The New York Times - Posts | Facebook - "Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars. Dave Chappelle was tackled at the Hollywood Bowl. Now, some comics are wondering if the stage is becoming less safe, leading clubs and venues to beef up their security at comedy shows."
So many commenters saying comedy should be funny, then one won't be attacked. What an utter lack of self-awareness. Others are giving the usual line about punching down or a similar one. No wonder comedy is dead
Comedian claims he was snubbed for gig because he is a 'white, straight able-bodied male' - "British act Nick Dixon has enjoyed successful tours in the UK and US, and was selected to write jokes for Disney’s Aladdin remake starring Will Smith. Despite his track record, the comedian has claimed that he was overlooked for a gig because he fitted into the category of “white straight able-bodied male”, and the performer warned that white male colleagues face the same scrutiny over their identity... The comedian told the Daily Express: “This has happened to basically every straight white comedian I know... Despite comedy being increasingly seen as the preserve of left-wing performers on mainstream platforms, Mr Dixon has said that comedians on both sides of the political spectrum are privately concerned about discrimination in the world of comedy. He added: “Some argue that this kind of thing is just redressing the balance for past discrimination. “But if you asked them to give up their place on a TV panel show for a person of colour it would be a different story.” He has argued that comedians cannot be selected by club owners or TV producers based on demographics, as their profession demands that they are “just the funniest people”... Mr Dixon’s warning about discrimination in comedy comes after The Campaign For Common Sense last year estimated that two thirds of prominent comedians currently working are left-leaning... Programmes like The Mash Report, presented by Nish Kumar, consistently faced criticism for being “left-wing”, and former BBC presenter Andrew Neil described the programme as “propaganda”."
Meme - "I love when a comedian I once loved makes fun of my identity on stage as a whole crowd claps and eats it up ^-^"
*Joke pie hits man*
Woman: "Hah!"
*Joke pie hits man*
Woman: "Hah ha"
*Joke pie hits woman*
Woman: Article - *When comedy becomes offensive and disrespectful*
iFunny Is A Huge Hub For White Nationalists
iFunny censors much less than other sites (some of my memes got hidden - some after getting some views and attention). No wonder the left hate it and claim it's dangerous. Can't have (mostly) free speech, can we?
Katt Williams: ‘There's No Cancel Culture,' Comedy Needs ‘Speed Limit' and Road Shoulders - "Comedian Katt Williams has both defended cancel culture and denied that it even exists in a recent interview, saying cancel culture helps people “be more sensitive” in the way they talk. He also bizarrely claimed comics have a duty to “please the most amount of people” with their art... “At the end of the day, there’s no cancel culture. Cancellation doesn’t have its own culture.” Katt then said cancel culture benefits society by making people more sensitive."
Classic leftist doublethink gaslighting. They do this with Critical Race Theory in schools too
Carl Benjamin - Posts | Facebook - "Listen up, kids! Progressive comedy is about dismantling systems of oppression, so the real rebellion is when the people who control how the world works tell you to "punch down" at randos on the internet!"
Thread by @iproposethis - "Do you have white teenage sons? Listen up. I've been watching my boys' online behavior & noticed that social media and vloggers are actively laying groundwork in white teens to turn them into alt-right/white supremacists. Here's how: It's a system I believe is purposefully created to disillusion white boys away from progressive/liberal perspectives.
First, the boys are inundated by memes featuring subtly racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic jokes. Being kids, they don't see the nuance & repeat/share. Then they're called out for these jokes/phrases/memes by parents, teachers, kids (mostly girls) at school & online. The boys then feel shame & embarrassment - and shame is the force that, I believe, leads people to their worst decisions.
The second step is the boys consuming media with the "people are too sensitive" and "you can't say anything anymore!" themes. For these boys, this will ring true - they're getting in trouble for "nothing". This narrative allows boys to shed the shame - replacing it w/anger. And who is their anger with? Women, feminists, liberals, people of color, gay folks, etc etc. So-called snowflakes. And nobody is there to dismantle the "snowflake" fallacy. These boys are being set up - they're placed like baseballs on a tee and hit right out of the park. And NOBODY seems to notice this happening - except, it seems, moms of teenage girls who see the bizarre harassment their daughters endure. And, of course, moms like me who stalk our sons' social media. These are often boys from progressive or moderate families - but their online behavior & viewing habits are often ignored.
