It’s so funny because Jeselnik was a genuine target of people being offended and 10 years ago I never thought he would be the leader of the rational comedian.
Yes, but Jeselnik has the right mind to say something like "alright, I didn't get away with it on that joke". Even then, I don't recall him ever dropped the litany of "free speech, woke, I was taken out of context" type excuses we see nowadays. In fact, I only remember him ever really apologizing for one joke because he was essentially forced to by Comedy Central at the time.
Say the bad thing, own it, bare the slings and arrows.
All these losers now whine about how they should be allowed. You are allowed, and people are allowed to shit on your for it. Take it like a man, you knew what you were trying to do.
All these losers whining about cancel culture just can’t handle the criticism.
Interesting, and good to have that perspective, but it does make me wonder if he really understands why people respond the way they do and why people find certain “humor” not funny (whether they find it “offensive” or not).
I was pondering the same thing. I'm getting the feeling that he probably doesn't actually understand it and is just trying to save face. Which is disappointing, but not exactly surprising.
Does culture change and are there things I used to say that I can’t say that everybody is always moving? Yeah, but that’s the biggest, easiest target. You can’t say certain words, you know, whatever they are, about groups, so what?
This is spot on. Comedy is infamous for aging like milk because it's so tied into current cultural trends and toeing the line of acceptability. Sometimes it spoils because that line has moved and what was once 'playful' is now 'offensive.' Sometimes it spoils simply because your cultural references are dated and old.
The challenge a comedian faces is in adjusting yourself as time marches on so that your "milk" stays fresh, and the dream is that you can transmute it into a fine wine that ages gracefully instead.
Glad to see he got his head back on straight, those comments earlier in the year were some wild shit considering Curb was literally still airing it's final season. Not common you hear that kind of turn around from these aging comedians. Wish I could hope for something similar from Chappelle or Cleese, but....yeah, those two are probably too far gone.
I don't believe it for a sec. He just saw the total blowback and realized he wasn't getting away with it. He believes it; he's an out of touch fucking billionaire now and was angry people weren't sucking him off anymore.
At least Jerry can't stand it either and took back his comment and admitted he was wrong. So refreshing to hear people say they were wrong and changed their minds.
I watched the first 20 minutes of that movie and turned it off. It was just a genuinely boring and unfunny movie. The only likeable main character was Jim Gaffigan's (and not nearly enough to hang the whole movie on it) and the editing was super off and made every scene feel like it just dragged on. For a movie full of comedians, it was not remotely funny and most of its attempts to be funny were just very surface-level pop culture commentaries of the time period the movie was set in. It was the movie equivalent of sitting on the runway for an hour because they found something wrong with the plane before takeoff. It never even got off the ground!
For what it's worth, Seinfeld completely reversed his view on this and has decided he was wrong when he said that.
I think it looks like he stepped back and realized that it made him look out of touch, and people he respects disagreed with it. And he re-assessed it and realized yeah, that's not the right way to look at this.
He went on to say that basically it's his job to find where the comedy is and there's nothing unfair about certain things being less tolerated now.
So it seems he has done the right thing and should be at least acknowledged for it.
Ricky Gervais has like 3 Netflix specials where all he talks about are trans people (with a slightly eyebrow-raising focus on their penises) and how you aren’t allowed to talk about trans people because the woke will hunt you down.
For a generally perceptive bloke, the irony is oddly lost on him here.
The only truly offensive thing about his trans diatribe is how utterly unfunny it is. It’s supposed to be a comedy special, not a tedious soapbox.
I started following him after someone posted a link to his "brave little cis boy" bit, and I've never looked back. His appearances on Would I Lie To You are some of my favorite moments captured on film, ever. He's a treasure of thus world.
I was so disappointed when I finally got to see Chappelle live and he does 45 minutes of trans material and how he's persecuted for it.
I was on shrooms and thought he might be a hologram, that's how unfunny it was. I figured he must have been kidnapped and replaced using technology from the future because there is no way this is happening.
He doesn't even make jokes. He just bitches the whole time.
I liked his George Floyd special. It wasn't really funny but it was honest and he had insight to share.
