That’s deliberately unfunny, rather than accidentally unfunny, as Jon Gabriel documents at Ricochet.
Hannah Gadsby’s recent stand-up comedy special. Titled “Nanette,” and released last month on Netflix, it’s being heralded across the media for … not being funny.
The New York Times acclaims the set as “comedy arguing against comedy.”
According to The Atlantic, “The most radical thing Hannah Gadsby does in ‘Nanette’ is simple: She stops being funny.”
Cosmopolitan raves, “I cried just thinking about Hannah Gadsby’s new stand-up set ‘Nanette.‘”
This is truly special comedy…
She complains about her industry. She harangues cis white males. She blasts her fans for wanting even more “lesbian-based content.” And, despite having a hit Netflix special, she complains about her marginalization.
Much of her past work focused on self-deprecating jokes, but that’s now a no-no. “Do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from someone who already exists in the margins?” she says. “It’s not humility. It’s humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak, and I simply will not do that anymore.”
Gadsby’s stories certainly are harrowing. She’s suffered physical abuse, sexual abuse, and all sorts of bigoted behavior over the course of her life. Much of “Nanette’s” last half-hour covers the gory details of each
Netflix has been notorious for its unfunny comedy specials. And it keeps spending billions on programming no one wants to watch. Its recent stock market tumble after failing to meet growth targets is an obvious outcome. But Netflix is also a victim of the Drang Nach Leften mentality of the entertainment industry where you keep going further to the left to gain cultural cred from the media.
And then you end up with deliberately unfunny comedy.
Comedy on the left has long since become rote virtue signaling. A recitation of your own victimhood and the evils of the Republican white cis hetero male patriarchal overlords. Audiences applaud unhinged attacks on Trump without regard to whether they’re funny or not. Because they agree with the message. And Jimmy Kimmel has been doing his viral weepy thing for a bit.
Humor has become a tribal exercise in contempt for outsiders and empathy for the tribe. The former was always there to some degree. But American comedy was fantastic at getting people to laugh at themselves. Now that’s gone. The left can only laugh at people when it “punches up” by othering them based on its identity politics roster.
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