Tiffany Haddish Just Made A Herpes Joke At The VMAs, And That's Not Okay
Yes, Tiffany Haddish threw shade at Fifth Harmony when she introduced one of the first awards at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards. But can we talk about that other little joke she made...the herpes joke?
"Jersey Shore is back and bigger than ever, which makes sense," Tiffany said while presenting with Night School costar Kevin Hart. "If you don't get treatment, that stuff will keep flaring up every couple of years." And just in case it wasn't clear, Kevin Hart spelled out to everyone that the pair was making a herpes joke.
More than one in six adults in the U.S. are living with herpes, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That's a ton of people...meaning you know several people with herpes, if you don't have herpes yourself.
Several women have opened up to Women's Health about what it's like to live with the crazy-common virus in the past, and one thing is pretty clear: The stigma that you deal with when you have it is, sadly, alive and well.
Which is totally ridiculous considering that the virus is highly contagious (basically the only way to guarantee you won't get it is just to not have any kind of sex), and most people who have genital herpes have no symptoms, according to the CDC.
This is an excerpt from one of my favorite pieces we've ever run on the subject-a piece in which a woman named Ella Dawson wrote about why she loves telling people she has herpes:
MY FAVORITE DISCLOSURE happened when a guy made a joke while chatting me up at a party. He offered me the rest of his expensive beer and said with a wink, “Don’t worry, I don’t have herpes or anything.” I had a choice to make. I could laugh his comment off and pretend it didn’t hurt, but that would mean laughing at myself. Or I could steer into the skid and stop being so afraid of what people thought.
“That’s funny,” I said, with as warm a smile as I could manage. “Yeah, that’s really funny. Because I have genital herpes.” His face crumbled. Not because I grossed him out-I could practically see the wheels turning in his brain as he realized he’d made an ignorant joke at someone else’s expense. The guy started apologizing profusely.
It was one of the most surreal moments of my life, and in retrospect, it was odd I made it so long without someone making a joke in front of me. Herpes is a safe punch line in an era of comedy where making fun of someone’s race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and class is increasingly considered politically incorrect. Joking about HIV and AIDS is distasteful and insensitive. But who cares about herpes? I’ll never forget the winning line from The Hangover: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except herpes-that sh*t’ll come back with you.”
The thing is, this stranger wasn’t intentionally making fun of me. He wasn’t making fun of anyone because most of us don’t associate herpes with actual people. But the second I spoke out against his joke, I was hooked on reactions like his. I had seen in the flesh what a simple “I have herpes” could do when said fearlessly, without shame. Because when a real person-a woman you know and respect-casually mentions having herpes, it stops being a punch line and starts being someone's reality.
At the risk of sounding totally preachy, I hope you'll remember Ella and all of the other people you know who have herpes before the next time you hear (or, even worse, make) a herpes joke. Not cool, Tiffany.
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