I’m not sure if this is the right forum; there is a GQ, but it’s of a somewhat IMHO/MPSIMS component. Please move if appropriate.
So recently I’ve noticed that people who are of a liberal nature tend to like Dennis Miller and people of a conservative nature tend to like Norm McDonald. I.e. if you ask the questions:
What do you think of Dennis Miller?
What do you think of Bill Clinton?
You tend to get the same answer, usually violently so, either “He’s wonderful” or “He’s a complete waste of oxygen”.
Likewise with
What do you think of Norm McDonald?
What do you think of Ronald Reagan?
The strange thing is that I can’t recall either gentleman make comedic references to politics or seen either one heavily campaigning or whatever. So my question(s):
a. Is this assumption true? and
b. (Of course it’s true, so) Why? Is there something deep in the circuitry of comedy that appeals one way or the other? What is that something?
Dennis Miller is a hoot. Makes Mon Nite Football watchable again.
Bill Clinton I despised from the moment I saw his eyes. I could tell right away that he was con artist. But I felt that he didn’t deserve what the Republicans in Congress did to him.
Norm Macdonald is OK. I certainly don’t despise him, but he’s just got one schtick, and little depth.
Ronald Reagan was a puppet. It still amazes me that this nation elected an actor, a bad one at that, and anybody ever believed he called the shots.
Hmm… does this mean I’d vote for Dennis Miller as president? You bet!
Contrary to the OP’s assumptions, Dennis Miller does not fit neatly into the liberal or conservative mold. To be sure, he ridiculed Reagan and Bush while he was doing Weekend Update, but hey! Come on! They were in the White House, which makes them fair game for satire.
Miller certainly leans left on some issues, but he supports the death penalty, is generally very pro-military, and regularly ridicules environmentalists. And a few years ago, when he appeared alongside George Will on a talk show, I swear, Dennis was in awe of Will! It was hero worship, plain, simple and unmistakeable.
Dennis agrees with me AND disagrees with me a lot. Still, I always liked him a lot as a standup comic. But I hate him as a talk show host, and have been very disappointed with his work on Monday Night Football.
As for Norm McDonald… I never perceived him as liberal or conservative- he strikes me as an apolitical, bemused, above-it-all wise guy. Like many Canadian comics, he’s a very good-natured cynic. He seems to find ideologues of all stripes somewhat ridiculous.
I liked him a lot on SNL, but haven’t liked anything he’s done since.
Libertarian here, and I like them both. And Dennis Miller definitely leans more to the right than the left, although like most people with a high IQ he refuses to be pigeonholed.
He’s one of the only people on TV that has given George Bush a break. I’ve seen him actively argue with his guests when they go on an anti-Bush tirade.
On the other hand, he used to defend Clinton, too. I think he just hates knee-jerk responses to anything.
I’ve never figured out Norm MacDonald’s politics. About the only thing I know for sure about him is that he thinks OJ killed his ex-wife. That’s what got him kicked off of SNL (an NBC executive (Bob Ohlenmayer (sp?)) in LA is good friends with OJ, and apparently told MacDonald to back off on the OJ cracks. When MacDonald refused, Ohlenmayer had him taken off the Weekend Update show because he ‘wasn’t funny’). Say what you want about MacDonald, but he handled that whole affair with real class. Rather than leaving the show in a fit of pique, he stuck out his contractual obligation, then left quietly. And even when pressed, he never did attack NBC, Lorne Michaels, or Ohlenmayer himself other than to make a couple of relatively gentle jokes about it.
I think you picked the two best examples of comedians who cross party lines in their appeal, contrary to the OP. If you had picked, say, Bob Franken, I think you would have found a stronger correlation.
The General Question here is whether the sense of humor of conservatives is significantly different in a measurable way from that of liberals. We’re looking for facts here, not opinions. Considering the huge number of sociology papers that come out every year, I think it likely that some researcher at some time has actually studied this topic, perhaps in relation to Jay Leno and David Letterman.
I believe I once heard Dennis Miller describe his politics as libertarian, but I find him extremely reactionary. He seems to mock any group that is for progressive change (I’m on the left, so I think my bias here is showing!) Also, he seems to be a big Bush supporter…when he jokes about him, its of the typical “ain’t he stupid” type humor. Nothing really about the President’s political views.
As for McDonald, I agree with everyone else who finds him apolitical. Funny as hell, but he doesn’t bring a strong political viewpoint to his humor…
My favorite political humorist is the late great Bill Hicks. Ah, they don’t make 'em like that no more…
Enh. He’s ok I guess. I liked him ok when he was on SNL, but his stuff hasn’t aged all that well IMHO. Haven’t seen him much since his SNL days. I don’t watch Monday Night Football.
I was under the impression that his political views tended to be liberal, but after reading thru this thread I need to reconsider that.
Didn’t like him. Didn’t vote for him. Had a few redeeming features.
I am a fan. One of the user names I considered when I signed up here was “Assistant Crack Whore”, but I think there was someone with a similar name.
My impression of Norm’s political views is very very vague, but I think I sense that he is libertarian leaning, as I am. Certainly he is unafraid to be politically incorrect (“Michael Jackson is a homosexual pedophile…”), unlike that Bill Mahr guy who, kind of like a piece of spam that states clearly in its first paragraph that “This is not spam!”, is an eminently politically correct individual hosting a show called “Politically Incorrect”.
I think he was a great president, though not unflawed.
Certainly Miller made political jokes on SNL. What I remember mostly was his ragging on Reagan, though perhaps my memory is selective.
I’d like to say I can add creedence to your question, since I’m able to give you the answers the way you want them, but…I never noticed anything very political about either of them. But for the record.
**
I think Clinton was an eight-year embarrassment to this country, and I’m thrilled that our forfathers included term limitations, so people weren’t able to elect him to a third term. Dennis Miller doesn’t strike me as even mildly humorous, but maybe he could do ok in a drama.
**
To be perfectly honest, I was too young when Reagan was in office to form many solid opinions about him. He seemed like an ok president, not one of the best or worst, but ok. I do, however, really like Norm. I wasn’t much of a fan of his when he was on SNL, but ** Norm ** was one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in a long time, and I’ll miss it.
Does nobody here watch HBO? Mostly, all I see in this thread are references to SNL and Monday Night Football, but Dennis Miller Live has been a staple of my Friday-night viewing for some years now. And the sorta funny thing, in light of the OP, is that Dennis has had Norm as a guest several times. Norm cracks Dennis up, every time. Dennis Miller Live is supposed to be a kindof political show about “the issues” (there’s one issue per ‘rant’), but from what I’ve seen, when Norm is on, you can pretty much forget it - it devolves into Norm saying something, and then Dennis rolling in his chair with laughter for a while. Personally, I could live without Norm, but Dennis clearly loves the guy.
But that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.
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