He did quite a few funny rants about G. H. W.Bush and Republicans back in the day as well. I bought a couple of his rants books on CD in 2000 for a road trip. I listened to them a few years ago and the political stuff completely caught me off guard. But it’s true, he used to due political jokes with a liberal slant pre-9/11.
I think it has more to do with conservative status of victim. A good comedian needs to be able to laugh at themselves. Most successful liberal comedians make fun of the left a lot. Maybe not half the time, but a lot. If all you do is make fun of others you come of as mean, and not funny.
There are many people who like both blue and clean comedy. You are not limited to either swearing up storm for the shock value or telling chicken jokes.
The two quotes above pretty much encompass what I feel on the subject of humor and conservatives.
Speaking from an admittedly biased perspective, conservatives seem to be angry about, well, everything, and much of what they do find humorous is either inappropriate or offensive. Then you have guys like Dennis Miller, who used to be funny a long time ago. Once he turned political, he became an angry dick who wouldn’t know humor if it landed on him. But he didn’t stop there. For some reason, he believed that adding a heaping mound of pretentious smarminess into the mix would endear him to his audience.
Conservatives have never understood what makes Jon Stewart and the Daily Show funny, which is why The Half Hour Comedy Hour sunk like a lead balloon.
I get the feeling that Ron White might be conservative. Dennis Miller was already mentioned, and although I think he’s incredibly smart, his humor seems to have dropped off after he didn’t have his last TV show. Norm Macdonald is a very funny guy and he’s pretty conservative. Nick DiPaolo isn’t too bad either, although at the lower end of this spectrum, below Ron White in these examples.
Really? I thought there was a pretty well-known reason why conservatives aren’t generally funny. Nobody’s gonna take that shot huh?
Conservatives are like your father and grandfather, stereotyped to be rich old white men who hate change. They’re the upperclass, the CEOs, the bank presidents, and bosses and owners. When those people attempt to create humor, they do so by making fun of, guess what? The weak, the poor, the outcasts, the funny-looking, the everyday Joe’s. Basically, the rest of us
Its funny when a comic attacks the upper class. Most of us are mid or low class, and we find fun in making fun of the high class even though many of us aspire to be one. They have strange rituals and weird beliefs. That’s funny.
When conservatives make fun, they attack the rest of us. When someone in power attacks someone without power, that’s called tyranny, abuse of power, and oppression. That’s not funny. What are they going to do, make fun of how poor the rest of us are? How many babies we’re having to get our welfare checks? How some of us survive on a couple grains of rice and a cup of water a day? That’s mean spirited and I suspect that the failure of conservative humor secretly proves that even they know there’s something wrong with their humor
On the other hand, liberal humor attacks up. When people rebel or protest against those in charge, that’s called rebellion, freedom fighting, courageous. There’s humor in that as opposed to conservative humor because you’re not cringing when you hear a homeless immigrant being the butt of a joke
Of course, conservatives will disagree, but they still won’t be funny
Ah, I know that was on CNN, but it still cracks me up. I actually had CNN on when that first aired. I think someone needs to create a Stop Hurting America media campaign. :o
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.
Two aspects of the conservative mindset make comedy less likely.
For many conservatives Authority figures are to be respected - so that cuts out the anti-authority thread in comedy.
For many conservatives one must adhere to/demostrate Purity, which means toeing the line on prescribed doctrine - which precludes any criticism of a fellow conservative who shares the same purity. Since much of comedy is critical of others - that’s out!
So, for a certain strain of conservative there is no such thing as political comedy. Non-political comedy? Sure, all the time.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Come now, sir! Fox News frequently achieves High Comedy. They just can’t manage to do it intentionally!
[/QUOTE]
Contrary to popular belief I don’t actually watch Fox News, so I’ll have to take your word for it.
[QUOTE=YogSosoth]
Conservatives are like your father and grandfather, stereotyped to be rich old white men who hate change. They’re the upperclass, the CEOs, the bank presidents, and bosses and owners. When those people attempt to create humor, they do so by making fun of, guess what? The weak, the poor, the outcasts, the funny-looking, the everyday Joe’s. Basically, the rest of us
[/QUOTE]
Again, it would depend on the type of conservative we are talking about. Some conservatives are quite poor, and for them what makes them ‘conservative’ is some quasi-religious theme…anti-abortion, prayer in school, anti-gay, etc. For some conservatives it’s about foreign policy…the neo-cons. For some it’s about pro-American themes. To be sure, for some it’s about business, but not all economic conservatives are rich upper class CEO types. For some it’s about social conservatism…getting us back to the good old days when blacks were second hand citizens or going back to some other earlier ideal.
I’ve seen Denis Miller rip on conservative themes in the past and his schtick was quite funny, but overall how many laughs are you going to get with a pro-religious or social conservative schtick? You just aren’t going to draw in a wide audience riffing off of anti-gay or anti-abortion themes, or trying to roll back history to some earlier bygone era…at least not outside of a very vertical audience. Really successful comedians riff on stuff that is broadly popular, and play on common beliefs or cords that resonate with the majority of people. Anti-establishment themes like many in this thread have indicated. THAT’S what’s funny, and basically more liberally oriented comedians are able to tap into that than conservative comedians for a broader audience.
"How many comedians are brazenly liberal? Not many of the greats do partisan humor; even many of the greats that did political humor, like George Carlin, were more anti-establishment than card-carrying partisan liberal. "
That link clearly indicates your wrongness. If you think I’m cherry picking I can effortlessly inundate you with examples. And yes, there are many targets (including some liberals) for his jokes but there is never a question in any of his routines where the audience is left to wonder about his strong political affiliation and that isn’t a coincidence.
So the market should dictate. I think you’ll agree there are roughly equal numbers of liberal audience members to conservative yet one side seems to have the monopoly.
If this was true there wouldn’t be clearly liberal comedians.
True. I have no doubt that the comedy club grind is where comedians develop their chops, and that audience would lean liberal. However, nation syndication, little competition, unique style and material (it would seem) I think would offset this disadvantage in the long term.
But ‘liberal’ comedians mock political correctness and vegetarianism much, much better.
Comedy works best when people are laughing at some aspect of themselves. Read the Darwin Awards - which do you laugh the hardest at, something you might have done, or something that makes no sense to you?
[QUOTE=j66]
Read the Darwin Awards - which do you laugh the hardest at, something you might have done, or something that makes no sense to you?
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Definitely something that makes zero sense to me and I can’t believe someone was stupid enough to do. But overall I agree with your point.
O’Rourke is not as funny today as he used to be, nor is he as firmly on the right. The GOP has also gone much further to the right, and O’Rourke has been passed over. However, his older writing is both funny and insightful; Parliament of Whores is pretty good reading, and though he’s a conservative, he advocates for the abolition of all farm subsidies and cutting the defense budget by 35%.
Wait, you’re serious, here? That’s your criterion for what makes something funny? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. There, I just rendered this the funniest post on the SDMB. And then, after establishing that that’s what your standard of humor is, you go on to say that you don’t like corny pre-school humor? Just what level of maturity do you think fuck fuckity fuck fuck is?
And yet in the same post you replied to I quite specifically stated that, in fact, that’s not true. During the critical early early os a comic’s career, the audience is liberal.
There isn’t a “long term” if you don’t make it in the short term. It’s simply not an easy path if you want to take a conservative stance on stage. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that - it’s just the way it is. Conservatives get talk radio, liberals get comedy.