Here's an early red flag: if your kid says "triggered" as a joke referring to people being sensitive, he's already being exposed & on his way. Intervene! Look through his Instagram Explore screen with him. Explain what's underlying those memes. Explain why "triggered" isn't a joke, what a PTSD trigger is actually like. Evoke empathy without shaming him. Remind him you know he's a good person, but explain how propaganda works. Propaganda makes extreme points of view seem normal by small amounts of exposure over time - all for the purpose of converting people to more extremist points of view. Use my baseball analogy, if you want. Tell your son that he doesn't have to be anybody's fool. Teenagers have an innate drive toward independence, and once this system is exposed, they're likely to start questioning the memes & vloggers' intentions. Tell them you are always there, not judging, to look at content & try to spot the lie - no judgment. Then don't judge!
You can also watch political comedy shows with him, like Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Hasan Minhaj. Talk about what makes their jokes funny - who are the butt of the jokes? Do they "punch up" or down? Our boys want funny guys to relate to. Give them John Mulaney, Hannibal Burress, Hasan Minhaj, Neal Brennan, Dave Chappelle ... then TALK TO YOUR SONS about that funny shit. Break it down. (Also give them women comics, obviously, but that's beside the point here). Show them that progressive comedy isn't about being "politically correct" or safe. It's often about exposing oppressive systems - which is the furthest thing from "safe" or delicate as you can get. Disprove this "snowflake" garbage once & for all. Ask your son: Who is more of a delicate "snowflake" - the person who gets offended by racism/sexism & actively wants to help end bigotry? Or the person who is offended by people saying happy holidays instead of merry Christmas? Above all, we need to stay engaged & challenge our kids without shaming them. I'm lucky, my kids are smart and have a smart, critical, progressive dad who isn't afraid to call bullshit when he sees it. But I've seen SO MANY white boys falling prey to this system. So beware. Thanks to the commenter who shared this thread by journos doing the real work on this subject. @Max_Fisher you're a hero for this."
Elon Musk's 'SNL' Gig Doesn't Have to Be a Moral Reckoning - The Atlantic - "NBC announced that Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will host the next episode of Saturday Night Live. This decision makes business sense, because Musk has a large fan base. It makes creative sense, too: His eccentricity is good fodder for sketch comedy. But critics began objecting on moral grounds, first on social media, where some adopted the hashtag #boycottSNL, then in the press, where progressive anger on Twitter is often covered as news... You’d have thought that Musk had been tapped to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom, rather than to perform in silly sketches with Pete Davidson... Musk’s comments about pronouns in Twitter profiles are far less insensitive to transgender people than some of SNL’s material... I suppose late-night comedy shows could reserve hosting duties as an honor for the morally irreproachable, and Americans could exile from TV comedy anyone who has spoken less than responsibly about COVID-19. But the society that results is going to be rather humorless, and I see no reason to think it would be more moral... many commentators are encouraging the SNL producer to put a thumb on their side of the culture war as if justice demands it––as if any other choice will traumatize families who have lost loved ones to COVID-19. This is histrionic moral grandstanding. Obeidallah is right that this controversy is not about Musk’s freedom of speech. It’s about the dysfunction that follows when a country lets differences in values color everything... even if SNL went along with the claim that Musk is unfit to host, it would not get its entire audience to endorse such a polarizing judgment. The show would alienate some viewers and erode its own position as a shared cultural institution in a country whose citizens can at least occasionally laugh together."
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "Musk is a master of using government money to reduce his investment risk, and that’s a problem with how the government dispenses money, but the SNL cast is more offended by him because of his opinions more than Cardi B because of her actions."
