There’s Nothing Funnier Than Someone With No Sense of Humor
by tristero
Whilst at Princeton – that traditional NJ breeding ground for populist defenders of the poor, tired, huddled masses, Ted Cruz was known as a highly skilled debater (I’ll forgo the obvious, over-used joke here to describe Teddy’s level of rhetorical mastery). Many spectacular examples of his utterly humorless personality are given, but this one got me rotflmao, as it so epitomizes not only Teds, but the rest of the extreme right’s troubled relationship with reality:
When an Amherst team argued at a tournament in 1989 that Ricky Ricardo should have let Lucy work, Mr. Cruz said, in an incensed voice: “Well, guess what, I’m Cuban! And no self-respecting Cuban man of the era would let his wife work.”
For those younger readers who may not know, this refers to a famous TV comedy originally called I Love Lucy when it first aired in 1951. In the show, Ricky Ricardo is a charismatic, but somewhat stiff Cuban band leader living in New York. His red-headed wife Lucy (you could tell she had red hair even in black and white) was a force of nature, constantly at the center of hilarious mayhem. Sadly, I really can’t tell you much more about the show itself without ruining some of the most sublime moments in the history of American theater. Watch it. And watch it again.
Although Ted Cruz doesn’t seem to realize this, you probably guessed something rather important: Ricky and Lucy Ricardo never existed. That’s right: they are fictional characters. And Ted Cruz, defending the conservative adage that women shouldn’t work and belong at home defended an entirely bogus example with an entirely bogus assertion. Because what makes this genuinely hilarious is that there is actually some reality afoot.
“Ricky Ricardo” was played by none other than the very real Desi Arnaz, a famous Cuban bandleader – and, in fact, a brilliant musician (despite a lot of cheesy music he performed on the show). Lucy Ricardo was played by Lucille Ball, one of the greatest comedians – hell, actors – of the 20th century.
And in real life, contra Ted Cruz, Desi and Lucy were a married working couple, working on the show together. In fact, Desi owed his job on the show to Lucy, who insisted that the network hire her husband. (Theirs was a troubled marriage, but that’s another story; suffice it say that Arnaz’s notion of a “self-respecting” Cuban man did not include faithfulness to his wife).
In other words, a very famous and accomplished Cuban man “of the era” and his wife worked very hard to create an indelible, immortal fictional relationship premised on the quite delible and dying fiction that wives of famous and accomplished men don’t work. And they succeeded so well that the hapless, humorless Ted Cruz mistook it for reality.
There’s more. By all means, read the whole article.