“I’ve only been to Baltimore one time. I ate lunch there, and the hostess who seats you at the restaurant had a black eye. A full black eye. And it wasn’t like, ‘What happened?’ It was pretty obvious what happened.”
“And my boy who I was with was like, ‘Yeah, I feel bad for her, man. I feel like they should put her in the kitchen or something where nobody has to see her face.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye.’”
“I figure we start the show with domestic violence, the rest of the show should be pretty smooth sailing.”
Explanation: Matt Rife’s joke plays on offensive stereotypes: a woman with a black eye implies domestic abuse, his friend suggests hiding her, and Rife adds she wouldn’t be abused if she could cook, blaming the victim. The above is the exact text of the controversial joke from Matt Rife’s Netflix special Natural Selection, which premiered on November 15, 2023.
