"poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world" - Percy Bysshe Shelley

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Why is satire seemingly exclusively a left wing thing? Why can't those on the right do satire?

I have this sense that it has a lot to do with the fact that right wing audiences are willing to accept jokes that go against their beliefs, not because of anything inherent in being conservative, but because it's expected that you will laugh at left wing things. On the contrary, if you try to make right wing based jokes in a left wing crowd you will get crickets.

The entertainment industry is largely progressive; this must lead to lots of navel gazing and in-jokes that end up with a progressive slant. If you like jokes, but also like telling people what they should be doing in their bedroom, then you're out of luck, both as a performer and an audience.

Is this something new? What role does education play? The college educated, ivory tower, latte sipping, lefty ratbag types now seem to be engaging in politics exclusively through satire. I'm not sure how prevalent it is there, but I know people here whose only exposure to US politics is TDS and Colbert. How does it change one's viewpoint if they are engaging through satire.

Are there funny right wingers? Examples would be nice. I think in the context of this conversation it is worth thinking of Glenn Beck as a vaudeville act, but perhaps he is satire that is taken seriously; maybe Beck and Colbert are doing the exact same thing, they just come off as different because audience interpretation.


I'll finish on this thought; we've recently had our comedy festival here in Melbourne, which along with Montreal and Edinburgh are the biggest and most important in the world. Comedians can make quite easy transfers between Canada, the UK, NZ and Australia; indeed, there is a comedy 'scene' that settles around these three festivals, many comedians make their living basing their residence and tours around these dates and places. However, going to America is different. Tim Minchin, who admittedly is an atheist and very anti-christian, is huge here and in the UK, but he is only just about to go on his first US tour... To Seattle. Other comedians have told stories of getting away from the coasts in the US and being run out of venues by angry mobs.

So, in conclusion, can you be Right and Funny? Insert your examples herein.

(ps. excuse the poor post quality, I can't be bothered making it better :P)


ETA: There's lots of Libertarian funnyfolk out there, so I think I need to reassess this to ask "Why can't conservatives be funny?"

Comments

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Satire requires some recognition of reality. Reality has a liberal bias.

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

Ouch! And, Ding!

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

I think this is ultimately it. There is actually a deep, hard-to-intuit connection between what is funny and what is true, and the left just happens to have a lot more food for lols right now.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

As a liberal I find this funny because it agrees with my innate beliefs. It is still funny even though I have heard this joke a thousand times and your delivery was unexceptional.

LOL!!!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

But not a Leftist one. ;P

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I think Poe's law also has a lot to do with it as well.

People don't always recognize when they're being made fun of.

[blorky.livejournal.com]

Dennis Miller is the only vaguely Right Wing comedian that I've heard be occasionally funny.

I don't know if Larry the Cable guy is claimed by right wingers, unless "Proud to be ignorant" is officially a right wing tag line now.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Ron White, man. Definitely Ron White. The thing is, though, that his comedy isn't generally about his conservatism, it's just sort of incidental. When you have someone who does political humor, odds are it's liberal.

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

The right wing is a scary, alarming place full of conspiracies. Its Serious Business and nothing to laugh at. That's why teenage survival porn is popular and satire is not.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Teenage survival porn - you've made me curious...

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you mean by 'right'. Some of Bill Hicks' schticks could be interpreted as right-wing in some ways, and far-left in others.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Yeah, good point. It's probably not fair to lump libertarians in with conservatives, which is what I'm really talking about.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

PJ O'Rourke.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

Penn and Teller.

[capthek.livejournal.com]

There have been a couple of right wing attempts at being like the daily show that were horrible. I think the onion tv show is kind of mixed, but I have only seen a few.

I remember when the right would accuse the left of having no humor back in the 60s and 70s, and some of the 80s. Lefties would say it was because people were going to live or die by the political decisions conservatives were joking about, but at some point the left seemed to loosen up. Now ya have crazy right wingers like victoria jackson making internet birther videos. (She was on SNL back in the day with Dennis Miller for those who are not old like I am)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Isn't Steven Colbert right (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_(character)) and funny?

(While Steven Colbert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert) is the leftist.)

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Most of his humour is derived from lampooning conservatives. The opinions presented on his show are overwhelmingly left wing (look at his guests and how he treats them).

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Penn Gillette and Drew Carey are both Libertarians

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Drew Carey is very apolitical as far as I have seen, so it's not really what I'm talking about. I'll grant Penn though. I was thinking about conservatives when I wrote this, as people have reminded me there are plenty of angry white men libertarian comedians out there and I find most of them pretty funny, especially their political stuff :)

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Conservatives find knock-knock and teleprompter jokes equally side-splitting. Why? I have no idea.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Knock knock?
-Who's there?
9/11
-9/11 who?
You said you'd never forget!

