I’ve been trying to write something about political correctness, cancel culture and comedy all year. It feels like I’ve written, edited, scrapped and re-written this post about a hundred times.
There’s a lot I’d like to say on this topic. I’d like to write a proper response to Simon Cheers’ online post about how Woke became a dirty word (just as Social Justice and Do Gooder have – because our language is descriptive instead of prescriptive, anyone can start using a word in another way and it’s semantic content changes).
I’d like to talk about how the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis isn’t really taken seriously in linguistic theory anymore, so all the emphasis on pronouns actually changes nothing. I’d like to talk about how bloody priveleged and entitled you’d have to be in order to start telling the world how to address you and what language everybody has to use when talking about you.
I’d like to talk about how comedy works, how jokes are fiction and the subject of a joke isn’t the target of a joke. I wanted to explain that it would be utterly stupid to accuse Margaret Atwood of misogyny because bad things happen to women in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, but everyone seems to think it’s legit to make exactly the same mistake with comedians.
I wanted to point out something obvious, which is that comedians aren’t bad people. I know a lot of them and I can’t name a single one who’s racist, sexist or homophobic. I’m sure there are some I haven’t met but they’d be a tiny minority, even though public whining about comedians would suggest we’re all vile bigots. In my experience artists are empathetic sensitive people who’s hearts are in the right place – and comedians are the most sensitive, vulnerable and honest of all the creative people I know.
I’d like to go personal and talk about the shithead who sent me nasty messages calling me a misogynist for disgusting things that I never said at all. He went to mutual friends with a hero story in which he put me in my place for speech-crimes I never committed. He said he was “quoting verbatim” when he accused me of saying a things I don’t think and would never say. He tried to “cancel” me on a local level to win “woke points”. None of the other 100+ people in the room witnessed these horrible things being said (because I fucking didn’t say them), so all he achieved was pissing me off and losing any respect I had for him.
I’d also probably mention (just because it’s amusing to me) that he attempted stand up comedy himself twice. He told a depressing story with no jokes and burst into tears on stage, bumming everyone out. Before that he brought giant poster-size photos of his mail-order girlfriend from the Phillipines so we could all see how young and hot she is. Based on this I’d say he’s not qualified to lecture anyone about comedy or feminism. But he’d really like to fuck a feminist so he tried to win their favour at my expense.
Do I think this former friend-of-a-friend is human trash? Why, yes I do. He’s a vile fucking idiot, but that’s not my point. My point is that there’s plenty of shitty nasty hypocritical and stupid people out there, and there’s as many of them on the woke/left/progressive side as the other: Extolling virtue doesn’t make you virtuous.
While I was editing my 50th version of this post Dave Chappelle’s special “The Closer” came out and I’ve found myself constantly re-writing while the ensuing shitstorm has dominated the news media for the last couple of weeks. It’s been exhausting wanting to say something on this topic because it’s the most salient aspect of what comedians do, but the increasing stupidity of ‘the conversation’ about it is frustrating.
Today a Facebook friend’s thread had inspired a lengthy contribution of my own, and I thought I’d just reproduce that here instead. I’ve tidied it up and removed anything specific to the context of the post. Anyway, here goes:
I’m a stand-up comedian and I’ve spent most of the year writing, re-writing and editing a post for my blog (seancoopercomedian.com if anyone cares) about exactly this.
I’m a leftie. I was raised a feminist and consider myself one. I hate bigotry and homophobia, climate change denial and the sociopathy that underwrites late-stage capitalism.
For years I’ve viewed the “We’re being censored! Freeze Peach is more important than it’s conequences!” cries, mostly from conservative shitty bigoted edgelord wannabes in the comedy community, as pretty pathetic.
I’ve always said that a good comic should be able to make people laugh without resorting to tired tropes, redundant nasty stereoptypes, false premises or the appearance (valid or not) of being in support of rape. And a good audience shouldn’t need to hear those things to laugh.
That said, I’m getting pretty tired of people from my team behaving abominably in the name of their pet cause. And only their pet cause. One blind spot that people on my team tend to have is the view that their cow is a sacred cow and that it’s the only sacred cow – screw everyone else’s cows, which they’ll happily shit all over. “My beliefs about gender are precious and should be the only opinion ever uttered by anyone.. but that guy’s beliefs about religion or the economy? Fuck that guy and what he thinks. I’ll start respecting him when he starts singing my tune!”
I’m pretty sick of mob mentality. I’m pretty sick of the idea that it’s now OK to form a lynch mob and attack someone just because we believe we’re morally superior to the people we’re doing it to. It’s still bullying even if you’re doing in the name of your cause.
I’m sick of the entitlement level that gives people unrealistic expectations. As a comic I regularly see people go to an open mic to see ten different people speak and still expect to not hear a single idea they disagree with during the night. What kind of privelege do you have to come from in order to think that’s a fair or realistic expectation to hold?
I’m also sick of people targeting comedians and pretending it’s an act of nobility. If you think Dave Chappelle is the one to attack in the name of trans people you’re giving a free pass to the politicians who legislate against you, the churches who condemn you (and lobby politicians to legislate against you), the families who shun you, the actual homophobes who actually do attack you for real, as well as all of the other people in the community who say things you find disagreeable.
Yes; you might be able to draw some tenuous line of causation between a comedian saying something and somebody else doing something bad much further down the track. You’re drawing with a very long bow, and you’re excusing a lot of actual transgressors along the way, but you could technically do that.
It’s not very honest though. If you were honest you’d probably have to admit that out of all the people who are unsympathetic to your agenda, the comedian is doing the least harm. You’re just picking on them because they’re the easiest and most convenient target.
Because you’re the bully. Especially if you’re calling for all your mates and anyone else to gang up on them and hassle them online. Did I mention that’s bullying behaviour?
I wonder whether any of the people who claim they’re acting in the name of empathy have actually wondered what it’s like to do stand up comedy? We all say “that’s brave” etc etc but we all assume it’s the public speaking component, which is not the brave bit.
The brave bit is revealing parts of yourself, your vulnerabilities and foibles and failings, and ideas – even in jest – that other people might not like. We expect comics to present unusual ideas and challenge the views we hold, to articulate absurdity and to say things we didn’t think up ourselves, and to do it in a way that invokes spontaneous laughter in a significant percentage of the audience.
And now there’s the added difficulty that we have to do this, present new and controversial ideas, without saying anything that you or anyone else disagrees with. And that includes anybody in the future, so we better be consistent with what values some people might potentially hold in the year 2040. You want us to challenge you without actually challenging you!
It’s a job that doesn’t pay anything at all to 99.999% of us. And apparently it’s OK if someone doesn’t enjoy our work to boo us to our faces, send nasty emails and private messages, talk shit about us online, and gang up on us. For the crime of saying something that you or anyone amongst the thousands who will hear (or hear about it) doesn’t personally like.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t enjoy Chappelle’s special. I didn’t think it was funny. I don’t agree with his opinions. I thought it was pretty indulgent to spend the whole hour of a comedy special having the last word in an argument. I thought when he was actually “explaining” he was really doubling-down. He’s the first guy who’d see through a “It’s OK because I have a black friend” argument, so it was lame to try the same thing with a story about a trans friend. Mostly, though, not very funny.
But I also don’t think he said anything that hurt anyone. He didn’t do hatespeech. He didn’t say anything really horrible (except that bit about beating up a woman in a nightclub – WTF was that about????).
And I don’t think that feeling offended by someone else’s statement is the absolute worst thing that can happen to someone. Arguably, it’s the bad tasting medicine that some people (entitled virtue signalling people speaking from privelege, mostly) really need
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Sean Cooper, Comedian 