Too Cool For School Is No Joking Matter

“Comics exist to keep us from taking ourselves too seriously, and we live in an age when people believe they have a constitutional right to be taken seriously, even if — especially if — they’re idiots.” Matt Taibbi

UPDATE: SNL boss Lorne Michaels won’t force his unfunny cast to do anything that ruffles their progressive feathers. https://thepostmillennial.com/snl-offers-cast-members-a-safe-space-if-theyre-too-triggered-to-perform-with-elon-musk

Everyone will have their own opinion about the death of humour, but for us, it was probably the decision  by Canadian A&W restaurants— previously best known for root beer—  that a hamburger was no longer a steaming combination of bun, salt and pickle. No, the chain decided that their burgers now constitute a virtue experience.

Their commercial brand careened from a goofy comedian cracking jokes with a bear to the same actor interviewing teenagers about hormones in beef. Surely you young folk prefer a virtuous steroid-free Teen Burger, the interviewer intoned. This being millennial manna, the teenagers quickly agreed. (So did the market. A&W sales soared.)

It takes a lot to make a greasy drive-thru outlet into Greta Thunberg theatre. But, like the unsmiling Swedish dervish, A&W was saying a hamburger is no laughing matter. It’s an advertisement for your Wokeness. “You want French fries with your deep personal empathy?” To make it a combo they also introduced non-meat burgers.

Which pretty much sums up where we are as Covid-19 rages its last gasps in North America. From fast food to the Oscars a good laugh is hard to find. It’s instead been replaced by mockery, sarcasm and propaganda. And a disdain for any free speech that does’t jive with Pelosi reality. 

Once, comedians were the last line of defence against this sanctimony. Lenny Bruce. Richard Pryor.Dave Chapelle. Larry David. Their acid observations on humans took the self importance out of many public figures.

Now, people who make their livings as comedians must either adhere to the catechism of correctness or be cancelled between shows. Comedian Ricky Gervais famously tried to mock the Hollywood audience at 2020 Golden Globes, savaging their vanity and hypocrisy.

“You say you’re Woke, but the companies you work for… unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney… If ISIS started a streaming service you’d call your agent, wouldn’t you? So if you do win an award tonight don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech.” Gervais was banned from the Oscars, and the smug lectures continued.

So did the cancellations of performers who refuse to toe the line. As comedian Adam Carolla says, "If comedians are scared, then everyone is scared, because they were really our last hope. They are the last sort of truth tellers in society.”

The death of humour has been looming for some time. Saturday Night Live morphed from satire about Sean Connery to shilling for Progressive causes and their politicians. Hoping to see Buckwheat, Pat, Garth Algar or Alex Trebek? Wrong street, wrong address. Its veneration of Barack Obama and demonization of Donald Trump are unwatchable unless you need to know what the cool kids will say in school on Monday.

The other nexus of humourlessness is late-night talk shows— previously the apex of wit, risky humour, satire. From Johnny Carson to David Letterman to Jon Stewart night-owl programs were the reliable place to shop for irreverent adult humour.

But starting in the Obama years, hosts such as Stephen Colbert, Seth Myers, Jimmy Kimmel, Canada’s Samantha Bee and even featherbrained Jimmy Fallon traded punch lines for political applause lines, spewing agitprop for their fawning urban audience that thrives on white guilt. Claiming the mantle of Lenny Bruce they are instead totally safe and entirely predictable.

The current late-night lineup is an indoctrination ordeal for people who need to know the code words to stay onside with hip culture and avoid being cancelled. Says culture critic Matt Taibbi, “The Babylon Bee is marketed as something from one of my childhood nightmares (“Your trusted source for Christian news satire”), and the fact that it’s now exponentially more likely to be funny than Stephen Colbert feels like a sign of the End-Times.”

Not that the SJW brigade has noticed. To say the AOC cohort is exultant over this lack of levity is an understatement. Like the Red Guard in 1960s China, they’re triumphant, calling the shots with corporations, media and Hollywood (see: Sunday’s eye glazing Oscars Guilt-O-Thon). 

But some of their fellow travellers on the Left are less than thrilled at how the cool kids have sucked the laughter out of society. Longtime RNC stalwart James Carville sees disturbing trends as they alienate the middle class. “Maybe tweeting that we should abolish the police isn’t the smartest thing to do, because almost fucking no one wants to do that.

“I think it’s because large parts of the country view us as an urban, coastal, arrogant party, and a lot gets passed through that filter. That’s a real thing. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about it — it’s a real phenomenon, and it’s damaging to the party brand.”

Libertarian comic observer Bill Maher has also turned the spotlight on his humourless friends on the Left. “You know the reason why advertisers in this country love the 18 to 34 demographic? Because it’s the most gullible. Yeah. A third of people under 35 say they’re in favour of abolishing the police — not defunding, but doing away with a police force altogether, which is less of a policy position and more of a leg tattoo. 

“Thirty-six percent of millennials think it might be a good idea to try communism, but much of the world did try it… The problem isn’t that I don’t get what you’re saying or that I’m old. The problem is that your ideas are stupid.”

We’d endorse Maher’s appraisal on the death of humour. Except too many today wouldn’t get the joke. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx