysterical, i call it.

If you find that in bad taste, you're perhaps in some kind of denial over how screwed up this world is. But this world needs in-your-face humor, nowhere moreso than where emotions run highest.

Often when i'm out in the world doing some sort of solitary activity, i'll sing the theme song to "The Niggar Family" from CHAPELLE'S SHOW. One of the most brilliant satires ever - i'll be laughing at it for the rest of my life.

I know, of course, that should someone overhear me singing that song and not know the source, they might think me a crass racist. Or if a black person overheard me, even were they to recognize the song, they might find my behavior inappropriate or insulting. That's a risk i'm happy to take. Humor is the sanest reaction to an insane world...and if everyone embraced the sensibility behind the song, we would all be well on our way to healing.

And poor authors would never need pull their funniest lines again.