'SNL' cast won't be forced to appear with host Elon Musk
Liberals only believe that you should do your job or get fired if it's something they agree with
People are so desperate to be conspiracy theorists that they thought Elon Musk was flashing neo-Nazi signs on SNL - "The problem of BlueAnon continued to grow last weekend as wokies lost their ever-loving minds over tech wizard Elon Musk's Saturday Night Live appearance... The woke don't believe that neo-Nazis are a few thousand isolated neckbeards that live out in the boonies across our nation of 350 million people. Instead, they believe the highest echelons of power – including the world's second-richest man who loves memes and rockets – are infested by white supremacists that brazenly flaunt their Hitleresque ways with hand symbols on national TV. At the same time, they can literally wish that their enemies die a fiery death and those same echelons of power – from Big Tech to the media to the White House – won't censor or punish them. They're so far gone in their tinfoil-hat thinking that they even found a way to connect Elon's announcement that he has Aspergers to Nazism. Ok dude *Obama flashing the White Power sign aka OK sign*"
Ultra-Woke ‘Saturday Night Live’ Hits Ultra-Low Rating - "around the time George W. Bush took over the White House (SNL loved Bill Clinton), the show got hyper-political. What followed was eight years of mocking Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, followed by an eight-year lovefest for Barack Obama and another four-year hatefest for Donald Trump... The once must-watch show has almost completely laid off hitting President Joe Biden. But SNL did take aim on Saturday at top U.S. immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci and mocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for its announcement last week that Americans fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus no longer need to wear masks in most settings."
SNL Cast Member Blasts Woke Mob Upset With ‘Racist’ Sketch He Wrote - "Saturday Night Live star Michael Che is hitting back at critics angry for a sketch he wrote that aired on the program May 8. Titled “Gen Z Hospital,” it made fun of twenty-something speech patterns and woke obsessions, especially the slang the generation tends to use... One Twitter user complained of the supposed underlying racism, saying, “Love the relabelling of AAVE and a few assorted BLACK LGBTQ+ phrases as ‘Gen z’ speak. Love to see the erasure in real time.” Another user claimed the skit engages in cultural appropriation, apparently not realizing that Che, who is black, was its author. “The appropriation of AAVE by white people is gross, the mislabeling of AAVE as a ‘Gen Z phenomenon’ is also gross,” the critic, himself white, lectured Che. “But on top of that,” he went on, “the SNL skit reads like they just pulled a list of terms from UrbanDictionary and sprinkled them in, not caring that AAVE has a defined grammar!”... Maybe the next sketch Che writes should feature white Gen Z progressives scolding black comedians for “culturally appropriating” their own ethnicity?"
Presumably by joking about AAVE Che has internalised white supremacy so he is still culturally appropriating though he's black
Alec Baldwin says Rob Schneider 'has a point' in criticism of 'SNL' Trump impersonation - ""Comedy needs surprise. It must keep the audience guessing," Schneider posted on Twitter Saturday. "It should not be afraid to shock or offend. It should attack the powerful and arrogant. But it must come from a place of inspiration where it made the writer laugh."... The comedian then compared Baldwin's performance to comedian Dana Carvey's impression of George H.W. Bush in the late '80s and '90s, saying Baldwin's impression of Trump is different from Carvey's playful impersonation of Bush. "Carvey played it respectfully," Schneider said. "To me, the genius of Dana Carvey was Dana always had empathy for the people he played, and Alec Baldwin has nothing but a fuming, seething anger toward the person he plays."... "Much late night comedy is less about being funny and more about Indoctrination by comedic disposition," Schneider continued on Twitter. "People aren't really laughing at it as much as cheering on the rhetoric. It no longer resembles a comedy show, it's more like some kind of liberal Klan meeting.""