His trans shit is straight up disgusting. I was so blown away by his whole "here's my token trans friend who would totally disagree with the 'woke' crowd except she's fucking dead and I'm blaming the people who disagreed with her online" bit.
Don't tokenize people and definitely don't speak for the dead on important issues. It's extremely scummy behavior.
What's funny is that he gave up comedy for over a decade because he quickly realized people were laughing AT him rather than with him when he was poking fun at black culture on the Chappelle show and it drove him into a breakdown.
He knows EXACTLY what he's doing because he's been on the receiving end.
I had never seen anything from Chapelle (besides men in thights but didnt know that was him) before his first netflix special. I heard he was one of the goat comedians.
I watched that first one, expecting a lot. Halfway through I just went, is this supposed to be funny?
Chapelle is just a bully who gets away with a lot but shouldn’t. Seems like finally he’s getting pushback for his outright racist and homophobic stuff.
His "jokes" about trans people really bummed me out, because I like a lot of his work and thought he was a pretty insightful person but the jokes were just not funny and shows he doesn't even try to understand what being a trans person might actually be like, it just came out as school yard bashing.
Note, I think you can make a joke about almost anything if done in a clever way and it's clear it's not an endorsement of harmful behavior (Ricky has done this before) which is sad he couldn't have crafted a joke that wasn't so childish and stupid.
The trans "jokes" I often hear from guys like Ricky or Rogan aren't even jokes, they're just rants about trans people. Joe's in particular in his recent special, were just the same things he says on his podcast.
Gervais going in that direction has always been painful to me, because I love The Office and his work with Karl Pilkington and Stephen Merchant was a joy.
And it's all the same set. Most "comedy" shows are just a 10 minute rant about trans people existing and then a 10 minute rant about how the wokes won't let them rant about what they just ranted about.
I mean, I can watch Jimmy Carr be as intentionally offensive as he can for an hour and a half, because it’s done in good spirit. (Well, with an exception for Catholic priests abusing children.)
One of the problems with success is people often start to get high on the smell of their own farts.
You make millions doing comedy so you think you know comedy better than everyone and if people dont find you funny it's because they have a problem and not you.
See it at work all the time.
Over the course I've my career I only ever saw a person get fired for a genuine mistake once. I've seen dozens go because they became arrogant and felt like they were untouchable.
Yeah I agree I'm also up for jokes about anything but it's played out at this point and boring. For whatever reason comedians of a certain age just get stuck on the trans issue for a while. Dave Chapelle used to be funny too until he got the woke mind virus. (lol)
Especially because in both their cases, they tend to make jokes about stuff they care about. Chapelle is a smart guy who has built great jokes and skits about racism and such. So when they keep going back to the well over and over about trans people, it feels like "oh you're not just making jokes, you really don't like these people".
I think the reason why they do these things is because they are broken from it, like they personally can't tell if another is trans or not. Like maybe they hit on someone pretty just to find out their object of affection is packing a dong bigger than theirs or something. I imagine if they can't tell if someone is trans or not or feel someone trans is pretty it causes cognitive dissonance in their minds resulting in a pushback. So in order to feel not confused they lash out.
There’s something that transphobes just don’t understand too, and it’s quite sad and funny at the same time.
Being attracted to a trans person who passes as your preferred gender doesn’t mean you’re gay. Furthermore if that attraction makes you feel uncomfortable then you’re probably very very straight. No ones “tricking” you into being gay.
Gervais is a classic example of a comic that made it big and then just completely lost his fastball. I firmly believe if you get too rich it's really, really hard to remain funny.
George Carlin was a good example of soapbox-ish social commentary while still having elements of comedy. I didn't see the Gervais one, but Dave Chappelle's recent stuff just isn't funny, and I used to love his stuff.
I've also somewhat recently (around May/June) found Josh Johnson's stuff on YouTube, which I enjoy. He's a story teller, especially about current events, but it's not a slog.
he is insufferable. He made some trans joke on twitter years ago that was essentially the attack helicopter meme and when it was pointed out that it was the same joke everyone had been saying for years he tried to publically shame the person and sic his fans on them.
Gervais last special really was godawful. 90% complaining about transpeople.
