With all of the heavy subjects this week, I decided to inject a bit of actual comedy into this week’s Lexicon. (Finally!) British comedian and now-infrequent awards show how Ricky Gervais has a new special on Netflix that has garnered a lot of attention from Leftists…for all the “wrong” reasons. Leftists attacked Gervais for making jokes about trans people and mentioned one of their favorite new defenses against comedy, “punching down.”
I watched the special because I was curious (and I think Gervais is genuinely funny) and I can confirm he didn’t punch any children or midgets. Then, I thought about it and realized Leftists mean something completely different. No less stupid, but different.
punching down
What the Left thinks it means – when a privileged person mocks or hurts a less-privileged person
What it really means – Leftists choosing which sacred cows aren’t to be made fun of
In a statement what will surprise no one, Leftists have an inflated sense of self-worth, especially in the area of comedy. In recent years, they’ve managed to change comedy from telling jokes to making social statements where jokes may or may not be used. And more often than not, they don’t (unless they steal jokes like Amy Schumer). With a good number of comedians aligning with the Left, Leftists think they are the only truly funny people out there.
Which brings us to the new rules they’ve adopted and expect all other comedians to follow. One of these rules is not to punch down, meaning not to joke about people less fortunate or powerful than you are. On the surface, it makes sense in a weird way. We don’t want to intentionally hurt people who may lack the ability to come back on equal footing because we’re at least trying to look like good people.
The problem is, as Steve Martin so eloquently put it on one of his albums, comedy is not pretty. A lot of comedy involves some element of pain, discomfort, or disruption. That’s why the Marquis de Sade was the hottest stand-up comedian of his day. (True story…I guess.) Even jokes that involve questioning the reason a chicken crosses a road require one party’s life to be interrupted to try to answer said question. And don’t get me started on the perverse nature of knock-knock jokes!
The Left’s demands to punch up instead of punch down shows how little they actually know about comedy. Comedy is the great equalizer because everyone can be the butt of a joke. Elon Musk, a homeless person, it doesn’t matter. To set up an arbitrary limit on who can be joked about is to remove that equality and limit the potential comedic targets. That limits the jokes that can be told. After a while, you will run out of jokes that pass Leftist muster, which leads to the jokes becoming stale and predictable like an episode of “Two and a Half Men.”
But then there’s the comedic conundrum that is “Will & Grace.” This is one of the Left’s favorite sitcoms because of its inclusion and representation of gay characters. I watched a couple of episodes back during its original run and came away wondering why it was such a beloved show on the Left. The comedy, such as it was, seemed obsessed with the gay lifestyle instead of, you know, being funny. And when one of the secondary foils of the show is an over-the-top exaggeration of a gay man and his humor revolves solely around him being gay, I guess I fail to see how this is positive and funny. But apparently it didn’t punch down, so yay, I guess?
On the flip side, there’s “Married With Children.” Throughout its run, the show offended everyone at some point (except for sick freaks like me, apparently) and kept punching up, down, sideways, and all around. Even as controversy raged, there were no fucks given and they continued to be equal opportunity offenders. The same can be said for “South Park,” “Beavis and Butthead,” and a handful of other successful shows. Why did these shows survive and flourish?
Because they understood what was funny and didn’t try to limit the jokes to avoid offending people without senses of humor.
The whole concept of punching up or punching down is absurd, and not in a humorous way. Comedy does have the ability to open minds and change opinions. If it weren’t for comedians like George Carlin and Dennis Miller, I wouldn’t be the man I am today, for better or worse. But the best lessons come from times when you learn without even knowing it because you were having too much fun. Granted, I wouldn’t want to try to learn nuclear physics by watching “Wheel of Fortune” but the point remains the same. We don’t need to be beat over the head with a message to get it.
That’s where Leftist comedy always fails. Well, that and the fact they’re rarely intentionally funny. For Leftists, the message is everything, so it becomes the focal point of any comedy at the expense of any actual comedy. It’s the difference between Dave Chappelle and Hannah Gadsby. Chappelle’s comedy has a message (one that Leftists love to distort for the purposes of getting outraged) while Gadsby’s comedy is only about the message Even when Chappelle bombs, he still has a process to either rework it into something better or dump the bit altogether. Gadsby doesn’t have that option. Plus, you wouldn’t know if she bombed because the sound of crickets in the audience drowns out any laughter.
The funny (strange, not haha) about the concept of not punching down is how fragile the Left thinks some groups are. Granted, these are the same morons who tell us “jokes are violence” and “words are violence,” but this is beyond even that level of what-the-actual-fuck-ism. If someone telling a joke at your expense or at the expense of your group identity causes you emotional or psychic damage, it may not be because the joke is mean-spirited; it may be because you have deeper issues than someone telling a joke, and you’re going to need someone more specialized than Patch Adams to address them.
Going a step further, Leftists feel that every minority group is oppressed and only they can speak for the oppressed. This is especially true of white Leftists, I’ve found. They have savior complexes that would put Superman to shame. But in doing so, they’ve stolen the groups’ voice and used it for their own selfish purposes: to make them look better. That’s a gut punch down, if you ask me!
