Conan O'Brien Jokes That Korean Massage Parlors Look Like Korean Funeral Homes

By Dennis Romero Wed., May 18 2011 at 9:07 AM

TBS

Conan.

Here's our theory. People who aren't from L.A. (we're looking at you, Kobe) don't fully grasp the breadth and depth of our diversity.

We have ethnic communities for days (and decades, if not centuries), and while dog-meat jokes and thank-you-come-agains might have been okay 20 or 30 years ago (actually they weren't), singling out any group as being outside the cool-kid crowd doesn't work here.

Every community has delegates in Hollywood these days, and Conan O'Brien is probably the latest celeb who will hear from a few. Here was his Korean joke via Twitter this week:

From the outside, some Korean funeral homes look just like Korean massage parlors. My sincerest apologies to the entire Myong family.

Ha-ha. You walked into a solemn ceremony with just a towel on?

Really, Conan? Equating whoring and sacred loss? Who are you, Gilbert Gottfried?

L.A. is home to a six-figure Korean-heritage population (estimates seem to start at about 120,000-plus) that has a strong voice in city politics.

We'd be surprised if you get a pass on this one.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

Tags:

Conan O'Brien, ethnic jokes, Korean American, Koreans, Koreatown, Los Angeles, monologues

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Michael Heister

The one way Conan gets a pass is he makes himself the butt of the jokes. He casts himself as the culturally-unaware guy in this joke.

Who cares 2 people?

Some Guy

Yes, someone who spent almost 20 years working in New York City really isn't able to "fully grasp the breadth and depth of our diversity."If you were offended by the joke, that's one thing. Pretending that Conan doesn't understand how to function in a multicultural society is a completely different thing.

Dennis Romero

I love New York, and it's truly a global city, but Manhattan is more gentrified than L.A.'s Westside, and NYC has absolutely nothing on L.A.'s diversity. One out of every two people in L.A. is Latino. We have larger Korean, Iranian and other populations that NY, by far.

Jimmy James

And Manhattan is the only burrough in NYC. Yeah, we have more Koreans, Iranians, and Armenians. But they beat us in Jews, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Haitians. Who wins? I don't care. As someone put it far better than I can:

If you were offended by the joke, that's one thing. Pretending that Conan doesn't understand how to function in a multicultural society is a completely different thing.