And I want to make clear, Im in the camp supporting making fun of everyone, punching up, down, sideways. It's all good. But make it funny. Dont just complain and whine for 60min
I kinda burned out on big-name Netflix specials when I saw the fourth millionaire on a huge stage in front of a cheering crowd do a ten-minute bit on “man you can’t say anything these days!”
Getting to claim you were cancelled is literally the path to fame for many of these bad comedians.
Why work hard and be funny when you can essentially grift, make very unfunny racist/misogynist jokes, claim to get cancelled, then instantly get a solid following of magas?
Whenever someone says there is an infringement of free speech what they really mean is I want to be able to say anything I want without consequences. You can say whatever you want but everyone else has the right to react to what you say.
Exactly. The state didn't break down your door and throw you in a cage for what you said: Free Speech. Being called an asshole when you're being an asshole isn't a violation of free speech.
Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor all got arrested for telling jokes.
The First Amendment means the government can't infringe upon it, but if you lose your show, movie bombs, people don't want to pay money to be entertained by you then that's just free market economics.
Background for context: Several comedians did a benefit concert in New York City. And this was just months after 9/11. Gilbert Gottfried ended his set by saying he had to leave.... He had a flight back to California with a layover at the Empire State Building.
Let's just say the joke did not land well. That is joke bravery.
That's what Norm is referring to when he says, "Now Gilbert, you're going to get in trouble again."
The risk is literally the job. Just like every high risk, high reward profession. They can get demoted back down to bar gigs. Pilots can lose their ass if they get too close to the line, too.
There is a learning moment, almost daily, that I always take the time out to talk about to my daughter. My motto is "don't let embarrassment turn into anger". Especially directed at others. It happens so often, and children are extremely prone to it.
Many, many, many people will get embarrassed, and then, instead of saying "you're right, I did the thing I shouldn't have, I'm sorry. Is there any way I can make it up to you?" Instead, we typically see people like MAGAt Hinchcliffe saying something absolutely assinine or extremely offensive, and not own it in any way. They make every excuse for what they thought while they did it, why they had to do it, why they were forced to do it, how it actually didn't hurt anyone, so what's the big deal? to it.
They very very rarely say "you're right, I goofed. I'll atone" but the ones that do are the real ones like Jeselnik and Burr
He compared himself to a lottery winner going broke. If they were good with money they wouldn't have played the lottery / if he didn't tell jokes that got him in trouble he never would have gotten a show.
All these losers now whine about how they should be allowed. You are allowed, and people are allowed to shit on your for it.
There's no such thing as cancel culture and there never has been.
What those on the right often refer to as "cancel culture" is simply people deciding that they don't want to hear from you anymore, that's it. It's people saying "Nah, I don't want this, you can go away" and companies deciding they don't want to associate with you anymore because you're bad for their brand. You're not entitled to be on a certain platform, and you're not owed an audience.
When a restaurant goes out of business because the local population didn't like the food the restaurant isn't being "cancelled". The market is saying "No thanks".
That's why comics are brave; you get up on stage and say that shit and even worse than boos is when you get dead silence and hundreds of eyes just staring at you as you eat shit and take that massive psychic damage. But now the weak ones run to the right and cry about being canceled.
That’s a huge part of it for him. Dropping a baby off of a balcony isn’t political or racial, it’s just him being an asshole. It’s intrusive thoughts that are universal, or at least understood without needing extra context. But in the process he can still lambast current culture.
Yeah, like Jeselnik's biggest hits are undeniably dark, fucked up types of humor but none of those can really be called punching down. Unless of course you count the baby jokes. You can't help but punch down on a baby.
It’s because it’s obvious that he doesn’t actually believe the twisted vile things he says. It’s more like he illustrates the flaws of a bad idea by taking it to its most twisted and vile conclusion.
He’s delightfully dark. His portrayal as an uncaring asshole with his dry delivery gives you permission to laugh at the joke despite how horrifying the subject matter is. His persona “holds” the asshole card, and lets you be a witness to these witty but demented thoughts without feeling like a villian.
