By Uncle Mike
(Image Rock Cow Getty Images)
The biggest issue I have with the Cult of the Woke (CoW) is they have destroyed comedy. The ideology of ‘wokism’ is no longer based on the positive vibe of discovery. To “awaken” ones-self to understanding. Now to be ‘woke’ is to inhibit or eliminate free speech because you don’t want to hear it. It was all so simple a mere five years ago. Even before COVID you could find someplace on the internet to poke fun at someone.
Sometime during the Trump administration, the sheer anger created when Hillary Clinton wasn’t selected to be President, the left revealed their absolute rage at anything or anyone not of the left. These petulant children coalesced over hatred of Trump, Trump Policies and Trump voters to a point of irrational obsession. With this irrational rage, the left has totally lost any ability to understand humor.
Last week, the Babylon Bee, a satirical site that offer some damn funny stuff, was “fact checked”. Seriously. Bring on the lawsuit!
As a Boomer I am fortunate (yes, blessed) to have peaked at a time when the USA peaked economically, militarily, politically and yes, comically. The 70’s offered the world unbridled humor. Pioneers of comedy like Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, George Carlin, Rodney Dangerfield, Red Foxx and hundreds of others pushed the envelope of humor. These comedians led to 80’s humor that created the glory years of Saturday Night Live and the films of Mel Brooks and Leslie Neilson. Comedies of the 80’s set a high bar with inclusivity for women and people of color. We don’t have the Wayans’ Brothers or Dave Chappelle without the comedy redlines getting stepped over from the comedians that came up during the late 20th century. If you have 5 minutes, check out this YouTube clip of George Carlin who absolutely nails the CoW in 2021. (Link: George Carlin – It’s A BIG Club & You Ain’t In It! – YouTube). Does his understanding of authority not describe perfectly today’s CoW? Show me one comedian today willing to tell a joke about Fauci, much less Scranton Joe. That “club” Carlin is talking about is winning the comedy conflict.
Fast forward to today. Even Jerry Seinfeld has given up doing stand-up at colleges (Jerry Seinfeld: College students don’t know what the hell they’re talking about | EW.com) and he is not alone. Dave Chappelle described the degree to which the far left has changed comedy with commentary on SNL having Elon Musk host the show. (‘No one can be woke enough’: Dave Chappelle warns comedians against far-left ideology – YouTube). It started with political correctness where jokes became restricted to acceptable content and has transformed comedy into a minefield where a comedian saying the wrong word ends up getting shut down and potentially losing his or her ability to do the job that they love.
As a dedicated SNL fan, I will admit I still watch the show. I want to love it. They make it hard. Espeically with the nonsensical drivel during the Weekend Update segment where Colin Jost and Michael Che still bash Trump and even worse, Trump voters, so they can pander to a New York City/LA elitists audience. They have a bit where they use each to read racist jokes that they would not be able to say in any other setting. That is as close as you will get today to seeing comedians try to push the envelope. The cast still has some talent, but the audience still has cue cards telling them when to clap or laugh. If you need to be told something is funny, chances are, it isn’t.
I’m a big fan of Kenon Thompson and Cicely Strong. However, if you continue to use the same target for your punchline and it denigrates (def: to criticize unfairly) a large portion of your potential audience, can you blame them for not watching?
The problem with that is they have created a comedy vacuum where no one dares to step in. SNL has lost 50%(?) (a total guesstimate as that is the population in the USA that SNL no longer wants to make laugh) of their audience. The young, hip, wokies use half the USA as a target to try and establish a repour that is nearly non-existent. At one-point last year, SNL paid their audience. The premise was COVID and the audience needed to be paid employee’s to attend. I’m willing to give Lorne Michael’s a benefit of a doubt due to the circumstance, but you would think the producer might consider taking the show down a wider path than the non-stop leftist tripe of today.
For the premier comedy show in America, Biden is off limits and any negative impression of VP Harris cannot become a meme. Jim Carrey’s impression of Biden depicted an in control, on top of the situation, capable leader to counter the Trump buffoon. The current President is anything but in control. As for Maya Rudolph’s impression of Kamala Harris, I would beg to have Maya be the VP. Her impression VP Harris is a fairy tale. This attempt to use comic narratives to project competence in the current government is not being received well. Comedy is based on truth and these impressions are 180 degrees out from reality. In the corners of the internet that Lorne Michael’s doesn’t watch the audience is getting the comedy they want. The internet affords the rest of America to laugh at what it wants, not what they are told to laugh at.
SITCOMs produced by the big three (ABC, CBS, NBC) all have oriented their casts toward inclusivity and BIPOC themed productions. Thanks to streaming, audiences have the option to watch other shows. Please don’t get me wrong. This commentary is not to denigrate inclusivity, it is about comedy. The constant barrage of the woke narrative is unnecessary. The undertone of the woke strategery is the racially charged message that you the viewer must obey the narrative that white America is the enemy. The joke ceases to be funny when the intent is to hurt. White heterosexual males are lambasted, no longer as a punchline. But as someone that children should be taught to hate. Comedians know this is untrue, but unless they ‘spoke the woke’, they will not be tolerated by the entertainment elitists of the coast. We, the audience must force the entertainment industry to broaden the spectrum of comedy beyond the limits they are trying to push.
You know what makes you laugh. You know that humor still exists. Humor is just hard for US to find right now when our options are limited by humorless people that find fault with everything and inject political objectives into every aspect of life. Do not let them take away your sense of humor. The world is too tough a place to exist without having the ability to laugh at it.
Don’t let the CoW take your sense of humor. There is too much about them to laugh at.
Uncle Mike
