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‘Creating Oneness’ through Progressive Comedy
Netroots Nation is an annual conference for online progressive activists. Over the past few days, the group held their ninth annual event in Detroit — America’s finest example of unchecked liberal policy.
Unbeknownst to the organizers, I attended the conference to see what the other side thinks about economics, education and the midterms. If their presentation on comedy is any guide, conservatives don’t have much to fear.
“The Left is supposed to be funnier than the Right, damn it,” the panel description stated. “So why do we so often sound in public like we’re stiltedly reading from a non-profit grant proposal?”
This defensive tone was apparent throughout the hour-plus session, brought up repeatedly by speakers and audience members. Much like a co-worker who doesn’t get anyone’s jokes but insists, “I have a great sense of humor!”
After futzing with computers for 10 minutes, the panel’s four comedians showed highlight reels, with one apologizing for the lack of audience laughs. (Her show was made for the web, you see, so it doesn’t have cues for laughter like television does.)
The crowd was most pleased with Russia Today’s Lee Camp, whose video mocked America’s regressive attitude on gays and oil drilling without noting he gets his paychecks from Vladimir Putin.
“Comedy creates oneness and that is what our side wants,” according to Julianna Forlano, host of a news parody without laughter cues called “Absurdity Today.” She noted how her stand-up performance even created “oneness” at a Pennsylvania Elks Lodge, despite the crowd being filled with racist men (she could tell they were racist from the animal heads displayed on the walls).
Katie Halper agreed with her fellow white comic that racism is endemic in their industry. “When the right says we have no sense of humor, it’s a great way for racist/sexist/homophobic men to make themselves seem funny.” Halper is a founding principal of Qualified Laughter, a production company “dedicated to comedic social justice media.”
Halper expressed concern that far too many comedians cross the line with offensive jokes. She listed several types of jokes that no one should tell; anything involving a “disenfranchised population” is off-limits.
Elon James White, creator of the web series “This Week in Blackness,” grudgingly admitted the obvious: “There is a segment of the left that is humorless.” He then lambasted African-American SNL writer Leslie Jones for telling jokes that invoked slavery.
Forlano agreed it is important not to tell jokes that reference ugly historical crimes, sexism or racism. “Sure, it might get a laugh — if that’s what you want.”
To ensure a joke isn’t unintentionally offensive, Forlano even recommended running it by a professional comedian first. Everyone on the panel agreed. “There is a difference between a comedian who covers politics,” she said, “and a comedian who is an activist.” Forlano prefers the latter.
The audience had several questions about what they were allowed to joke about and even how comedy works. A white septuagenarian proudly stated that she no longer tells jokes to black people because that might expose them to unwitting racism. Camp and White sadly noted that her preface of “I’m not a racist, but…” confirms that she is, in fact, a racist.
Another audience member asked how progressives can shut down funny, effective lines coming from the right on talk radio, blogs and Twitter. “The right has short, pithy things to say because they lie,” Halper replied.
She explained that clever jokes by conservatives aren’t actually funny because such people lack empathy and nuance. “Progressives are more nuanced, statistically speaking,” Halper said. The science is settled.
According to one audience member, “what makes Jon Stewart brilliant is that he only has to say the first line and the audience starts laughing because they already know the punchline.” There was general agreement that more young people should get their news from Stewart, Stephen Colbert and YouTube clips from the panelists.
As the session ended, audience members quickly walked toward the door. “Well, that was very funny,” a stone-faced woman said to a friend.
Published in General
Lee,
No subjects should be off limits. But some are too disgusting to bother with – there’s bawdy, there’s dirty, and there’s degenerate. And some need to be approached carefully. Jokes about the mentally ill, the handicapped, and the learning disabled.
Ann Coulter has a way of being careless with the word “retard” for instance. And there are too many genuinely mentally ill people to throw the word “crazy” around indiscriminately.
But I suspect that you don’t have to be Liberal or Conservative to tell jokes in poor taste. You just have to not have a strong enough internal editor. Strong enough, but not too strong.
Comedy is mostly about non-conformity, saying things outloud that most people wouldn’t dare to say on their own but would love to, and poking fun at those in authority and those who conform. These very sad, desperate dopes are trying make comedy and comedians conform to a rigid set of political correctness and they are too stupid to realize that that’s just not funny.
If Eric Holder had a sense of humor he wouldn’t have sent investigators to explore whether one American who created a float in a parade showing the future Obama Presidential Library as an outhouse was a racist, committing a hate crime. Barack Obama is not one for self-deprecating humor. Narcissists rarely are. Stalin wasn’t known for his sense of humor.
I stopped watching Stewart and Colbert about two years ago because I no longer found them very funny. Now Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Albert Gore, Jr., Hillary Clinton, William Jefferson Clinton, Barbara Streisand, Joe Biden, Eric Holder, Barack Obama – those clowns are funny.
This all sounds so absurd. I bet you read @exjon’s piece; you cannot believe that these things were said with earnestness and sincerity; and you are quick to dismiss them. But don’t be so hasty. Instead, be suitably concerned.