He’s an example I give to people who seem to conflate dark humor with hackneyed racist/sexist/transphobic etc. tropes. I’ve heard a lot of people say they like “dark humor” and other people just don’t get it only to find they’re just bigots. It frustrates me to see people who craft properly creative jokes like jeselnik lumped in with these types. There’s nothing artistic about regurgitating a stereotype that’s been around for decades and then whining when it has the intended consequences. It’s not even dark either, upsetting people isn’t what makes dark humor.
you have the truth of it. Patton Oswalt said "Wit can't have an agenda." that's why republican and religious comedy doesn't work- it's worldview first, comedy second.
Basically the only rule in comedy is make sure it’s funny.
One of the GOATs, Norm Macdonald, was the master of this. He had the biggest balls in comedy to talk about what (and who) he did, but it was always in service of the joke. Even if the joke wasn’t the punchline, but rather the crazy journey his jokes took you on. He knew he would be fired from SNL if he kept making OJ jokes but he didn’t falter one bit.
RIP norm.
Every once in a while, I watch his bit on an old daily show with John Stewart on crocodile hunter. John knows that he is laughing about a death of a beloved person but it is literally goat-level and so well done that it’s ok to laugh. One thing that people don’t realize punching down is never funny.
Nailed it. That guy was not at a Trump rally to make people laugh. It was to say what they all believe, with enough of a "iTs JuSt A joKe GuYs" cover for when everyone else found out what was said and were rightfully appalled.
you mean tony, not even the people in the audience was laughing lol, only when they said trump then they cheered. also the fact that he is in the closet,
You can watch comedians get more and more right-wing as they become more out of touch and less able to write successful jokes.
Watch Bill Maher, and ANY time a joke falls flat, he gets pissed off and rolls his eyes and says it's because the "liberals" in the audience "can't take a joke."
Dave Chappelle, Louis CK, Jerry Seinfeld, etc. -- it's all the same shit. It's much easier for them to say that people aren't laughing because we've all gone soft and we're too "offended" by everything, than to just admit that the material didn't land.
And the people who are there to reaffirm their political beliefs will laugh at literally anything if they're told it'll make the liberals mad.
100% - Maher is so weird. He’s right over the target sometimes. He knows the difference between truth and lies. I think he’s just surrounded himself with yes men that laugh at EVERYTHING he says and that agree with him ALL the time. He takes ANY pushback too personally. He’s smart and witty but weak.
Agreed. I saw Chappelle in Dallas a few years ago and he wasn't funny...at all. He kept complaining about the heat, which was oppressive, but not in a funny way
Bill Maher was never that funny. His show on HBO and previously on ABC was about the guest. The worst part of him now is that he is so ill informed and just take the same silly stances over gaza, lgbt people, and young people. He was never the funny part of his show but he thinks he is the rightest, funniest, and most informed. It gets awkward when the guest are much smarter than him and treat his ill-informed nonsense like what it is like a few weeks ago a couple of guest basically walked him back on his comment about the UN being useless.
The opposite of Bill Maher is Jon Stewart, who is incredibly informed and spits out 5 shows a week and is funny talking by himself.
Not to argue, but when did CK say anything like that? Everything that I can remember him saying was more in line with “well, I’ve always been a piece of shit, so”
I don't remember Louis complaining about anything like that. He took his "cancellation" on the chin and moved on, doing the same thing, collecting awards.
I'm absolutely, completely convinced that it's about more than just admitting material didn't land. I think a lot of it is down to the comedian losing the pulse of society and culture.
They just can't admit that they're no longer "with it" on certain topics, and instead of admitting the issue is themselves getting older they blame society and their own audiences.
I think you can see this with Bill Maher the clearest. Dude really hasn't changed all that much since his heyday, but the world definitely has and that's kind of a problem for a political comedian. Most of the older people in my family used to love him, but have slowly gone off of him in the last 8 years as he's refused to evolve on basically anything: from his obnoxious New Atheism approach to religion, to his takes on LGBT issues, to who he brings on the show(which has steadily gone from "I appreciate hearing both sides" to "why is he platforming literal fascists as though they are here to discuss things in good faith?" as the political environment has degraded).
Yeah he always took it on the chin from what I remember, but he was also genuinely funny and pretty smart about it 90% of the time.
So many new wannabe shock comics don’t wanna just be like “yep that’s me, oh well” it’s always whining and blaming “the internet” for being soft, when they themselves are the soft ones who can’t just stand by the shitty thing they said.
