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Left-wing comedy, especially late-night shows, took another hit recently when Paramount’s CBS canceled the Late Show and its host Stephen Colbert, whose pathetic ratings were nowhere near worth the millions of dollars the show has been burning through for years. The Dems’ press-agent media, of course, have been parroting Colbert’s claim that Paramount is carrying water for President Trump, the prime target of Colbert’s juvenile, humorless insults.
In reality, the show had a staff of 200, cost $100 million annually to produce, and lost $40 million a year. You don’t have to be Adam Smith to figure out why the show was cancelled. Once again, terminal Trump Derangement Syndrome has added another lefty Democrat comic to its growing casualty list.
More important, however, is why lefty comics and leftists in general are so unfunny? The answer is suggested by my title. Readers of a certain age, i.e. old, may remember where it comes from. Back in the Sixties and Seventies, there was a popular gag called “lightbulb jokes,” based on the question, “How many [fill in ethnic group, sex, profession etc.] does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” The punchline was something humorous, insulting, and satiric.
The feminist version started circulating about the same time, just when equity feminism had shifted from a movement for equal opportunity and rights, to its current Nurse Ratched version––a humorless, bossy, whiny, arrogant, leftwing, alpha-male-hating iteration of identity politics based on perpetual grievance and victimhood marinated in aggressive ressentiment. The joke goes like this: “How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” The feminists’ punchline was always “That’s not funny!”
This tagline captures well the left’s humor deficit, which worsened with smug, self-righteous identity politics that flourished with “wokeism” and reflects the nature of Marxism––which is not just a political ideology, but a totalizing, deadly serious, messianic world view and way of life.
And, as the NYC candidate for mayor reminds us, Marxism today––no matter how disguised by euphemisms like “democratic socialism,” ––is still focused on Marx’s mission to overthrow capitalism and the whole liberal-democratic, Judeo-Christian civilization of the West. Communists believe they can replace it with a “communist heaven on earth,” a political order that provides the equality of results and “social justice” that capitalism and liberal democracy allegedly ignores or destroys.
Of course, we know from history that communism also relies on violence and “big lies,” reflecting its signature tactic “by any means necessary.” And like most totalitarian creeds, it deems humor a trivial, bourgeois false consciousness, which like religion or consumerism distracts from Marxism’s proselytizing––unless it is a tool of propaganda and a weapon to wield against political enemies. Even then, as we’ve been experiencing for a decade now, making people laugh is at best secondary to getting their attention and programming audiences with Marxist clichés.
In other words, like all authoritarian ideologies, Marxism is the enemy of freedom and hence an incubator of tyranny, especially dangerous for our right to free speech, which challenges the left’s authority. That’s why our “woke” useful idiots are so eager to censor political enemies and “cancel” their influence. As the philosopher Democritus said, “Freedom of speech is the sign of freedom.” And laughter is subversive and one of freedom’s greatest boons.
As such, humor is inherently political. Indeed, public comedy was created more than two millennia ago in Athens at about the same time as democratic political freedom and equality. Both political equality and freedom required empowering a wide diversity of citizens, no matter their low birth or lack of education. In order for the masses to participate in the public deliberations and offices that comprised governing, there had to be free speech for all citizens.
Without comedy’s power to publicly humiliate politicians, the social advantages and wealth of the elites would have used both as the instruments of tyranny. As Theseus in Euripides’ Suppliant Women responds to a Theban oligarch who mocks Athens’s democracy, “This is the call of freedom:/ ‘What man has good advice to give to the city, /And wished to make it know?’” This question was the formula that opened the Athenian Assembly.
Theatric comedy, then, developed at the same time as democracy, as a means of reinforcing political freedom, and holding politicians accountable for their actions. As a function of free speech, there were no limitations on plots or language, no standards of propriety, and no libel laws that could inhibit the playwright and violate his and the audience’s political equality. Nor did the politesse or high social status of the elite matter.
