UPDATE: This post now includes audio of Christopher Bedford’s commentary upon which his column is based. You’ll find it below.
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Count me among those who are tired of woke politics, woke business, woke sports, and woke Hollywood. These days it’s nearly impossible to find comedy that’s simply funny by poking fun at the human condition, something we all share regardless of our politics. Christopher Bedford, writing at thefederalist.com, puts it this way:
When was the last time you watched “The Late Show” in order to laugh? That’s a trick question — nobody who watches Stephen Colbert is laughing. Laughter is entirely beside the point; Colbert’s show is political catechism in nightly hour-long installments.
One of Colbert’s masterworks in June was a song “parody” titled “500 Vials,” which didn’t even have a joke — it was just telling everyone to get the vaccine. It may be the least funny video ever created, and after the female-empowerment version of “Ghostbusters,” that can’t be said lightly (but remember: Anyone who didn’t laugh is sexist).
Increasingly, though, Colbert is the norm for late-night shows. For four years, limited big-tent political comedy got replaced by an aggressive churn of anti-Donald Trump “Resistance” theater barely papered over by jokes.
Some have just about given up the ghost entirely: John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” is pretty much nothing but lectures on what a liberal is supposed to be mad about this week.
Non-stop sniping and ivory-towerism is dreary. The reality is that some people prefer to wag their fingers and savage others. And what that’s done to our culture and our comedy is no laughing matter.
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UPDATE: Here is part of Christopher Bedford’s commentary on the death of comedy. In this clip, he talks about the movie “Blazing Saddles.”
LISTEN:
