# Conservatives: Where's the funny? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 6, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526 "2011-06-06T18:43:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/81 "2011-06-07T12:14:50Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Couldn’t agree more. I used to listen to Limbaugh in the early 90s and I thought he was funny as hell. He probably still is, and in my opinion this is largely what sets him apart from people like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck. IMO, it also make him a lot more effective. Yeah, in the early 90’s he was a perfect example of conservative humor. Remember his great one about the White House dog? Ah, good times. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/82 "2011-06-07T12:24:06Z")
Yeah, I remember it; it was why I stopped listening to him. He was then - and probably still is - funny though, that particular joke notwithstanding. And for that matter, so is Ann Coulter, although she admittedly oversteps the bounds of good taste pretty egrigously sometimes. But she’s funny as hell. The thing to remember about people like Limbaugh and Coulter, though, is that even the people who listen or read them know when they’re just being outrageous for effect. People on this board seem to believe that their audience takes their every word as gospel, and it just ain’t so. Righties laugh at Limbaugh/Coulter digs at liberals over the air waves or in books in the same way that comedy club audiences laugh at digs toward conservatives. And they are just as adept at separating the wheat from the chaff. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not that is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/83 "2011-06-07T12:31:34Z")
Ahem…make that “egregiously”. 😛 (Why don’t I ever catch these things on preview?) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/84 "2011-06-07T14:06:07Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And for that matter, so is Ann Coulter, although she admittedly oversteps the bounds of good taste pretty egrigously sometimes. But she’s funny as hell. The thing to remember about people like Limbaugh and Coulter, though, is that even the people who listen or read them know when they’re just being outrageous for effect. People on this board seem to believe that their audience takes their every word as gospel, and it just ain’t so. I’ve met people who **do.** And encountered a great many more online who, if they do not really live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Rush, make a good job of pretending. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/85 "2011-06-07T14:10:05Z")
Sure, some do. But not all. Not by a long shot. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/86 "2011-06-07T15:04:37Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But dry wit is, when a fellow like Wilde or Groucho Marx deadpans a stone cold barb at some poor schmoe who just happened to say the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of the wrong guy. > Wilde and Groucho were fine entertainers, but they were humiliating the guys being barbed all the same. And the gals … “I like a good cigar, Madam, but I take it out of my mouth now and then.” Which reminds me, the authority figures people on the right seem to particularly like to attack are women … first Hillary, now Pelosi. There seems to be a wellspring of curdled hatred and resentment for women on the part of the right … waaaaay beyond what you might expect given their track records. Of course, comedians on the left have had a field day with Palin, Bachman and Sharon Engel, but I would argue that’s because those three in particular have been rich sources of dumbness, not because of any curdled hatred and resentment. Hillary and Pelosi are both sharp as tacks. Most of the humor on the right about women on the left seems to be resentful anger over their perceived desire to control others. Interesting phenom. And the comment about Rush is spot on … he’s a humorist, and a pretty good one, if you are in line with him politically. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/87 "2011-06-07T16:04:23Z")
**Sam Stone** , could you link to a conservative bit you think is hilarious? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/88 "2011-06-07T16:22:41Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > P. J. O’Rourke is a conservative isn’t he? He has gotten a bit funnier, now that he doesn’t spend so much time telling you about how smart he was to quit being a dope-smoking hippy and becoming a rich alcoholic. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/89 "2011-06-07T16:25:06Z")
Jackie Mason doesn’t seem to hold back his conservatism. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/90 "2011-06-07T16:32:30Z")
And Gallagher’s career is certainlty taking off, since he’s seen the Darkness. And Victoria Jackson! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/91 "2011-06-07T16:39:56Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s perfectly possible to be both conservative and funny. Of course it is – so long as you keep your politics out of your material. **Conservative humor** seems to be much, much harder to pull off. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/92 "2011-06-07T17:01:43Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Dennis Miller is not funny. [/QUOTE] Really? There are millions of people who would disagree with you. You see, because YOU don’t find him funny doesn’t mean that others will be of the same opinion. And stuff that you might find hilarious doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will agree with you. Like I said, I was a big fan of Steven Wright when I was younger. A lot of people would tell me ‘but he’s not funny!’, and I’d laugh even more. What’s the point in telling someone that a certain comedian ‘is not funny’? Is that supposed to convince someone else that they have been laughing all this time for no good reason?? 😛 [QUOTE=j66] Black humor is not cruel humor. [/QUOTE] As with anything, it depends on who is telling the jokes. ALL humor can be cruel or harsh…or it might be self inflicted cruel or harshness. I have no idea what point you think you are making with all of this. