The World Is Not Standup Comedians’ Personal 24/7 Roast And They Need To Sit Down And Shut The Fuck Up
It’s been four weeks since Will Smith slapped the Pootie Tang out of Chris Rock’s mouth, which as far as the news cycle is concerned means it may as well have happened in a Shakespeare play. I’ve been hesitant to comment for a number of reasons, chief among those being that I don’t think it’s culturally appropriate for me, a white person, to comment on an altercation between two black men; and also because, being from Philly myself, I would absolutely deliver you a quick taste like Doordash if you talked shit about my wife. I can’t stress this enough: Philly is not playing around with your goofy ass. We beat the fuck out of a pile of garbage because it had the audacity to call itself a robot and ask for a ride. We will definitely send Chris Rock’s snide and insincere grin to the dentist.
But it still bugs me, because it represents a much bigger social problem, which is that standup comedians have long been treating the world like it’s their personal stage, and we are the unwilling audience that has to suffer their constant barrage of dumb ass jokes. Comedians: if I want to endure your insipid views on COVID or why your wife needs to make more sandwiches, I will pay to see you in the den of shameless whores you naturally inhabit, that being comedy clubs. In all other cases I want nothing to do with you, and you should sit down and shut your fucking mouths.
For starters, most of you are just not nearly as funny as you think you are. Chris Rock got a Fresh Prince Special for a G.I. Jane joke for fuck’s sake. Eighty percent of you didn’t even understand that reference when he told it. This man was paid more money to host one show than I make in a year as a college instructor, and the only reason you even remember that joke is because it sucked so bad it made a grown man physically assault him. You definitely don’t remember any of the others he told, because why would you?
Whatever. The Academy hired him to do exactly what he does, so I have little to gripe about there; I am under no obligation to watch it, and didn’t aside from the two minutes that was accidentally interesting. There is, however, a difference between “telling jokes” and “being a public jerkass,” and that’s the topic I want to discuss. Being a comedian is not a carte blanche license to roast anyone and everyone in earshot. There are different kinds of humor. Will Rogers hosted the Oscars back in 1934 and he sure didn’t need to make anyone feel like shit to do the job, nevermind poking at their medical conditions beyond their control. That’s not comedy, that’s just being a god damn bully. A long time ago my grandmother told me that there’s only ever one way to deal with bullies, and it appears Will Smith had a similar childhood discussion.
Why the fuck do we even still have stand-up comedians? It’s SO BIZARRE, y’all. This single aspect of vaudevillian fare has clung on even when all the rest have long disappeared. Stage magicians and animal handlers had their last gasps in the 70s and 80s, and there hasn’t been a David Copperfield or a Siegfried and Roy since. You can’t even name a ventriloquist or a professional clown. Shields and Yarnell had a fucking mime show on television when I was a kid; now Robert Shields comes to Tucson twice a year to sell paintings at the 4th Avenue Street Fair. The old ways are dead, except for one confusing holdout that utterly refuses to go down with dignity. Imagine how weird it would be if there were world-famous jugglers going on Joe Rogan to complain about how cancel culture is keeping them from throwing bowling pins at each other. That’s exactly how weird it should feel when comedians do it.
Yet standup still thrives, regardless that we have so many other avenues of humor which are frankly better and funnier. I have laughed harder at random Twitter users’ 140-character blurbs than anything that has ever come out of Tig Notaro’s or Jim Gaffigan’s mouths. That standup is now chiefly absorbed via the internet in truncated video clips shows you just how much we require a grown adult person to lecture us from a stage about social ills for an hour and a half. If I wanted that experience I would take Chomsky’s class at U of Arizona and at least get three degree credits for my trouble and money.
Again, whatever. Comedians are free to pursue any jobs they can get, and if people want to sit in the dark and watch Louis C.K. turn into a right-wing incel before their eyes, that is between them and their wallets. What they are not free to do is treat the rest of the world as fodder for their act. Alarmists will say shit like “comedy has to be able to criticize or we lose valuable freedoms” or whatever but: come on my dude, who the fuck’s freedom is being threatened by you just not being a flat-out irresponsible rude dick? Yours and yours alone, and that’s not a freedom you should have in the first place. You’re not some vigilant warrior of the avant-garde defending our rights against fascism. You’re just an asshole.
And ASSHOLES SHOULD ABSOLUTELY BE SLAPPED. Remember when Richard Spenser was a thing? And then he said one too many pro-Nazi platitudes in public, and got popped in the grill for it? And then disappeared into the ether forever after? WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT TO LIVE IN THAT WORLD? That is the triumph of objective good over dickheads, and only fellow dickheads fear and denounce it. Chris Rock was a test case, and that test was 100% successful. Everyone loves “fuck around and find out” until they, in fact, are the ones caught fucking around.
