Apparently, comedians on the left refuse to learn that children are off limits for their political rage. Just a week ago, Katie Rich, a writer on SNL, was suspended indefinitely for tweeting insults about Donald and Melania Trump’s innocent ten-year-old child. Rich “joked” that he would be America’s first homeschooled shooter, among other insults. Instead of learning from the mistakes of others, a seriously unfunny “comedian” named Shannon Noll is taking it a step further with an entire show that she wrote and is starring in called “Barron Trump, Up Past Bedtime.” The show opened in a small theater in Chicago last weekend.
Noll’s schtick appears to be based solely on the fact that she dresses like a little boy and is a lesbian. Those are the two main jokes during her standup routine. A quick review of her YouTube page (that only has a few videos—and even fewer views) reveals vignettes called “Trash Baby,” where she mocks the homeless in Chicago by wearing brown paint on her face as she begs for money and creates portraits with ketchup. It’s awkward. I hesitated to even write about her because it is very probable that she saw the riot that Katie Rich caused with her poor joke about Barron Trump and decided the fastest way out of obscurity was to join in on the Barron bashing and get some spotlight time. But after watching her “impressions,” it’s clear that no amount of notoriety is ever going to propel her to any kind of success in comedy. (Skip to the 00:51 mark.)
Further solidifying the theory that this is a “fifteen minutes of fame” ploy, Noll even appears to have tried to plagiarize Katie Rich’s tweet about Trump being in danger of a “homeschool shooting,” piggybacking on the outrage. I think we can safely assume she’s doing this for the attention.
Hey @realDonaldTrump make stricter gun laws and you won't have to worry about a school shooting in your home.
— Jake Noll (@shannonlnoll) January 23, 2017
Noll claims that her show isn’t about Barron at all but is about life from his perspective and the characters around him and that she will play him very generically. Noll was quoted in the Chicago Tribune trying to explain herself:
I was originally going to create a fake Trump child, but I look so much like Barron. And going into this, I specifically created this character so that he bears no resemblance in personality to what we’ve seen of Barron Trump. I’m just playing him as a generic kid.
After watching her impression skills, I don’t think she could imitate Barron if she tried.
Barron Trump speaks out! #Barron https://t.co/A5ckJnHISe pic.twitter.com/Y2iTfQ7hom
— Jake Noll (@shannonlnoll) January 23, 2017
If the character was supposed to be a generic child, then why is he named Barron Trump? The left is full of contradictions. It is simply impossible to imagine a scenario where a conservative comic could ever have starred in a show as Chelsea Clinton when she was an awkward adolescent, and not face a firing squad of criticism.
Noll claims that she has been harassed and had death threats tweeted to her since the announcement of her show. If true, that’s unfortunate. While her treatment of Trump’s child on social media is thoughtless and cruel (and this show is sure to be stupid, offensive, and boring), it’s not illegal and it shouldn’t carry with it the threat of death. This country always had an unspoken deal with political enemies that minor children should be off limits in political wars. But those on the left don’t live up to gentleman’s agreements because there is no end to their bigotry and hatred of those who are of a different ideology. We can expect more of this from all corners of rabid leftism.
There isn’t any danger of this show becoming a hit, but our society is in danger of losing its basic humanity. When we can’t protect all children from partisan bickering, it’s a sign that we’ve crossed a line and there’s no going back. Also, as a side note, if you’re tweeting death threats to people like this, you’re enabling them to set themselves up as victims and champions of free speech when they are no such thing. Stop doing that. The appropriate response to this is more speech, pointing out the obvious inappropriate nature of bringing minor children into a political fight, and exercising the power of the wallet by refusing to support productions like this one. Threats of physical violence are not acceptable for anyone in a free society.
As a parent, it is disturbing that so many people can have so little care for a child they don’t know—a boy who has been put in a very difficult and public position through no choice of his own. Shielding him from the hatred is going to be a very difficult job. Praying people should remember Barron and his family in their petitions. They’re going to need all the help they can get.
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