thwarts to intellectual freedom everywhere

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to anyone who thinks cancel culture is not real, you are not paying attention. The canaries in the coal mine are professional comedians who have their gigs canceled, their material constrained, their livelihood affected.

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maybe my top issue when voting should be a job guarantee for comedians. But it's really not.

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Originally Posted by ApatheticNoMore

maybe my top issue when voting should be a job guarantee for comedians. But it's really not.

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Haha goid one!

But I’m bringing this up as a social problem, not one that needs legislated. Yet anyway. And certainly the legislation that has been attempted circling back to White House efforts is pretty awful.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p-c2eUltH58

I enjoyed Bill Mahr’s piece about cancel culture “Explaining Jokes to Idiots.” In it he offers a sobering comment about how George Carlin stopped performing at mainstream venues and for homogenized audiences so that he could truly be himself and offer real truths to his audiences.

You know where Carlin went to do this comedy? college Campuses. And now they are the center of wokeness, the least tolerant of audiences.

edited to add: Mahr said. “ Kids once went to college to lose their virginity. Now they go there to lose their sense of humor.”

to anyone who thinks cancel culture is not real, you are not paying attention. The canaries in the coal mine are professional comedians who have their gigs canceled, their material constrained, their livelihood affected. As Mahr said we should require a moment of silence in our society for the loss of insightful jokes because the number of off-limit subjects deemed offensive is growing exponentially.

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To your point about the canaries in the coal mine--I agree with you completely that if we start canceling our comedians, that is very bad sign. SNL is a perfect example: Lately, headlines have proclaimed the show is on its last legs and other headlines talk bout how "upset" fans are by one skit or another, like the one a week or so about about January 6.

Here's a good article if you can get past the registration dialogue box to read the whole thing, but just the headline makes a point: "Saturday Night Live’s big dilemma: How to write a political joke for an audience that’s done laughing."

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Originally Posted by catherine

To your point about the canaries in the coal mine--I agree with you completely that if we start canceling our comedians, that is very bad sign. SNL is a perfect example: Lately, headlines have proclaimed the show is on its last legs and other headlines talk bout how "upset" fans are by one skit or another, like the one a week or so about about January 6.

Here's a good article if you can get past the registration dialogue box to read the whole thing, but just the headline makes a point: "Saturday Night Live’s big dilemma: How to write a political joke for an audience that’s done laughing."

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SNL is such a problem because so much of it just isn’t funny. I don’t watch it when it is broadcast, but I do watch clips on YouTube of skits getting lots of buzz. The cream rises for us all to get the best of it via YouTube.

But to the point of what is funny and who finds comedy unfunny…the times they are a changin. I haven’t seen the new guy doing a Trump impersonation but I hear he’s better than Alex Baldwin. I’m not a Trump supporter so it’s really not about politics. Melissa doing Sean Spicer was probably the best thing to come out of that season.

I listen to the podcast Dana Carvey and David Spade do which is largely about SNL years. They always have someone on the interview, someone who is associated with SNL in some way. Dana does a great imitation of Lorne Michaels.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

I haven’t seen the new guy doing a Trump impersonation but I hear he’s better than Alex Baldwin. I’m not a Trump supporter so it’s really not about politics.

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James Austin Johnson is unbelievable as Trump. Check out the video, but go to 4:09 to get to his bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU-WdnXJabs

That voice is spot on. So is the content! Unfortunately, he looks like James Cromwell from Babe and I love James Cromwell and I can't unsee it.

Catherine I couldn’t see your link but I did look him up on YouTube. He is exactly it. Now I remember I did see him earlier walking along New York City streets in the Scooby Doo piece. But with make up and a good set he’s golden as Donald J. Trump.


DJT’s Stream of consciousness way of talking has always been… Kind of funny to me. And fascinating as if I’m watching a crazy person.

Our new cat is quite a talker. I’m not a fan of talking cats which is one reason why I deliberately avoid the skinny talking Siamese types. But he’s here now and he is our boy, and he talks a lot. My friend suggested I rename him “Donald” for his endless yakking that makes little sense.

That’s funny about your cat. SNL hasn’t been funny in decades except for a few skits.

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Originally Posted by catherine

To your point about the canaries in the coal mine--I agree with you completely that if we start canceling our comedians, that is very bad sign. SNL is a perfect example: Lately, headlines have proclaimed the show is on its last legs and other headlines talk bout how "upset" fans are by one skit or another, like the one a week or so about about January 6.

Here's a good article if you can get past the registration dialogue box to read the whole thing, but just the headline makes a point: "Saturday Night Live’s big dilemma: How to write a political joke for an audience that’s done laughing."

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I listened to Al Franken on a podcast talk about a very early SNL skit where a woman had breast cancer and had breast amputation, and how her husband was treated as the unhappy victim in that satiric comment on male selfishness. That was back circa 1980 And I remember thinking it was funny.

I think that joke would not fly today. I remember that someone I worked with was very unhappy about making any kind of joke about breast cancer, but that’s not what the joke was about, yet I suspect fragility amongst most of society today would not support that joke.

I’m not sure what the taboo topics are in my mind, I suppose they are child abuse and animal abuse. And yet, the recent Balanciaga saga is rich material for satiric jokes, even though I can’t make them. I could appreciate them though if someone clever made the jokes.

I am watching the Elon Musk unveiling of Biden adjacent involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop story on his Twitter platform. I don’t know if any more than we already know is going to shake out, but I was pleased to see Barry Weis involved in that journalistic investigation. She is a 1st amendment supporter of major proportion. Surprisingly, a diminishing number of journalists are dedicated to First Amendment these days. And I guess the ACLU has abandoned it as a cause worth defending all together.