How comedians are surviving PC culture - "Nowadays, there is much greater diversity among those who take up comedy, which is welcome. But at the same time, the range of viewpoints and perspectives seems to have narrowed. Nicholas De Santo is an Italian-Iranian comedian who says he was banned from performing at some of his favourite comedy clubs. ‘It’s white liberals who object to my jokes about Obama’s disastrous foreign policy or Islam as a religion of peace. Punters who have lived in the Middle East or Eastern Europe share my concerns and get the jokes.’ De Santo is one of the circuit’s few (openly) right-wing comics. He didn’t set out to be one, but saw that this angle was underrepresented. ‘It’s the promoters who are most censorious. They fear complaints. But they sometimes underestimate audiences, who often want refreshing viewpoints.’So do comedians have to be left-wing to be successful? For Konstantin Kisin, a centrist, comedians coming from different perspectives are rarely rewarded. ‘The people who control comedy, especially TV and radio, want new faces. But they have a particular mindset which ensures conformity. Half of the country has switched off and they don’t care.’ Leo Kearse, whose most recent Edinburgh Fringe show was called ‘Right-Wing Comedian’, agrees. ‘At the Fringe, the BBC pick up on shows that tick all their diversity-quota boxes, but they ignore hugely popular shows which don’t share their mindset.’ He says audiences actually respond well when he makes fun of #MeToo or says Donald Trump is okay. But this isn’t just a matter of left v right. Joe Wells is left-wing but thinks it is important to challenge an audience, not pander to their views. ‘Good comedy makes you think. Sometimes it’s good that everyone in the room feels uncomfortable and is challenged. I did a show on generational differences in politics, which alienates all the older people at first. Then it progresses to make the younger people feel guilty. It’s great when it works.’ De Santo also thinks that the best comedians are the edgy ones. ‘They have to be 10 times better than your average comic. They also have to know their political facts. The audience, promoters and reviewers are looking for weak spots.’ And for Jay Handley, herein lies the irony of PC culture: the creation of new rules around language is ‘arming comedians like me with more things to subvert’."
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Mel Brooks on comedy and political correctness - "Political correctness is the death of comedy. The extremely funny Hollywood filmmaker, Mel Brooks has told this program. He said his western parody Blazing Saddles, famously featuring a black sheriff in a racist town could never be made today...
'When you look at the films you've made, Blazing Saddles, The Producers, Young Frankeinstein, do you think you could get them made today?'
'No, no, I mean maybe Young Frankenstein, maybe a few, but never Blazing Saddles, because we have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy. It's okay not to hurt feelings of various tribes and groups, and however it's not good for comedy. Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering into the King's ear. Always telling the truth. Always telling the truth about human behavior.'...'You've been called the Patron Saint of going too far'
'I like that... I think it all started with my wanting to entertain people. I knew I was funny, very early on. People would peer down into my crib and laugh, and I said, this is good. Funny is money. Somehow I put it together, right?'
'Is there anything that you wouldn't parody or send up?'
'Yes, there is. I personally would never touch gas chambers or the death of children or Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Everything else is okay. Naked people, fine. I like naked people. They're usually the most polite'"
'Stupidly politically correct society is the death of comedy', warns veteran comedian Mel Brooks - "Brooks said it was the racial prejudice portrayed within the film that was the mechanism behind its cultural significance. "Without that the movie would not have had nearly the significance, the force, the dynamism and the stakes that were contained in it”"
Mel Brooks looks back without regret in book 'All About Me!' - "Over the course of his career, Brooks has told countless edgy jokes, but he doesn't regret any of them... When I did The Producers, I got a thousand letters, mostly from rabbis and Jewish organizations, [saying] "How dare you! It's the Holocaust!" And they were right and they were wrong, and I would say, "You're not wrong. You're absolutely right to take offense at it. But let me tell you this, if we're going to get even with Hitler, we can't get on a soapbox because he's too damn good at that. We got to ridicule them. We've got to laugh at him. Then we can get even." And sometimes I'd get a letter back saying, "Maybe you're right.""
Misogynist comedians can stay out of Roslindale - "The owner of a comedy spot in Roslindale shut down a series of stand-up sets last night after, she says, she'd had enough of a string of racist, sexist jokes.Courtney Pong, who owns the Rozzie Square Theater on Basile Street, where she runs improv and lets another group put on stand-up shows, said this morning that the comedian emceeing the 10 p.m. event got off to a bad start by trying to crack a joke about his "segregated" audience - there were two black men in the small crowd of about 17 people, all men... she hit a button that rang a loud bell, walked to the front and announced the night was over and that she would give refunds to the four paying customers - the other 13 people in the room were friends of the performers."
They're going broke in...
Comedian Pete Davidson Ends College Shows Because 'You Can't Say Anything' - "Davidson reported that the risk of losing your career isn’t worth the risk, and that is what you stand to lose if you tell the wrong joke at a college. Davidson admits that the backlash alone is not worth the effort."
When even liberal comedians don't dare to do comedy at colleges anymore...
