I made the mistake of leaving The Late Show With Jimmy Fallon on Friday night. It was a rerun. U2 was the guest, and Jimmy thought it would be funny to make light of the November bike accident after which he wondered whether he would ever play a guitar again. (Spoiler Alert: It wasn’t.)
In his quest for laughs, Fallon arranged a skit in which Bono rode his bike into a NYC street and got hit by a van not once, not twice, but three times.
LOLOLOLOLOL
You know why that’s so funny? Because bicyclsts are struck and killed in New York and other municipalities across the country and world on a shockingly regular basis. OMG That. Is. So. Funny.
I mean, just days before I had the honor of watching this, a “Neurological Surgery Professor Biking in Manhattan Killed by Hit-Run Driver in Stolen Car” and “Bicyclist killed in Fort Myers hit-and-run crash.”
Jokes about people being struck by vehicles are no better than jokes about date rape.
Knock it off, Jimmy Fallon.
Knock it off, SNL.
Knock it off, listicle makers who count on edginess, mimicry and profanity to feel good about themselves.
It’s not funny to make fun of incidents that result in loss of lives and life-changing injuries on a daily basis.