Political correctness may have littered corporate America with landmines, but according to one standup comic the new taboos have made “comedy so much easier.”
(Video: Fox News Digital)
Whether looking at Dave Chappelle getting attacked on stage for jokes about gender ideology or Chris Rock getting slapped by Will Smith for a slight against wife Jada Pinkett Smith, outrage has certainly appeared on the rise in comparison to society’s capacity for humor.
Though this might seem like a zeitgeist that would squelch standup, comedian John Crist explained to Fox News Digital how the readily offended have made even family-friendly jokes easier to produce.
“Basically all comedy…is just saying things out loud that you’re not allowed to say. That’s really the whole thing is you just say things that are a little bit across the line,” he explained.
With the prevalence of victimhood as a virtue, the professional yuckster relayed, “Any comic will tell you, that makes comedy so much easier because…to say something offensive back in the nineties, you would have to go so far, be so egregious to say something that flabbergasted everybody.”
Providing examples like COVID shots, gluten allergies and the WNBA, Crist argued in part, “you could just question everyday normal things and that is now comedy, because it’s across the line.”
Promoting his ongoing “Emotional Support Tour,” a title bound to irk more than a few PC police in support of his premise, he elaborated, “When everything is normal and you’re just kind of living in your Pleasantville life, there’s nothing funny. But when people are saying things to you on the internet and on television and…you’re not allowed to think or be critical, that’s when comedy is really at its best — that’s when comedy in a culture is doing its job.”
Come see me make fun of things in real life! https://t.co/p70xy6TMdr pic.twitter.com/RMM7pL6No9
— John Crist (@johnbcrist) June 29, 2023
“…freedom of speech is not removing things,” he argued. “It’s just intelligent people sorting things out for themselves and having all the information and not giving attention to ideas that are not wise and not helpful, not the silencing of people. I think the more people can speak, the more we hear it, and they go, ‘Okay, yeah, enough of that.'”
“That’s what the left, I think, doesn’t understand about [former President Donald] Trump really is, the more you try to silence these things, the more people that are in the middle are like, ‘Wait, what? Hold on, I want to hear what he has to say,'” Crist suggested.
“Speech-wise, when you try to force information on us, that’s when we as comics make fun of it,” he detailed.
Touching on the left versus right dynamic, the comedian argued the vast majority don’t fit into the polarized categories, “Unfortunately, the extremists on either sides push the extremists on the other sides. There’s, I would say…90, 95 percent of us are just these people in the middle that would like to work hard, feed their families, pay their taxes and love this country.”
As to crossing the line to make people laugh, the Christian comedian argued it could still be done without being crass, “You just have to make sure it’s done well. I think, right before I press publish on a video or make a joke on stage, I look at myself in the mirror, I go: ‘Do I believe in this? Is this really something that I want to go to bat for?'”
“As a comic that’s kind of our job, not to make it more serious than it is but, in the culture … it’s important on both sides that freedom of speech is welcomed,” he told Fox News Digital.
Feedback from audiences has supported his efforts as he explained, “When all of this kind of started, I guess in 2020, where the whole perspective shifted in this culture where you can’t say things and you’re choosing sides … I’ve gotten so many emails from people that just say, ‘Thank you so much, laughter truly is a good medicine.'”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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