Then, there’s the other major problem, that being not all members of the group may feel the same way or take offense. There have been a number of gay and trans people openly supporting Gervais’ special, saying it was funny and…non-offensive! How will Leftists respond? The way they always do: ignoring or belittling the people who disagree with them. Now, if words are violence and Leftists mock gay and trans people who liked the Gervais special, wouldn’t that be a hate crime? You make the call!
Either way, it’s not worth the time to worry about whether a comedian is punching up or down because all it does is limit comedy to the point of banality. Laugh at what you want, don’t laugh at what you don’t, and remember to keep a healthy perspective. Even when a comedian hits a group you identify with, it’s not personal, and you have to admit even Republicans and conservatives do things worthy of being mocked openly. I do it, but when the Left keeps serving up mock-worthy topics like punching up, it’s hard to pass up!
Tag: outrage
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
Since Tara Reade came forward with allegations former Vice President Joe Biden sexually assaulted her, the Left has been in two modes: attack the accuser and the Right, and defend a man who in on video sniffing females’ hair. When people of all political stripes point out the Left’s double standard, the Left talks about “fake outrage” and suggests the people calling them out don’t really care about women, just scoring political points.
You know, like they did with Brett Kavanaugh?
However, it is interesting to look at how the Left uses outrage to achieve ideological goals. Before we do that, let’s define the term.
outrage
What the Left thinks it means – an expression of righteous anger over a grave injustice
What it really means – the rhetorical equivalent of holding your breath to get your way
Today’s society is an emotional minefield. Say something, do something, or believe something that offends a Leftist’s feefees, and you are subject to a world of hurt. If you’re lucky, they will stalk you, find out every piece of information they can about you and release it to the world, protest in front of your house, leave threatening messages for you and your family, contact your employer to get you fired, and make you look like Sybil’s crazier cousin. Just think of what they might do if you did something really bad!
This is only possible due to outrage. Leftists love mobs because they give the impression of popular opinion without the niggling little detail of confirming whether the mob actually represents popular opinion. The other aspect of this is volume, as in loudness. A mob can make a lot of noise, which underlines the impression of public opinion being on its side. It, too, fails to go the extra step to confirm whether the public agrees with the mob.
Let’s look at ANTIFA, for example. This group of happy-go-lucky miscreants make a lot of noise and come out in droves, and the Left uses them to justify their positions on social injustice. It’s a win-win for them…until ANTIFA starts breaking the law and the Left has to pretend they don’t agree with ANTIFA’s methods (Spoiler Alert: they do). And all of this is made possible through outrage.
And, unfortunately, outrage works. Humans have a natural desire to be accepted by a community, and anything that threatens that makes us defensive. Imagine a bunch of blue-haired pink pussy hat wearing Leftists appearing outside your house saying you were Adolf Hitler. The most obvious response is to deny it and try to persuade others (and possibly the mob) you aren’t. Some will believe you, but most will either keep quiet or agree with the mob to avoid having the mob come after them. Or at least to try to get the blue-haired pink pussy hat brigade to stay out of their begonias.
Here’s the funny thing: the Left is always outraged about something, which is as close to a perpetual motion machine as we will see in our lifetimes. As a result, the world outside of their ideological bubble will tick them off at the drop of a microaggression, and we will all have to walk through the resulting minefield while wearing clown shoes. It’s not a matter of if we’ll offend them; it’s a matter of when.
This brings us back to fake outrage, which is a way for the Left to defend themselves against those who see what they do as fake. The Left believes all of their motives are noble and anyone who doesn’t agree is ignoble. Therefore, all of their fake outrage is real and all of our real outrage is fake. And, yes, I realize this makes no sense, but the Left don’t care about facts and logic, only feelings.
Oddly enough, that is exactly how to overcome the Left’s outrage. They need to feel it, but we don’t. If we accept what they believe to be true, we surrender the rhetorical high ground to them. If we don’t, all they have to fall back on is their outrage, which inevitably escalates and makes them seem a lot less persuasive and a lot more cray-cray. Eventually, the line between true outrage and abject insanity gets so blurred as to be non-existent, and the Left is pretty much tap-dancing on the line as it is. As a result, it’s easy to turn their outrage against them by denying them the oxygen for their outrage bonfire.
This isn’t to say the Left is completely full of bullshit when they get outraged. Most of the time, yes, but sometimes they do bring legitimate points to the table, albeit couched in layers of bullshit. I do believe there is a stigma around victims of sexual assault and it needs to be called out no matter who it is maintaining the stigma. On the flip side, there are also people who are unscrupulous enough to make up sexual assault allegations for any number of reasons, which furthers the stigma. I observe Tara Reade’s allegations with the same critical eye I used with Christine Blasey Ford’s: there may be something there, but we need a full investigation to be sure to make sure we move forward with the right course of action. One based not on outrage, but on facts.
The Left doesn’t agree. Whether it’s male college students, a Supreme Court nominee, or a former Vice President, their course of action is the same: protect the Left, no matter how absurd it makes them look. Knowing this makes it possible to see the Left’s outrage for what it is: a temper tantrum designed to get people to knuckle under to whatever they want, only to have them throw another one the next time they want something. As any parent who has had to deal with this from their children will tell you, it never ends well.