Late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel is being accused of ‘patronizing’ and ‘mocking’ disabled people after taking several blind Americans to a gun range on Friday night’s episode of his show.
The premise for the video was prompted by the fact that Iowa allows legally blind people to purchase and carry firearms. So in order to demonstrate the implications of that law, Kimmel took four blind people to a gun range. The segment was intended to be humorous, but when a comedian is poking fun at disabled adults there’s a risk of offending viewers.
“We don’t want anyone to be deaf too,” Jimmy joked when the range instructor told the blind people to put on ear protection.
During the actual shooting, Kimmel told each person they hit the paper targets with every shot, even though they all missed. And as they wrapped up the excursion, he told one of the women, Carmen, that she had accidentally shot her seeing eye dog.
Viewers weren’t pleased with Kimmel’s jokes.
“I’m a little offended by this,” YouTube user Alex Torres commented on the video.
“I feel sorry for these people,” user Michale James wrote.
“Jimmy I like you and all I think your hilarious but this time you took it to far on the blind jokes you sounded like a total a**hole you should apologize…” YouTube user Stricktlybeardeddrag said.
“Jimmy is a total jerk who will do anything for ratings, including belittling and patronizing the disabled. He is low and disgusting!” mgproj77 commented on the video.
Apparently @jimmykimmel thinks it’s OK to mock disabled people. What a LAME-O. http://t.co/WTDNMFAuU0
— Fishwrapper (@fishwrapped) October 14, 2013
Watch the clip below and decide for yourself. Did Kimmel take it too far?
