"Cancelled" comics vs. "I'm offended" audiences
Uptight audience or unfunny joke? Views from Anthony Jeselnik, George Carlin, and Paul F. Tompkins.
Are comics who complain about audience reactions correct or just unfunny/lazy/trolls? Views from Anthony Jeselnik, George Carlin, and Paul F. Tompkins below…
Jeselnik
Anthony Jeselnik, on Theo Von’s podcast, talking about how “edgy” comics deal with pushback:
All these comics now, where it's, like, almost the point is to get in trouble. It's like: “Why are you giving me sh*t? I'm a comic. I'm allowed to say whatever I want.” That's wrong as far as I'm concerned. As a comic, your job is to get in trouble. But they don't wanna get yelled at. Like, it's okay to make people mad, but they didn't want any pushback. And I think that's wrong.
As a comedian, you wanna make people laugh. There’s a quote attributed to Andy Warhol that I love: “Art is getting away with it.” If you put out a special and everyone's pissed, you didn't get away with it. You need to make everyone laugh so they're like, “Yeah, he talked about f*cked up stuff, but we're all happy.” Otherwise, you're just a troll.
"Art is getting away with it."
-Andy Warhol
Carlin
Some related George Carlin quotes:
“I do like finding out where the line is drawn, deliberately crossing it, bringing some of them with me across the line, and having them be happy that I did.”
…
“I like to find out where the line might be and then cross it deliberately, and then make the audience happy about crossing the line with me.”
Tompkins
Paul F. Tompkins talked about shock value and the line over at Big Think a while ago: “They're in within their rights to react how they are going to react. So you can't be surprised or insulted if someone doesn't like a thing you said.”
“I would say in most cases, audiences are not telling them, ‘You can’t joke about this.’ What they’re saying is, ‘That wasn’t funny.’ And that’s a different thing. I think you can talk about any topic, and I think you can make any topic funny. It depends upon what your point is, and where you’re coming from. Audiences always know. They always know. And if you have a sound point that you’re making, and it’s well thought-out, and it’s well-crafted, you can make me laugh at a thing that I think is tragic. You can make me laugh at a thing that I think is horrific. You can make me laugh at a thing that affects me personally. But if you’ve done your homework, and you’ve gone about it the right way, it will still be funny. It’s when people do, I think, a lazy job at something. They’re not trying as hard as they could. Or, they really are just courting outrage. That’s when audiences say, ‘That wasn’t funny.’ But I think it’s so rare, it’s so rare, that anyone says ‘You’re not allowed to joke about that.'”
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dear matt,
this is all great.
paul f tompkins is one of my faves and he super nails it here, which i'm cutting and pasting just so it potentially reaches more people:
“I would say in most cases, audiences are not telling them, ‘You can’t joke about this.’ What they’re saying is, ‘That wasn’t funny.’ And that’s a different thing. I think you can talk about any topic, and I think you can make any topic funny. It depends upon what your point is, and where you’re coming from. Audiences always know. They always know. And if you have a sound point that you’re making, and it’s well thought-out, and it’s well-crafted, you can make me laugh at a thing that I think is tragic. You can make me laugh at a thing that I think is horrific. You can make me laugh at a thing that affects me personally. But if you’ve done your homework, and you’ve gone about it the right way, it will still be funny. It’s when people do, I think, a lazy job at something. They’re not trying as hard as they could. Or, they really are just courting outrage. That’s when audiences say, ‘That wasn’t funny.’ But I think it’s so rare, it’s so rare, that anyone says ‘You’re not allowed to joke about that.'”
thanks for sharing!
love,
myq
I love all these guys...I like comedy that's on the edge. George Carlin did jokes about some dark stuff...but he exposed our society's hypocrisy and or disingenuousness a lot, imo. Anthony Jeselnik is funny, but he often does the freaky surprise ending thing...I thought he was a bit of a one-trick pony, but haven't heard him lately. I need to check out the Theo Von podcast. :)