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

'I have this sense that it has a lot to do with the fact that right wing audiences are willing to accept jokes that go against their beliefs, not because of anything inherent in being conservative, but because it's expected that you will laugh at left wing things. On the contrary, if you try to make right wing based jokes in a left wing crowd you will get crickets. '

Pretty much that.

The only time I hear a left-winger laugh at a satirization of themselves is when it's done by another left-winger and done more jokingly than critical.

Many comedians who do trend right-wing aren't stupid enough to wreck their careers and do political comedy. Mainly because political comedy only sells to select audiences and is likely to turn off the rest. Tough Crowd was pretty good at having comedians be open about politics and be funny. It was everything that Politically Incorrect and that hack Bill Maher tried to be.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Everyone prefers jokes about the other guys and will usually only take jokes about their own politics if they aren't excessively harsh.

The fact that there are more left-wing comedians is simply because that suits their audience.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Nietzsche is excessively right wing and probably the most important figure in our history for a motivated satire/rhetoric.

I think you are reflecting on some isolated cultural dynamics rather than anything that can be reduced to political orientation per se. (The problem with libertarianism here supports the same interpretation.)

Nietzsche wasn't funny

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Orly Taitz and Donald Trump are pretty funny.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Intentionally? Perhaps they are... Perhaps this is how conservative humour works; you turn yourself into a mockery so the world can laugh at you...

Judging by Trump's reaction at the correspondents dinner the other night, I think that is unlikely.

[caerfrli.livejournal.com]

Hypocrisy is often amusing, so it's easier to make jokes about the right

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So, in conclusion, can you be Right and Funny? Insert your examples herein.

Clearly, as the comments above demonstrate, you can. I think the issue is more that the arts are a more emotional thing in general, thus drawing in a larger-than-normal amount of liberals, as the left operates largely from a sense of justice and what's "right" as opposed to a more rationalist, measured approach.

Or, to put it another way, it's like asking whether you can be liberal and a good financier.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"the left operates largely from a sense of justice and what's 'right' as opposed to a more rationalist, measured approach"

Do you mean "a more rationalist, measured approach" to what is right, i.e. as opposed to a "sense"?

If so, I think you've got it backwards.

if not, what do you mean?

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Setting aside everything else, humor is inherently entropy-based. You can't build things up with humor — you can only tear them down, because as George Carlin said, the root of all the best jokes can be boiled down to saying, "Something is WRONG here."

There are a number of very funny comedians who would hardly qualify as liberals — Sam Kinison, Drew Carey, Penn Gillette and P.J. O'Rourke are all excellent examples — but I don't really see them as being conservative so much as anti-liberal. Even O'Rourke, who IS stanchly conservative in many ways, expresses it in a VERY jaded manner, that can hardly be confused with pro-conservative boosterism.

Likewise, look at most of the funniest "liberal" comedians — again, Carlin, but also Bill Hicks and the like — and you'll see that they're not really pro-liberal as much as they're anti-conservative. Guys like Carlin and Hicks HATED political correctness with a passion, simply because it limited the extent to which they could insult others.

As for why humor seems more difficult for conservatives? Well, in its purest context-free form, conservatism is about upholding traditional order, whereas liberalism, in its purest context-free form, is about challenging traditional order. And yes, in real life, there are plenty of "establishment liberals," but those are the folks who a) don't go into comedy and b) don't find it funny even when it's guys like Carlin and Hicks (see also: Tipper Gore's warning label crusade).

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I think you might actually be on to something there. Great answer.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Other comedians have told stories of getting away from the coasts in the US and being run out of venues by angry mobs.

What, in freedom-loving America, the paragon of free speech?

Btw I still remember the Sacha Baron Cohen stunts in Bruno. I don't know if his appearance on that stadium and the reaction of the crowd was staged, but is sure was telling.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes, it tells us that when people aren't expecting comedy, they don't react to stupid stuff as if it's comedic.

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

It's the ability to stand back to get the full picture that produces humorists, more often leftists and sometimes both.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think of comedians who are actually all that liberal as opposed to making fun of the more blatant stupidity said by Right-Wingers. 57 states aside, there's not much comparison between jokes made about Joe Biden and anything said by Congresswoman Bachmann in the LULZ sweepstakes.

Re: How can anyone have missed this?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for this ^.

Though personally I think Penn Jillete and Matt Stone/Trey Parker do a pretty good job of sticking up for "Right-wing" satire.