Why all the best comedians are woke
Also, why conservative comedy sucks
What is “woke comedy” ?
There's an inherent irony in how the term 'woke' has been culturally appropriated. It was originally coined within the African American community as a descriptor for individuals aware of social issues, particularly racial justice. Now, 'woke' is misused all the time, from free-range eggs, to people don’t like sex crimes, to this post!
When I talk about wokeness in terms of comedy, I don’t mean comedy being sickly sweet or about social justice. It doesn’t mean being nice - you can be an asshole! Just be an asshole that writes good jokes and is aware of their own ass-holeness. I just mean empathy and awareness. To me that seems like the muddied version of “woke” we have around today.
Empathy is the ability to see things from other people’s point of view. It’s the ability to realise there is a human not that different from yourself behind even the darkest observations. It’s realising that in most cases, you are the person responsible for your own failures.
If you don’t approach your subject matter with empathy, then you aren’t fully exploring a joke. You’ll only ever appeal to other people that don’t have empathy. Whereas if you have empathy, you’ll likely appeal to both sides. Surely you want the majority of a room laughing rather than half a room of knuckle-heads?
I don't want to bring politics into this because I don't really follow politics, other than “ugh”.
It occurs to me that having full empathy, and selective empathy is what splits so much of the world. It definitely seems to split left and right politics. A conservative person cares deeply for their perfect victim, the foetus, but not really for the mother. They care for the imaginary child forced to switch genders - “Mommy, I don’t want a penis!” - but not for actual living trans people who are using their actual literal voices to say “We just want to be treated with respect!”.
If you only have selective empathy then you can come to the conclusion that the “eww” feeling you have towards whatever group you’re hating on is not your own prejudice, but somehow the fault of the group. Wrong! A group is made up of tons of vastly different people you dingus! How can you know what they’re all thinking? You only know what you are thinking.
A great comedian has the ability to see things from all sides. You must explore every angle in your comedy, and you can only do that if you have real empathy. To connect with your audience you always have to acknowledge that there is a real person behind the thing you are talking about, even if you hate that thing. A great comedian is able to morph with every new situation. Yes, a great comedian is “woke”! Woke means aware, aware of the current social tide and able to navigate it and wring all the best jokes out of the current situation. A poor comic is stuck in the past, and says things like “You can’t say anything anymore”, rather than looking to be the best comedian they can for the current moment.
Even everyone’s favourite edge-lord comics: your CKs, Jestlenicks and Burrs are woke comedians, they are able to see things from all sides. This is one of the reasons I find it difficult to watch CK now after the penis incidents, and his feeble apology. For dark material to work, you have to trust the person telling the joke. You have to trust that they don’t mean any real harm :/
Referring to the above meme. Is it a meme when it’s a quote? idk. As brutal is it is, it’s the “Of course a drowning child is bad” bit that makes it funnier and more relatable. It makes the punch hit harder. It would work as just the second part, but not as well.
Antony Jestlenick is not for everyone, but you have to admire his craft. He deliberately writes jokes about the darkest things one could imagine.
If something made me uncomfortable, I would take it as a challenge to try and make a joke about that. That's my only goal: to find things that you shouldn't joke about, and find a way to make a joke.
Lots of bad comedians also take this approach, thinking if they write about dark things, that’ll make them as funny as Anthony Jestlenick and they’re often way off. For a dark joke to really land it has to be well written, and your audience has to know you’re joking. The trouble with a lot of edgy wannabes is, their material is often so badly written, they just sound like assholes. In my opinion this joke works because it’s so absurd, obviously he didn’t send a kid to Africa! It also plays with your empathy in the setup in order to make the punch hit harder.
Why conservative comedy usually sucks
From what I have observed, liberal-minded people can put themselves in the shoes of anyone - it’s kind of what defines the genre. The values of an empathetic person tend to be based around the feelings of those involved in the situation at hand. Causing emotional or physical pain to a person is wrong and to be avoided (unless they really deserve it)! Whereas certain conservatives consider there is an already existing moral truth network that exists externally to us. Like a kind of truth electricity grid that runs around the earth made up of religion (the right kind), laws and constitutions and such. Therefore, it’s only wrong to cause pain to people on the grid.
Included on the network are a range of conspiracy theories just in case the grid strays from their already held beliefs, e.g. should the law require them to get a vaccine, or should one of their favourite celebrities get accused of something very un-biblical. The trouble with this grid is, it’s very old, and so much of it doesn’t fit with the modern day. So in order to hammer it to fit modern thinking and science, you have to make up straw men and perfect victims all over the shop. For example they have to fabricate that a group even as oppressed as refugees, are somehow a sinister lobby hell bent on destroying the fabric of our society. And this is what makes conservative comedy bad, it’s often based on bullshit! Now, it can be great if you call out the bullshit, but that’s the job of the wokerati.
Unfortunately, I do not have to respond at length. Briefly: That is a very important, thought-provoking and multi-layered text. Thank you, Caroline!
It feels like your point was missed on the reader. We need to stop nailing each other to the wall and look out for some healthy intentions, which yours were. I don't sense a lack of empathy about conservatives from any of your work in this article or generally. Perhaps we can use the word 'grace' and I do think you have shown it consistently towards all of your readers.