bigotry or denial

White comedians can't tell jokes that denigrate blacks, women , jews or moslems, or the handicapped. . They can pick on Christians and white businessmen. Black comedians are slightly less restricted only because they can stereotype fellow blacks. There is one minority that both can stereotype and mock with impunity, the elderly. I don't think it is done out of meaness I think it is done and applauded because people realise that they are going to be elderly and think by chortling at the supposed foibles that accompany some aging people they can delay or deny their own arrival at this stage of life. I think it is perfectly allright, actually laudable for an older person to laugh at his contemporaries and his infirmaties, just as it is fine for a black guy to satirize his fellows actions. It does gall me when people frightend of their own mortality set up elderly people as surrogates for their anxieties