Indeed, politicians and other officials were frequent targets, and humiliated by name in front of thousands of their fellow citizens. Scatological jokes, a favorite of comedy then and now, reminded elites of their foundational, universal human nature with its passions and flaws. After all, humans are all alike in fundamental ways––eating, defecating, having sex, dying––and laughing, which is why they feature so frequently in ancient comedy, just as they still do today.
These were the common necessities that create the basis of human equality and identity, for no amount of status or wealth frees the rich and high-born from them. Comic humor reminded the overweening, self-important politicians and elite factions mocked on the stage, that they were still flawed humans and so should check their hubristic arrogance and greed for power and status.
Moreover, such brutal public humiliation was widespread in ancient comedy. Classicist K.J. Dover notes, “Of all the men whom we know from historical sources to have achieve political prominence at Athens during the period 445-385, there is not one who is not attacked and ridiculed either in the extant plays of Aristophanes or in the extant citations from the numerous lost plays of the period. . .” Nor were the gags and jokes just gentle joshing: “All these leading men, and many minor politicians besides, are uniformly treated by the comics as vain, greedy, dishonest and self-seeking; and . . . are represented also as ugly, diseased, prostituted perverts, the sons of whores by foreigners who bribed their way into citizenship.”
And, since the actors wore masks, the mask-makers could exaggerate, highlight or invent embarrassing facial features. When the actor playing Socrates, for example, in Aristophanes’ Clouds, first appeared on stage, the audience burst into wild laughter and applause at how skillfully the mask-maker had captured and caricatured Socrates’ famous ugliness. But ever the philosopher, Socrates rose from his seat and turned towards the spectators so they could better appreciate the mask-maker’s skill.
In our times as well, brutal humor is the sign of our political equality and freedom, which is why censoring “hate” speech as “violence” is so dangerous. My quarrel with the Dems’s comics is not their juvenile politicization, or assertion that their humor is based on facts rather than partisan talking-points, which are both protected by their First Amendment right to free speech.
What’s objectionable is their intolerant, imperious leftist ideology, which they support and advance in order to further corrupt the Constitution and Bill of Rights––the predicate for the tyranny that the Constitution was created to prevent.
The tyrants and dictators of history all hated comedy so does the UN, and every communist/islamist body today.
Well, the Devil hates to be mocked.
late night tedium . there is no such thing as comedy in the squalid halls of the left , only propaganda . the funniest thing to hit the left is that they lost money bigly . when they all lose their jobs they will just move sideways and get paid obscene amounts of money to do nothing other than read from a teleprompter off somewhere in lala land .
What was amusing was when Colbert suck-up’ed towards Kaitlan Collins “I know you guys are objective over there (at CNN), that you just report the news as it is” invoked laughter from the liberal audience.
The stunned Collins asked: “Is that supposed to be a laugh line?”
Colbert had to admit: “It wasn’t supposed to be, but I guess it is.”
Moral of the story is that even a liberal audience, deep down, knows how biased & bullshit MSM reporters actually are.
Humor: is in the eye of the beholder!
The comedy deficit on the Left these days is right in keeping with the losers who founded he Soviet Union back in the day. Lenin, Marx and Co. were not exactly the laugh-a-minute guys you wanted to have around, unless you were in to torturing your opposition.
Nothing changes with the lefty loserias.
And the same in Islam, that is why Democrats (Communism) are in bed with Islam.
“Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious. Islam does not allow swimming in the sea and is opposed to radio and television serials. Islam, however, allows marksmanship, horseback riding and competition.”
― Ruhollah Khomeini
Not funny, just bitter. Not exactly an audience grabber.
The left has destroyed the American Dream! They have nearly completely destroyed black Families and well on the way towards rendering a white Family a rarity!
The DEMOcrats/HYPOCRITES replaced PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY with GOV’T DEPENDENCY! WHY was it necessary to structure Welfare to keep the MAN out of the house? WHY continue to fund each child added to a WELFARE Mothers case?? WHY are the sperm donors (I wouldn’t degrade REAL Fathers by referring to a person who won’t support his own child as a Father) not pursued and FORCED to HONOR their “commitment”?
