I don’t like that I’ve become something of a comedy scold, but you know what? Comedy needs comedians to call out shitty comedy every now and again. I don’t mean a joke that doesn’t land; I would conservatively estimate 83% of my jokes fail. What I mean is that high-profile comedians tend to be insulated from criticism from their fellow comics for the same reasons that all industry leaders tend to get a pass from others in their industry. Joe Rogan is an industry leader. Tony Hinchcliffe is an industry leader. I’ve called out both of them here and here. I called out a guy I used to consider a friendly acquaintance, Louis CK. Andrew “Dice” Clay, 67, used to be an industry leader but is now just a cock. And I called him out, too, after he threatened me.
“Scold” is not the kind of role I feel at ease with because I’ve said and done plenty of my own dumb and offensive shit over the years, including wearing blackface for an episode of “Stella.” I’ve committed every comedic crime there is to commit, with the exception of asking my fans if I can jerk off in front of them. I’m neither perfect, nor as funny as most of the guys I call out. So why do I do it? Because few other comics are.
The fact is, I have a small platform and a conscience. I don’t like to see bad comedy elevated as a celebration of our First Amendment. While it’s true that our Constitution guarantees that people can say whatever they want, it also guarantees that scolds like me can wag our fingers at them and clutch as many pearls as we choose. I don’t ask that they be “canceled,” I don’t say they’re not funny, I don’t insult their careers (well, I might’ve insulted Dice’s career a little). In fact, I go out of my way to acknowledge that they do things well. Joe’s podcast, for example, is one of the most important modern media enterprises. That’s true. It’s also true that he made some jokes in his last special I had issues with, and I wrote a piece about it. Big deal. Rogan doesn’t care what I think. Rogan doesn’t even know I exist.
With Hinchcliffe, the situation is obviously much different. He, too, has an enormously popular podcast. He got hired by the Trump team, for whatever reason, to do a set at the MSG rally. You know how there’s that phrase, “He understood the assignment?” I think Tony understood the assignment a little too well. He understood that the Trump base would lap up him calling Kamala Harris a cunt (a word removed by the campaign from his prepared remarks.) He assumed they would love him saying that Latinos “cum inside everything.” Or that Puerto Rico is a floating island of garbage. Oddly, the mildest joke was the one in which he pointed out a random Black guy in the crowd and said the two of them “carved watermelons” together. Tony Hinchcliffe not only understood the assignment, he probably thought he was going to get a Perfect Attendance Record to go along with his standing O.
Why would a comedian get up at a political rally and make those kinds of jokes if he didn’t think they would be well-received? You need to understand – I’m sure you already do understand – that a comedian’s bread and butter is laughter. We say things that we expect will be well-received. Why would Tony make those jokes with any other expectation? And why would he have that expectation? And because in the Donald Trump Broniverse, “locker room talk” is a sanctified, time-cherished male activity. In the locker room, whether it’s in an actual locker room or Madison Square Garden, words are consequence-free.
And because in the Joe Rogan Broniverse, in which he is minor royalty, people expect you to get on stage at the Comedy Mothership in Austin and say “edgy” things like “retard” and whatever other slurs you want to throw out there. They’ve created an alternate comedy reality in which it’s always 1983.
And you know what? I’m fine with that. I really am. I’m fine with people saying whatever outlandish, hateful shit they want to say in a comedy club environment. People can vote with their time and their dollars. The Comedy Mothership, for those who don’t know, is Joe Rogan’s comedy club, famous for its “anti-woke” credo. Fine. Whatever. The club is incredibly successful, which makes sense, because people still want their funny racism to go with their overpriced PBRs. I don’t care.
Comedians are not language police. Nor should we be. So I don’t care about the words comedians use. What I care about is the moral licensing aspect they grant to their audience when they do so. Getting on stage, particularly if you’re an industry leader like Rogan or Hinchcliffe, and shitting on people for their ethnicity, is to invite your audience to do the same in their real world interactions. They see you – rich, famous dude – up there saying, as Rogan did:
“You’ll say the R word but you won’t say the N word? Yeah! ‘Cause I’m more afraid of Black people than I am of retards! Duh! Don’t you know how jokes work, faggot?”
I do know how jokes work, Joe. And I know that feeding your audience this high-fat junk food is bad for them and bad for you. You can say it, just like Tony can say whatever he wants, but why? Is it because you’re addicted to triggering the libs? Isn’t comedy supposed to be, I don’t know, better than that? Again, you’re free to be a shitty comic, but why be a shitty comic in such an obviously destructive way?
