A 2020 Think Piece About Comedy

A call for entertainers, especially stand up comedians, to confront and answer for their role in oppression.

Uh-oh! Time to practice some self-awareness and vulnerability. I have been and refuse to continue to be part of the problem.

Cults and Culture

If you are doing comedy, you are operating within a culture whether you like it or not. If you don’t want to read think-pieces about stand up you are not only underestimating your individual social value as a comic but also the industry of stand up comedy as a whole.

Some people go to raves or college or yoga. Some people meet three times a week to talk about their addiction or God or both. These are intentional communities.

Stand up comics go to perform on shows or record podcasts. That is also an intentional community.

That might be hard to admit for an individual comic or booker who feels like a lone-wolf and independent in this space, but sorry! Failure to examine your environment and take stock of what is happening to it leaves you vulnerable to group-think, direct manipulation, and other social symptoms of apathy.

If you find you have a knee-jerk reaction to say It’s just a joke or classify stories of criminal acts as PC culture you might have already let your awareness slide.

Sometimes when we talk about mob-mentality we think about the people yelling at Frankenstein’s door. Refusing to care about issues is just as socially contagious as violence and just as effective at destroying the lives and well-being of others.

Good news!

You are an autonomous individual that is not bound to the tradition or conventions of a culture. You do not have to continue turning a blind eye to the suffering of women or minorities in your community. In fact, this time in history is an invitation to change your mind about all of that.

AND! This window of forgiving ignorance is closing.

First, Let’s be Clear

Soliciting sex from a minor is a criminal offense. Jerking off in front of a person that does not consent is a criminal offense.

They are not being “called out”. They are being Exposed as Criminals. They are dangerous people. They are not losing their careers or the love of their fans because they said a joke or had a weird sketch go south.

The failure of people at every level of entertainment to acknowledge this is a huge problem.

So, Let’s Talk About Race

Let us not forget that it was a black woman who blessed us with the #MeToo movement that began the change that has benefited all women, myself included. I no longer have any interest in talking about the sexism in comedy without also highlighting the racism- Both overt and covert.

There is an awareness about speaking on race as a white person during this time, both on stage and online. I have that awareness now, another gift from black people willing to bravely educate a culture that might very well reject and even hurt them for it.

This awareness of whiteness is long overdue. We are having a global conversation about how the nation has treated Black Americans and ignorance of that conversation is harmful. Not just to your career, honey, but also human lives that are fighting for equality as we speak.

If you are not researching anti-racism at a time when everybody has anti-racist materials all over their facebook feeds and in their fucking instagram bio, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re probably a massive racist. Especially if you own a venue or book shows.

If you are a leader and you ignore or argue with the people of color speaking out during this time, you are not doing your job.

If you are a community member and you are meeting people of color that are speaking out during this time with defensiveness, dismissiveness, and abusive behaviors, you are actively contributing to racism in your community. You are perpetuating the system that is being dismantled in real time and, if you don’t change your tune, you’re probably going to get tossed out with the rest of the trash.

Good riddance.

In Short

So far we’ve covered this: Comedy is an intentional community and is subject to the influences of social change just like any other institution during this time. It is not immune from critique and neither are the people that do jokes on stage. Additionally, racism in any community is unacceptable and deserves to be challenged no matter where it pops up and that challenge should be respected.

So, what can we now examine more clearly knowing this?

Well, we can realize that a lot of comics get called out for shit they say and some comics even get lit the fuck up on twitter. It seems comedians have a special relationship with call-out culture, from within and without.

(Jerry Seinfeld voice) What’s the deal with that?

Perhaps they are drawn to cliques that form around stand up because there is so little accountability in these communities- Or this is otherwise a perk.

Perhaps they start out with a moral sense of justice and it gets washed away by whiskey cokes ordered with a drink ticket from a rural bar where race jokes are just killing… literally.

Perhaps when a man jokes about being a bad person and gets laughs and validation for it, they feel better about their choices when they’re not on stage.

Perhaps when a man says that they are manipulating blow jobs out of an open-mic’er and everyone they are talking to laughs at it, they are able to blissfully continue treating women as transactional tools for pleasure. And for the people listening, they show by example how men in positions of power should view women.

This is why it has been much more common to not only speak about the obscene displays of privilege, sexual abuse, and discrimination by individuals in stand up but also the people that let that happen. The people that laugh.

And that’s not just other comics on a podcast. It’s the audience. It may very well be you. And I know for a fact it has been me.

Our tastes change as we become educated, ideally. But we cannot become educated without listening.

Okay, Leaders

People like comedy club owners, promoters, and bookers are the leaders in their communities.

I imagine all the people that wanted to book comedy or run a room did not think they would be in a position to understand and navigate social nuance like this.

I imagine most of them have a limited understanding of abuse, trauma, discrimination, racism, and sexism. I imagine they don’t fully understand the collective and individual repercussions of those things or how to step in when its fin is seen swimming in the water.

The reality of this lack of understanding may very well be why we are seeing the tower of Comedy Communities falling. It might not just be a symptom of the culture, but the reason this culture exists in the first place.

There is a culture around open mics, bar shows, and showcases. These comics begin their journey in comedy in it and they ascend to popularity in it. Just like a fraternity or a cult, the people that get famous represent the culture from which they came. Why do I see people in comments threads defending a representation that is so harmful?

Are they defending the parts of them that desire a level of freedom that does not have to answer to its victims?

Refusing to comment, make rules, or ask for support as a leader is not being humble. It is failing to take responsibility and neglecting the community. It leaves space for abuse, conflict, and, in many situations, it can cause trauma to others.

Yes, seeing your rapist on stage being celebrated by a crowd of people is traumatic.

Yes, hearing an ignorant understanding of racial tension on stage while you’re in the middle of a violent war for racial equality is traumatic.

Yes, comics can say whatever they want.

Yes, there will be repercussions.

No, you are not protecting free speech by abusing it.

No, we are not too sensitive- you are just too naive.