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/93 "2011-06-07T17:01:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Of course it is – so long as you keep your politics out of your material. **Conservative humor** seems to be much, much harder to pull off. Yeah. I would genuinely like to see specifically-conservative humor that didn’t come off as bigoted or mean-spirited. Christopher Titus is about the closest I’ve come to seeing actual conservative values in funny form, and even then he tempers them with left-leaning sentiment. In his _End of the World Tour_, he has the following bits: - **Big Dog-style pro-America, anti-Middle East jingoism** (pretty funny, actually, and not wholly conservative-owned; a LOT of people felt the same way in the years after 9/11. He does include a Gitmo ‘frat house’ joke though, which is solidly on the conservative side.) - **Completely pro-military** (again, not wholly conservative-only, but they certainly bang that drum the hardest) - **Brief sympathy for Bush** (“like him or hate him, Bush has had the _toughest_ Presidency ever”…but then he goes to mocking Bush and Texas like most comedians) - **Anti-French sentiment** (possibly the least funny bit I’ve ever seen Titus do, it’s just putting on a bad French accent and sneering at them) - **Pro-gun** (tempered by pointing out ways in which guns don’t help us) - **Pro-religion** (again, not owned by conservatives, but a lot of comedians avoid the subject, and half of it is ranting against the Catholic priest pedophiles anyway) Really, it’s less pure conservative ideology and more red-state-targeted humor, which are _not_ the same thing. I actually find that really interesting, because Titus is Californian, but typically doesn’t display any of the usual Californian stereotypes aside from a tendency to put on a Valley Girl accent. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/94 "2011-06-07T17:18:12Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > It’s perfectly possible to be both conservative and funny. Bill Cosby, while not a liberal in his political attitudes, does present his humor with what could reasonably be said to be conservative values. It is clean and has no attitude. There were a lot of sitcoms and comedians prior to the late sixties who were both clean and funny (and believe it or not, not racist nor scornful of the poor, despite what you read on this board). In fact, virtually every highly successful comedian (i.e., not Mort Saul nor Lenny Bruce, etc.) of the fifties and sixties was funny in what would be considered a conservative way these days. Jack Benny, George Burns, Jackie Gleason, Johnny Carson, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Carol Burnett, etc., etc., virtually ad infinitum were all funny and presented their humor in ways that would be considered conservative these days. Will Rogers also? Conservative does not equal clean, and vice versa. Back in those days any successful comic was clean, at least on the radio and on TV. Groucho was pushing it in the movies, but that was about it. I doubt Jack Benny and George Burns were Republicans, Bob Hope yes. Bill Cosby started in clubs in the Village, not far from where Dylan started. I wonder what his act was like there. His records were clean, of course, but what would you expect from an African-American comedian in the early '60s? Lenny Bruce was quite successful - he sold out Carnegie Hall, after all. His downfall was not from lack of audience, but from drugs and oppression, as he got arrested for telling jokes about the Pope which some Irish cops didn’t like very much. Check out Woody Allen’s standup. Though he talks about divorce, nothing in it is dirty, but it sure isn’t conservative. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/95 "2011-06-07T17:18:56Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Jack Benny, George Burns, Jackie Gleason, Johnny Carson, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Carol Burnett, etc., etc., virtually ad infinitum were all funny and presented their humor in ways that would be considered conservative these days. What it would be considered “these days” is irrelevant. What was it considered THEN? ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/96 "2011-06-07T17:43:30Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by \*\*Least Original User Name Ever \*\* > > I get the feeling that Ron White might be conservative. > > I have no doubt he’s conservative, I’m sure a majority of his fans are conservative. Hell, I also think he’s very funny. What’s peculiar to me is he doesn’t use that for his jokes at all. > > No one really does. He’s the one I came in here to mention. I saw him live a few years ago, and while his humor isn’t overtly political (he’s not up there talking about how great GWB is or how much the Democrats suck), he also makes it pretty clear where his sympathies lie, and he approaches his material with a pretty conservative mindset. And I agree with you, he’s also quite funny. And a lot of stand-up comics I’ve met do have a jingoistic “America FUCKYEAH!!” attitude. You’d be surprised how many of them were all for the Iraq War, at least at the beginning. But other than that, most of them tend to be pretty libertarian. Think “South Park”-type humor - making fun of smug, do-gooding liberalism, political correctness and nanny-state politics, while having little or no love for the religious right. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/97 "2011-06-07T17:47:05Z")
That’s because, as a Libertarian/libertarian you can get such good material from both sides. It’s a target rich environment! 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/98 "2011-06-07T18:13:28Z")
I admit I am now intrigued by the possibility that Rush Limbaugh considers his shtick comedy, but I have serious doubts his audience does. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/99 "2011-06-07T18:17:07Z")
I’ve never listened to his show, but my dad thinks he’s pretty funny. Of course, my dad’s sense of humor is questionable at best, so grain of salt. I’ve heard others say that they think Limbaugh is or was pretty funny, though. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/100 "2011-06-07T18:22:56Z")
I’m willing to be convinced. Could someone please cite a funny Limbaugh joke told within the past week? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526.md?page=6)