The DEMOcrats/HYPOCRITES also have enabled over 30 MILLION ILLEGALS to invade Our Nation. Many of those are on Gov’t assistance but somehow send “remittances” in the BILLION$ “back home”! EVERY ILLEGAL working in the USA means a US CITIZEN does not have that job! Every ILLEGAL in a home or apartment means an US CITIZEN does not have the opportunity to live there!
When the Gov’t uses TAXPAYERS’ funds to BENEFIT ILLEGALS with housing, food, medical care, and education that means a US CITIZEN has LESS! It also lend to higher costs for those BENEFITS because old “UNCLE SAM” is paying!!
It’s CRIMINAL how much damage has been done by the DEMOcrats/HYPOCRITES in their INSANE GOAL to PERMANENT POWER and the DESTRUCTION of OUR NATION!!
You don’t think that Colbert and Fauci wearing animal ear headbands in the snack aisle of a pharmacy on the way to get a boo$ter is funny?
Ah, well, maybe product placements are not supposed to be funny.
This type of revenue stream must have been drying up, right along with the sophomoric humor.
How many Californian’s does it take to change a light bulb?
Why bother, they only have electricity when the sun is shining.
1,000.
One to twist the bulb, while a phalanx of burocrats & lawyers are present to be sure it’s screwed in according to state regulations.
How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
That’s not funny!
Or perhaps :
Lightbulbs are racist and a result of patriarchy and colonialism.
And anyway, everyone knows only trannies can screw in lightbulbs.
Let’s see who gets cancelled after 2 years of MAGA POTUS 47
All the railing against President Trump will have no one paying attention.
Tom Holman said there are lines of people wanting to come back to CBP and ICE – there are nice signing bonuses but they know they will not have their hands tied like the 4 years of the previous debacle administration installed by coup d’etat of rigged and stolen 2020 election.
If Colbert and Co. weren’t an albatross around the corporate neck of CBS but was making boatloads of money for them like Carson and later Leno did for NBC, there’s no way Colbert would be canceled, regardless of his sick woke humor-challenged garbage. But Colbert, Kimmel, Myers are only interested in appealing to hate and anti-American Marxist losers..
they should be in jail for sedition
get paid obscene amounts of money to do nothing other than read from a teleprompter off somewhere in lala land .
Putin: “I liked Colbet. It was fun watching him attack Trump and tear down America. I will miss his show.”
kam-kam lost because she did not have good music.
colbert is not funny.
libs lack a sense of humor.
blacks want to BE professional victims.
whites give up their souls to be liked.
I am doing just fine knowing this brand of CRAP is being shoveled into the cart and rolled away.
The founders were concerned about factions becoming an end unto themselves focused more upon party loyalty and the accumulation of power rather than the national welfare. We see it now in stark resolution even in entertainment. The left is hysterical but not hysterically funny. At least not in the way they intend. It’s hard to laugh at someone with suicidal tendencies.
Nice essay explaining why Marxism in any way, shape or form always leads to tyranny. The bottom line is simple: ALL socialism winds up as National Socialism.
Q. Where do Liberals go at night? A. To the Whine Cellar
If anyone is in need of a poster-boy for Marxism, look no further than Judas Starmer; a more humourless man would be hard to find.
These “Late Night” clowns couldn’t get a hyena to laugh with five pounds of cannabis!
Great piece Bruce. Really enjoyed reading it. Keep up the good work.
Jeffrey E. Warren
P.S. Saw VDH on the russian River last week.
Boy that article had a lot of words!
The late night TV hosts are just not funny. Minimal talent and large budgets could only stretch so far. As left wing as most media companies are, someone finally decided that they could no longer afford to lose so much money.
Now if we could just get democrat politicians to realize you just can’t keep throwing taxpayer dollars at their sacred cow programs. Mad cows spending other people’s money.