The New War on Comedy - "Comedy has had a well-understood purpose: to entertain, to push boundaries and to keep us honest. Historically, the court jester was the one person allowed to publicly mock the all-powerful king perched upon the golden throne. It is for this reason that when a storyteller wants to illustrate a ruler’s descent into madness, we see him begin to turn his ire towards the lowly jester... news broke of a leaked audio recording of Louis CK joking about gender pronouns and Parkland shooting survivors. As is now standard with these cases, it was claimed he was “attacking” the subjects of his jokes while his actual words were usually left unreported and no link included to the leaked audio. As usual, we were forced to rely on the opinions of woke “journalists”—often expressed on Twitter—rather than looking at what the comedian actually said or how the audience responded. Of course, on closer examination Louis CK’s jokes were not particularly offensive and, what’s more, they were funny. Rather than attacking Parkland survivors, he joked that “being at a school where people got shot doesn’t make you interesting”—an observation about the huge media platform some of the survivors have been given, which was clearly recognized as accurate by his audience who promptly roared with laughter. He also poked fun at millennials being worried about offense and safety, contrasting their attitude with his generation’s youthful drug-taking and wild exploits. Millennials duly took offense and claimed he was making them feel unsafe. On the same day, Netflix pulled an episode of “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj” for the following joke about the killing of Saudi Arabian writer Jamal Khashoggi: “They went through so many explanations, the only one they didn’t say was that Khashoggi died in a free solo rock climbing accident.” It is easy to see how this joke would be “problematic,” given the need to protect the rights of marginalized groups like the Saudi Royal Family to enjoy Netflix comedies in a safe space. Of course, a private corporation caving in to pressure from a national government is not the same as woke students censoring comedians, but these events are not unconnected. Once you make it acceptable to tell the jester what is off limits in one context, you enable those who would seek to silence him elsewhere. The underlying assumptions of social justice censorship are that words are a form of violence, that a subjective interpretation matters more than the speaker’s intent and that safety is contingent on not being teased or challenged. The mainstreaming of these ideas is an existential threat to comedy (and freedom of speech in general). Comedians use lies to tell the truth—the notion that the exaggerations, stories and carefully crafted falsehoods we deliver on stage should be taken literally will be the death knell of comedy. The idea that your safety depends on me never challenging you is the end of any sort of useful communication... to many on the Social Justice Left, the notion of free speech itself has become a “far right dogwhistle.”... We’ve interviewed people about the evolutionary origins of racism, the biological differences between men and women, the gender pay gap, populism, capitalism, socialism, communism and much else besides, but nothing has made us pariahs quite like defending free speech.Even though my co-host is an old school leftie and I’m a centrist with a strong libertarian bent, we’ve been banned from comedy clubs and lost friendships in the industry over our “right-wing podcast.”... Despite overwhelming public opposition to political correctness, the arts remain a bastion of wokeness. While ordinary people see through the Social Justice Left’s virtue signaling, Twitter blue ticks and their sidekicks in the mainstream media continue to churn out clickbait about faux outrages. We are now in the bizarre position where what is and isn’t allowed in comedy is determined by sanctimonious writers who’ve never been in a comedy club. This situation is not sustainable. I’m a passionate defender of free speech and not just because I’m a comedian. It is a cornerstone of the West and the reason my ancestors came here after escaping the Soviet Union. It is what makes all of us who we are and we cannot give it up."
Monty Python's Terry Gilliam Wishes Comedy Hadn't Changed - "I’m tired of being, as a white male, blamed for everything that’s wrong in the world. So now I want you to call me Loretta. I’m a black lesbian in transition. That all comes from “Life of Brian,” [the 1979 Python film spoofing religious epics] when Eric [Idle’s character], whose name is Stan, says “I want you to call me Loretta. I want to be a woman.” People now might take offence at that. And when offence becomes so easy, it takes the fun out of offending!"