I remember being a student at an Ivy League law school in the early nineties and hearing my classmates express views in class I thought then were similarly absurd and could not possibly gain traction. They seemed as ludicrous to me then as the views expressed at Netroots do now. I chose the private sector, and many of those classmates chose “public service.” Now the views I thought so ridiculous when in law school are now the official policies of the United States government…
What do you call a rich white person who lives in an all-white neighborhood, sends his or her child to an all-white private school, believes that black people are incapable of getting an ID card or passing the SAT exam, and thinks there is such a thing as a free lunch?
A progressive.
I was passing by the local barber shop on the way to the subway this morning when one of the locals, a bald man, was sitting in front of it, enjoying the shade.
I remarked that it was a bit hopeful of him to be sitting in front of a barber shop.
That’s as cruel as I get. When I’m not really ticked off that is. And I try not to write when I am ticked off. It erodes at my dignity.
I think the photo on this post is probably the least attractive picture of ms. Fluke I’ve ever seen.
I laughed out loud at that one. In fact, I don’t know if this was his intent, but I found Jon’s post much funnier than most left wing “humor.”
A good point.
We may laugh at the absurdity of this, because it is in fact absurd, however these individuals are absolutely in earnest and no doubt many of them are in positions of authority. These attendees will eventually leave this conference, returning to their workplaces and universities where they will craft the speech codes that enforce their doctrine.
Not funny.
Yes. It’s like the comedian’s club where every joke has been numbered. All one of the members has to do is say a number, and everybody laughs.
These people are actually quite funny.
They just don’t understand why.
That’s not funny. >:(
Did you ever notice how when B.H. Obama tells a “joke,” such as, “…and you know I really like pie,” the audience laughs as if he were Greg Geraldo roasting Larry the Cable Guy.
I read there was prolonged clapping after Stalin’s speeches because no one there wanted to be noted as the first to stop clapping. For a long time, the audience’s laughter over Obama’s jokes was a much milder form of the same thing.
It has a name, apparently- “clapter“, Described by Mike Sacks in his recent book “Poking a Dead Frog”, with the following anecdote:
If you don’t want a laugh, maybe comedy is not the right business for you.
And that is the funniest reply in these comments.
I’ve said this before, I think on another Jon Gabriel posting: Liberals have trouble with comedy because so much of their humor is really an Appeal to Ridicule. That’s what Stewart, Colbert, and now Oliver do on a regular basis. They seek to win the argument by making fun of the other position.
To reiterate what I had posited before: When you depend on the Appeal to Ridicule to win arguments, you destroy your sense of humor. You cease to be able to laugh at yourself, because if you do something that can bring laughter, that can be taken for ridicule and that means by your own standard you are discredited. Many Progressives can’t allow that, so they can’t laugh at themselves.
They take themselves way too seriously and then wonder why they can’t laugh.
That’s not cruel at all, plus, how could you have passed up the opportunity?
It really isn’t! Even if the lightbulb were big enough, it doesn’t seem like it would be comfortable… and you’d have to be way too careful to make sure it wouldn’t break.
She would be glad to use a less-saggy bra if we would buy one for her.
Please tell me this is parody.
There are times when you like to think your opponents are worthy of the fight.
Plus, light bulbs are getting hard to find.
“[A]nything involving a ‘disenfranchised population’ is off-limits.”
What?! We can’t tell jokes about felons?
(But I suspect the word “disenfranchised” is being misused here, as it frequently is. Progressives: That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.)
“'[W]hat makes Jon Stewart brilliant is that he only has to say the first line and the audience starts laughing because they already know the punchline.’”
I guess “brilliant” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. Apparently, it means “predictable”:
The action movie was brilliant, with lots of explosions, bad CGI effects, and a by-the-numbers script.
John came home to find that, brilliantly, his teenaged daughter was lying on the couch, texting her friends.
There is a great episode of “Louis” with Louis C.K. (probably from 2010) in which Nick DiPaolo does a stand-up routine, and begins to criticize the newly-elected Obama. The audience meets his witty lines with dead silence, though we know they would have laughed their heads off if the jokes had been about George Bush. Later, having a drink with Louis, Nick complains that people are in love with Obama and that’s why they don’t have a sense of humor about him. Louis, a die-hard liberal, calls Nick a Nazi, and they have a physical altercation.
The episode points out realistically how humorless the left is when the object of their affection is the target of the joke. “Food on your family” is hilarious, but “corpse man” is an honest mistake. It took years for any comedian to poke fun at Obama. Jon Stewart actually said that Obama just doesn’t provide any humorous material. Now, that’s funny.
I didn’t think you can fit any feminists in a lightbulb. Answer: Zero.
It is nuanced “oneness” and you all are not included in the nuanced-ness of one because you all are a bunch of racist, sexist, homophobic, gun toting, God clinging, haters and statically speaking liberals are just funnier . . . because they think they are.