When you can’t fix a problem, laugh at it. It sounds rather simple, but that’s the jist of why I love comedians with disabilities. The key to an awesome person in my opinion is the ability to make fun of one’s self. Conan O’Brian is an expert at this, aka “self-deprecating humor.” His entire comedic repertoire is based on it in fact – poking fun of his crazy long legs, bright red hair and pasty white skin. If he can find enough stuff about himself to laugh at, then we have a fodder-filed treasure chest at our disposal. Just be careful what you say, some crips have no funny bones.
Laughter heals. It’s a great equalizer and can take you away from your problems, your pain, even for a short while. I don’t know how I could live without laughter. While some people don’t see the genius behind this style of humor, it never ceases to amaze the number of disabled people in this would who get offended when a person 
with a disability makes fun of disabilities. They clearly aren’t secure in being disabled, because if they were, they’d see how making fun of our faults empowers us. If we say the joke before someone thinks it (or before they say it in private), we take control of the situation, and hopefully in the end how they perceive us.
I have a couple of disabled comedienne friends. The other day one of them, Ally Bruener, a feisty blonde wheelchair-user with a bawdy mouth, received some nasty hate mail from some woman with a disability. This just pisses me off. My friend is the queen at pointing out her faults and making other people laugh. She removes the sad/serious component from disability with her brilliant jokes. It just blows my mind how some people can’t understand this.
It all boils down to one thing, if we want to be treated like everyone else, we need to allow ourselves to be made fun of too; grin and bear it. It goes both ways. So please disabled comedians of the world, go ahead, keep making the world laugh, even if it makes them (or some of us) uncomfortable.
My favorite comedians with disabilities:
- Josh Blue
- Meaghan Rose Gallagher (listen to podcast “Making Paralysis Funny“)
- Jeff Charlebois
- Ally Bruener (listen to podcast “Newly Minted Comedian Ally B“)
Watch Ally fulfill her lifelong dream: To roll in a gymnasium full of plastic wrap bubbles
Do you appreciate disability humor?
I love this perspective. Most people just take themselves way too seriously. As I heard someone say once, “The worst disability in life is a bad attitude.”