You’re not a free speech warrior. You’re a hack comic.
And I’m sorry – I don’t buy the “it’s just a joke” excuse. It’s just a joke when you tell it on stage. But it’s not a joke when the attitudes you’re creating a permission structure for your fans to mimic you offstage. Cruelty is not comedy, despite MAGA’s finest efforts to equate the two. I was recently in a Twitter conversation with a person who told me that comedy changed in 2015 and we “lost the funny words.” I have no idea why he picked 2015 as the moment when comedy died, but I have a pretty good idea of the “funny words” he feels like he can no longer say.
Comedians are not immune from the culture they help create. As I said, tell whatever jokes you want to tell. I don’t care. But at least take a moment to consider what you’re putting into the world. That’s all I’m asking. If shitting on Puerto Rico for absolutely no reason is how you want to express yourself, by all means, my good man. If you want to dredge up lazy stereotypes and use them to demean one of the few Black dudes at a political rally, you go right ahead, sweetheart. But just know that the outrage you cause isn’t from people needing “to change their tampon,” as you said. It’s because some of us are trying to make things better in whatever small ways we can, and it sucks when one of my own is up there actively trying to make things worse. Because that’s the effect of the “cruelty as comedy” movement. It’s making things worse.
Tony will come out of this a hero, no doubt. He will be lauded by the Broniverse. Millions more people now know his name. His podcast will, no doubt, only grow. And that’s fine. As I said, people vote with their time and their dollars. They can do what they want. I will never have Rogan’s success, or Tony’s success. Or Louis’s, for that matter. Or, sadly, even the success of Andrew “Dice Clay,” 67. What I have, instead, is a clear conscience about how I practice my craft. Blackface and all.
Rogan was never funny. And the comics who are resisting the social change at hand simply do so because they're not bright enough to come up with comedic material that doesn't marginalize disadvantaged populations. Good thing you're not one of 'em, Mike. Keep on, keepin' on.
You have touched close to a point here I have seen missed by a LOT of very smart people, comedians, who are sincerely trying to "get it". And it is the one about granting license. The "Just telling jokes" thing.
I am a trans woman. I am 65. All my life in this society has been a constant drum beat of how bad a person I am for being who and what I am.
How wrong, perverse, sick, ridiculous, insane, dangerous I am. A laughing stock to the extent that some cis guy who looked like I did...like my body did through no agency or desire of my own...merely aping the movements of a woman was a subject of hilarity and disapproval. Let alone actually donning clothing or such or God forbid, actually telling someone you're not sure "boy" or "man" fits you and girl or woman makes a ton more sense. That shit gets shut down pretty quick.
Every conversation with a joke about effeminate men. Every comedy routine. Every movie with a serial killer. Through the years. Everywhere. Silence of the Lambs winning an Oscar. Ace Ventura. On and on.
All these things day after day. Teaching people these lessons. Making it ok. Everyone you know taking them in and repeating them. For years and decades. How horrible you are. How...funny.
And it seeps in. You take it onboard. And you hate yourself. Shame. Guilt. Fear. All day every day.
It's honestly a wonder ANY of us survive and DON'T kill ourselves, let alone survive as functioning, compassionate, somewhere close to normal adults. Yet somehow we do. Tough road we walk, us snowflakes.
The steady rain of tiny rocks. Pebbles. Today we call them micro-aggressions. Any one of them you could shrug off. We do. All the time. But every day, multiple times a day for years and decades...falling on your shoulders and pressing you down until each new one is a struggle to lift yourself off the ground under that mountain of pebbles to crawl forward another inch. Again.
Could YOU handle that?
Those are your jokes. They are part of that rain of pebbles. Individually no big deal, collectively, a mountain. Don't tell me jokes don't matter. People repeat that shit. From you, from everyone else.
Don't tell me until you are the only one making them and a thousand of your fellows call you out on it every single fucking time and make you feel like shit every fucking single day.
Oh. Wait. That happened to YOU? You got called out on Twitter and thousands of people jumped down your throat and made you feel like a terrible person and it was traumatic and unfair cuz you were just being you...a comedian telling an innocent joke. Pitiful mistreated canceled you. Career shot. Reputation ruined.
Welcome to a hint of the daily trauma of the first five decades of my life.
Maybe...try to be the person who lifts a pebble from the pile instead, hmm? You never know what shoulders they are landing on. Someone you know. Someone you love.
Someone listening.