8 Offensive Kim Davis Memes a Lot of Us Probably Laughed At

While the LGBTQIA population (and any other reasonable human beings) are happily celebrating that courts in this country take legal rights seriously, and judges will send people that try to threaten gay marriage rights to jail… Some people are also busy being justifiably nervous that Kim Davis’ appeal might prove to mean that those marriages conducted in her county recently really aren’t legal, as her defense keeps trying to insist.

Others of us have been taking some quality time, snickering at the upsurge of hilarious memes about the Rowan County clerk. And they’re hilarious. And hell, we could all do with a chance to giggle about something that could be an occasion to fear that conservatives are about to find a new way to strip rights away from our community!

There’s only one problem here, everyone… Those memes we’ve been giggling at? They have some more serious, and kinda shitty, messages hidden in them that we’ve been conveniently sidestepping so that we can find light relief in a moment of darkness. Follow us now as we take a good hard squint at what each of the ‘funniest’ memes are saying, when they make us laugh about this situation.

1. This one? It plays into troubling ideas about who is fit to judge who… would it be better if she had one less marriage in her history? Two? Three? If she’d never been married, would that somehow make her violation of law better? Hmmm. Not so much. But don’t believe us, read this piece that talks about this meme in closer detail, and makes a great point - reasons to oppose equal treatment of people under law are all bad, whether or not they are consistent with logic.

2. Oh I get this one! It’s funny because she’s a woman in authority, and instead we’re saying she should be taking burger orders! Or else perhaps we’re somehow talking down the contributions to our society of people who work in the fast food industry - putting aside that they’ve beensome of the hardest campaigners for minimum wages rights. Not so cool now.

Oh, no it’s really funny because she’s a larger woman! So we’ve somehow managed to look at a woman and judge her for her appearance, when we don’t have any idea about her health habits. A diet is necessary? Well, that’s kinda fatphobic. Ugh. Next!

3. Oh yes! Hairdressers of the world rejoice! We are gay, and we have principles, and we have the right to judge the crap out of that hair… But wait, are we saying that hairdressing is the only thing that gay people do? That all hairdressers are gay? Did we just feed into conservative stereotypes about ‘The Gay Lifestyle’? No, no, no! LGBTQIA people are everything and anything they can dream of being. That’s exactly what we’ve always wanted. They are in that courtroom, fighting for our rights, taking that photo, making those memes, writing this… And they deserve rights for more reasons than anyone’s haircut. Even if my hairdresser really is fabulous.

4. This one is just non-stop laughs! I mean… madness, craziness, mental health struggles… they’re where the funny is at! They’re not at all connected to homelessness, or poverty, or human rights violations. And it’s so much better to connect mental illness with this than… actually just being wrong. Or maybe not. Onwards!

5. Uh. Nope. I don’t care if this one mocks Kim Davis, or him. Or who he is, and how bad you think their politics are, or what you think of her appearance (but really, why do we keep talking about women’s appearances?!)... Let’s talk about what this is really mocking - our amazing trans and non-binary community. And we should be shutting this down. Immediately. Women who don’t fit normative ideas of femininity, men with long hair, trans women who have different relationships to ‘passing’ than fits in binary boxes… those people are our community. They’re not funny. They’re wonderful. So no giggles for this one. Zero. Pass.

6. And while we’re talking about the wonderful people in the trans community, let’s talk about this one. The image includes the incredible Laverne Cox in her breakout role in the well-loved Orange Is the New Black. She’s an amazing voice in the community, and we’re happy to see her face.

But what is happening in this picture? Well you might remember that we made a version of this. We took an image of a show that is especially valuable for the ways in which it values women of color and centers them as genuinely developed characters with hopes, dream, history and ambitions… and then someone cropped out the 'SheWired' logo, literally erasing two women of color, only barely leaving Laverne there, just to re-center it on white women. Uh. Do not like. No giggles at all! Next!

7. How about this one? Hilarious, right? It’s so funny because it mimics the imagery that’s been used to publicize recent blockbuster Straight Outta Compton, which deals with the prison industrial complex… and racism and music and masculinity (amongst other fascinating things). But let’s bypass the serious issues tangled with in that movie, and also the impressive fact that it’s the highest grossing music biopic of all time, and go right to giggling about how she’s seriously out of luck. Or perhaps that would be a poor call. No, no, let’s go right back to engaging with those conversations, and stop whiting out an important topic.

8. Saved the best, or really the worst, for last. This one.

Hey it’s relevant! There’s a conversation right now happening in music about black women and ‘appropriate’ physical presentation in the music industry, about ‘respectability’ and how those things create less opportunity, awards and recognition for people like Nicki Minaj. And she is the very woman who started talking about it. It was brave, it wasn’t very well liked, and she risked her popularity against industry heavyweights like Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus… she even openly called out the way Miley had tone policed her in public with the words “What’s Good”.

So let’s take those words and… Nope. Irony is not the right word for appropriating a black woman’s words and image about the way her voice and image are used to devalue her… and then using it to commentate about a white women. It’s just plain old shitty.

Now let’s value some of Nicki’s words instead, because The Night is Still Young, and she deserves some clicks for starting such an important conversation. Let’s engage with her on her terms. Happy YouTube Minaj wormhole, everybody!

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