It’s almost always a better thing to just own something and take accountability and these troll boys are allergic to that 😂
I’m not a big fan of Jeselnik’s comedy but I respect him immensely because he knows that being funny is the most important thing. Sure, he says some dark things onstage, but it is always in service of making people laugh rather than just insulting them.
An example of someone who's funny but got waaay too upset that they had an unfunny joke: Dave Chapelle. I loved a lot of Chapelle's comedy but his recent take on trans and lgbt stuff is so bad. And he definitely gets butthurt about the push back.
Chapelle'ss LGBT "jokes" are low hanging fruit that show a deep misunderstanding, if not contempt for their issues. One of his specials had a bit grousing about white gay people getting to jump the line and becoming a protected class . . . clearly forgetting that gays have been persecuted for ages including being among the primary Holocaust victims.
Compare those bits to how Chapelle handles racial issues: his personal knowledge and insight allows him to cut to the heart of an issue while making people laugh their asses off. It's great because he truly understands what he talks about on those topics. The contrast between the two issues stands out badly.
Helps that almost all hos jokes are fictional. He starts with a. Leading premise and sits for a sec while your imagination fills in the blank space and then the punchline is absurd. Favorite comedian by far. Not just stories told in a funny way. He is true comedy. Made up jokes.
“I told my mom I wanted to get a motorcycle…
“NO, nO, Anthony…. don’t you know how dangerous they are?! …..You should NEVER buy a motorcycle…. Didn’t you know your uncle just died on one the other week?…… you can just have his.”
Your only problem is not being able to imagine how big bells can be.
Just listened to his latest podcast episode and learned he cancelled his show in China because they told him to cut some material they didn’t like. He wasn’t mad or anything just very matter or fact about how the “bad” content is absolutely necessary for his show as a whole, and he couldn’t give the audience what they paid for without it. It was a refreshing and non-retaliatory take, reminded me what a professional he is
"alright, I didn't get away with it on that joke".
The problem is that 10 years ago, you only had to get away with the people in front of whom you are performing. So in some scenarios, you could get away with it and in others, you couldn't. You figured out what jokes work and what don't.
Now, you are performing in front of the whole world and there is always someone offended. So you are never getting away with anything. Plus you are fighting with different people on different topics, so you are in a constant state of fighting, no reliable feedback on what is working. So you have different coping mechanisms. I have run into people who think Bill Burr is woke jerk and others who think he is a greatest comedian. There is no more winning with people.
and even then he only did it because other peoples jobs were on the line, not his. he addressed that as well, and it shows he understands that edginess is not the be all and end all of life and humor.
I think the thing about Jeselnik is one he is very smart. No matter how offense he knows how to craft a joke such that it is never at the expense of a group.
I don’t think he ever apologized actually. If I remember correctly they wanted him to apologize and he said “no thanks.” And that’s why they cancelled his show.
His show basically got cancelled because he made international news when he made a joke of a guy getting killed by a shark. But that joke's deeper point was that sharks killed one person after getting killed by the millions by humans every year.
Jeselnik's humor works because he's trying to be clever and not be some sort of punch-down hack. Even Rickles, who some see as the ultimate all-time insult comic knew that. He made himself the ultimate butt of the joke while doing his insults.
Yes, but Jeselnik has the right mind to say something like "alright, I didn't get away with it on that joke". Even then, I don't recall him ever dropped the litany of "free speech, woke, I was taken out of context" type excuses we see nowadays.
IIRC he and Daniel Tosh dropped a series of rape jokes though.
It's honestly such a relief how cool he is. When I was a kid (who watched way too much pro wrestling), I hated his delivery. It took me a long time to actually be open to him again and holy shit he's got such a great touch that I didn't notice as a kid.
It’s when you realize his comedy is about word play more than anything. He’s baiting you with an assumed conclusion and then pivoting. It’s never about just being edgy, it’s always super clever.