“Punching Down” in Comedy - Devin Greene - "you can only say a joke “punches down” if you place the subject of that joke below the person telling it. You’re essentially trying to protect someone from offense by arguing they aren’t worthy of it, if they were more privileged and successful, sure, but not now, not in this lowly condition (poor, disabled, black, a woman). If we are all truly equal, and deserve equal treatment, then just saying the term “punching down” is more belittling and offensive then telling a person with one arm to hold their applause, or complaining about how gay men are still men. I make fun of minorities, handicapped people, and LGBTQ, because that’s what I do to people I love. I think it’s hard for a non-comedian to understand that most of us aren’t motivated by the instinct to dominate, or to speak truth to power, that’s for bloggers and reality tv stars and politicians, most comedians just want to laugh at grim reality with you, in some form or another. We want to share experiences, not condemn them or ban them"
How comedy makes us better people - "he posits a theory: essentially, that humour is a form of psychological processing, a coping mechanism that helps people to deal with complex and contradictory messages, a “response to conflict and confusion in our brain”.This, in part, he says, is why we laugh in response to dark, confusing or tragic events that, on the face of it, shouldn’t be funny at all. Why, for example, would jokes circulate after 9/11 if we weren’t collectively grasping for ways to parse how unsettling and disruptive it was? Humour that is in bad taste or cruelly targeted at particular groups may generate conflict, but, for Weems, humour is our way of working through difficult subjects or feelings... “One phrase I heard recently was, ‘If they’re laughing they’re listening’, and I think that’s a powerful quote.“Nobody ever listened to me when I was in the police. I had no influence. I’d never met senior officers and I’d never met my chief constable. Now I’ve been out of the police, lots of people listen to me. The Radio 4 show got 1.4 million listeners per episode. I had chief constables emailing me.”... research presented in 2014 suggested that, despite their work, comedians had less activity in brain regions associated with the pleasure and enjoyment of humour compared to everyone else."
The completely serious decline of the Hollywood comedy - "the emerging world enthusiasm for Hollywood films does not extend to comedies, or at least not relative to its love of action movies and animated films. In China, for example, US comedies account for only 10% of box office spending, compared to 25% in the US, Nomura says. By contrast, Hollywood action films are 44% of the box office in China (the latest Transformers release has broken just about every box office record in the country) as against 36% in the US. Comedy is the least profitable genre for the studios."
10 famous comedians on how political correctness is killing comedy: "We are addicted to the rush of being offended" - "Jerry Seinfeld — a famously “clean” comic known for staying away from controversial issues — issued some strong words on the topic of political correctness. After stating that political correctness is hurting comedy and railing on college kids for being too sensitive on an ESPN podcast, he later went on Seth Meyers to say that “there’s a creepy PC thing out there that really bothers me," because some of his old routines riffing on gay men no longer play well with audiences. Conservatives and comedians don’t tend to agree on a lot, but a shared rallying cry for both has been the area of political correctness. Lately, more and more comedians have been speaking out against political correctness, arguing that audiences’ increased sensitivities and tendencies to take offense stifles comedic freedom. These issues came to a head with the recent Trevor Noah flap, in which people dug up a number of old sexist and racist tweets belonging to the soon-to-be "Daily Show" host. While Noah was roundly criticized in the media, a number of comics came to his defense, arguing that the problem wasn't Noah's bad jokes, but an overly sensitive public...
1. Chris Rock
2. John Cleese
3. Russell Peters
4. Scott Capurro
5. Daniel Lawrence Whitney (Larry the Cable Guy)
6. Patton Oswalt
7. Jim Norton
8. Gilbert Gottfried
9. Lisa Lampanelli
The edgy comic wrote a piece in the Hollywood Reporter titled “How Political Correctness is Killing Comedy,” writing “Here’s the problem: Comedy, probably more than any other art form, is subjective. What jokes crack up your mom, your little brother, and your gay best friend will be completely different -- unless it’s a video of a guy getting hit in the gonads with a piñata stick. That’s funny to everyone….If you like safe, generic comedy, that’s fine. Go on a cruise ship and crack up listening to the comedian point out the hilarious differences between loafers and shoes with laces. But don’t go to one of my shows and be outraged by what you hear. Going to my show and expecting me not to cross the line of good taste and social propriety is like going to a Rolling Stones concert and expecting not to hear 'Satisfaction.'”
10. Dennis Miller"
From 2015. Too bad Noah also jumped on the SJW bandwagon
