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george case writer essays and ideas george case writer essays and ideas menu skip to content home about the author that s not funny ever notice how serious comedy has become the art of eliciting laughter like just about every other form of leisure and entertainment is today a political marker that aggravates the social polarization once driven solely by hard stories like war or taxation a joke s premise its target its audience and certainly its teller are now classed along a left right progressive oppressive spectrum whereby its actual humor is the least relevant quality about it wouldn t it be nice to reclaim irreverence absurdity and amusement as a universal language consider for one thing how the monologues of late night talk show hosts and the topical skits of saturday night live are reported as mainstream news the next morning the morphing of show business and journalism has been going on for decades certainly but in the 2020s there exists a kind of feeder system between television comedy and serious commentary such that material performed as diversion is quickly made the subject of sober essays in the new york times or the atlantic standup comics from the 1960s onward were making pointed jokes about important issues lenny bruce once explained that he didn t participate in civil rights marches because of people shoving back and forth ray charles walking into people but they weren t instantly repeated in more respectable outlets for broader publics indeed when parodies of donald trump or elon musk are covered by supposedly neutral forums as newsworthy events it s easy to understand the resentment of people who complain about the liberal media the articles and video clips amount to both free publicity for tv celebrities and easily digestible endorsements of pre existing editorial positions reinforcing each other s messages in an endless cycle of course that works all ways there are lately a range of websites talk shows and comedians catering to fan bases who already know who and what will be the main targets of mockery onion knockoffs like the beaverton and the babylon bee and comedy central s trevor noah or fox news greg gutfeld have become legitimate news sources for select followings all of them just grounded in reality enough for readers or viewers to trust their liberal or conservative satires as useful guides to current affairs since there is almost no broad consensus on objective broadcasters and publications anymore why not forget trying to be objective at all and just go for some easy approval who needs cronkite when you can have jimmy fallon the babylon bee itself kidded this tendency in a recent headline late night host knows his joke killed as crowd breaks into uproarious applause it s true that comedy in all forms has long held an element of partisanship mad and national lampoon magazines were adolescent baby boomers favorite digs at the establishment if you liked milton berle you were likely outraged by the smothers brothers richard pryor s audiences didn t much overlap with rich little s in 1977 saturday night live appealed to different tastes than the carol burnett show but those divides were more about age and style than about politics now humor can be equally profane or equally outrageous but in service of opposing ideologies more what many of us might find hilarious e g dave chappelle s bits about race or sex or gender are denounced from some quarters not on grounds of obscenity as in the old days but of offensiveness unfortunately for the offended laughter like fear or desire is an involuntary response that bypasses our mental censors to reach us at an instinctive level even the nastiest jokes will land if we recognize an underlying truth in them still there is something to be said for the equal opportunity observations of steve martin who here has never raised their hand steven wright some people are afraid of heights but i m afraid of widths the late mitch hedberg i find that ducks opinion of me is very much influenced over whether or not i have bread or the late bernie mac on making eye contact while receiving oral sex uh keep up the good work that didn t need a friendly crowd to crack everyone up some things are funny for everybody or at least they should be i leave you with this my grandpa has just discovered viagra and now he s addicted grandma s been taking it really hard posted on july 31 2026 by george case posted in culture humour tagged partisanship politics polarization news comedy saturday night live satire dave chappelle 2 comments post navigation older posts search recent posts that s not funny mad bad and dangerous to know their back pages comic book combat brawl in the family recent comments george case on mad bad and dangerous to eric gilliland on mad bad and dangerous to george case on distrust the experts eric gilliland on distrust the experts george case on ai ai oh archives archives select month july 2026 5 june 2026 4 may 2026 5 april 2026 4 march 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