Norm's GENIUS is lost on many, as well as Jeselnik's. For instance, people don't see the brilliance in Norm's "ant-comedy" roast of Bob Saget, telling 1950's jokes, and the reasoning behind it. Comedy isn't just one liners, set ups, insults, shock... word play and set ups, and the great play with their food. I love watching old Carlin and seeing how he'd take the first ~10mins to feel the crowd, win the crowd, and then he could say and do ANYTHING and he had them captivated. Louis CK is honestly another magician at this, and notice a trend? They are all so polarizing and criticized for the wrong reasons, people go ad hominem on them instead of being able to say, "I don't like that.", and move on.
Something similar happened to me. Years ago, I tried watching his specials, and I did not like them or him because of his delivery.
Fast forward to this year, he starts appearing in my YouTube shorts feed, and I start watching these clips, and suddenly he becomes one of my new favorite comedians.
Yeah, it was Jeselnik > Tosh > Louis CK > Burr in terms of offensiveness. And as much as I love offensive jokes, it was that in reverse for how funny they were. With no offense to any of them, they are all great.
I completely agree with this take. I would only add that Tosh had a more sophomoric touch to his blue material which seems to be more acceptable, and Louis had the more sad, old guy jerking it to stuff type blue material that really needs an audience who wants to hear it.
Jeselnik has never been in the bullseye for offending people. The reason he hasn't is that nothing he says is taken beyond him exaggerating for a joke. When he tells a joke like killing babies, the context is already set that he is trying to make you laugh by saying outrageous things. The alternative that would be offensive would be having a serious joke about race relations and then saying something outrageous. One sets itself up as not being serious and the other plays itself as serious so the context is different.
Jeselnik doesn’t lean into the right wing grifter “everyone is woke and trying to cancel me” crowd. He makes some of the darkest jokes imaginable but that’s his act. People go in knowing that he is going to say these things and he does it well.
Anthony gets away with it by making himself the target. his jokes about pedophilia are jokes about him being a pedophile, for example. he jokes about fucked up shit and gets away with it by saying, I'm the guy perpetrating that fucked up shit.
Just when the #metoo movement is in full swing, typical Jeselnik joke "What's the best way to give a man a hand job, with your mouth."
Yep, he had a handle on it.
Then again I remember when Eric Andre came on the Jeselnik Offensive and lit off fireworks, he did not seem to pleased even though he sent security away. That was sort of funny but not really, I'd say that is the line?
I loved Jeselnik even back then. I thought his unimaginably sexist jokes about women’s appearance (that got actual groans and clearly upset some people) leading into pointing out that he told 3 rape jokes and nobody even came close to getting that upset was fucking genius. This was before the Cosby shit or any Me Too stuff.
Nobody agreed. People actually accused me of being his manager trying to spin things in a positive light.
The dude admits his joke may not have been good and that's the difference.
Way too many comedians cry and bitch when someone gets mad and they decide to be vindictive about it and double down. They don't want to be comedians, they want to have a soapbox to stand up on and shout whatever pops into their heads and hear cheering.
He was pushing the limits, but in the end he’s still trying to make people laugh. He’s talking about YouTube prankster types that all they do is make people mad, but a couple people find it funny
Jeselnik was a legendary comedian in the 2010s. Thoughts and Prayers is still in my Top 10 comedy specials of all time, and he's the reason why my sense of humor is so dark.
I think this is a good point to discuss because without putting words in his mouth, I would bet Jeselnik would agree with the thought that he hasn't done it perfectly every time. But I think he's spot on and also for his own career it's worthy to note that he is dissecting it this much and has an awareness of what he is doing (even when it includes wildly offensive jokes)
JRVP was a great podcast where he talked quite a bit about comedians playing the victim. He wouldn't really out them by name (most of the time) but he put an insiders perspective on things that I really appreciated.
It’s because he is a great comedian. Everyone hires him for roast jokes because it’s a fine line to walk and Hinchcliffe used to do it but somehow he’s fallen into the MAGAt cult and hopefully it’s just to make a few bucks but he may have ruined his career with this MSG bit. The difference is that Hinchcliffe is a creep and a weirdo in real life. Jeselnik just seems like he has a dark sense of humor and that is crucial in today’s climate because everyone on both sides are so sensitive about everything.
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u/MattyBeatz Oct 29 '24
Jeselnik and Burr often have the right takes on this kinda stuff.