There’s many ill-brained retards thinking that comedy is all just about “just jokes”. I don’t mean to make a distinction here between left or right wing, but people tend to throw away that excuse as if a joke is nothing more than something that will make you laugh then forget about it. But if you really think comedy is “just jokes” with no value other than just being inoffensive, you are dead wrong, and you don’t understand comedy as it is in reality.
Lemme get you to a primer historical introduction of what comedy is.
In its early conception back in the classical Greece, comedians would make theatre plays where they made fun of either a monarch or some sort of demigod or historical figure. They wore masks at times to represent the character they’re trying to portray, and there’s a thing about it: every play they did as comedians was based on the misfortune, mischief or disgrace of the character they’re portraying, so there is always someone or something that is the punchline.
A joke without a punchline is not a joke. It is unfunny, stale, void of any comedic value. In comedy, you always need a punchline to it. It’s like when you’re operating a car, if you need to start the engine and got the fuel for it, you need to get the car keys. Here, the entire joke is the fueled car, and the punchline, the car keys.
Another historical example.
Look at this boi:
This one is called a “jester” or a “buffoon”. These followed around kings and queens back in the medieval eras. What they mostly do is lighten the mood in a royal court, bringing news, talking about current events… all in a funny way so people around the king could have a laugh. But here’s the thing: sometimes this naughty boi will make jokes about the king. And when that happens, if it really hits the king’s nerve, he’ll be facing the guillotine for a transgression.
What happened here?
Well, for starters, the punchline is the king. The problem with making the king a punchline is that the rest of peasants may start to see the jester being executed at the gallows and start thinking to themselves that the king is sort of an asshole. After all, Mr. Jester was just trying to be the funny guy, but his jokes have carried a message: “our king loves snorting cocaine and fucking traps”.
The same way you always offend someone with a joke, a joke always carries a message to put ideas in people’s heads with it. Do you really think Charles Chaplin made The Great Dictator just for jokes?
Not that I’m glad of it, but Chaplin’s movie made Adolf Hitler look even worse. It was the 1940’s equivalent of Trump jokes from Colbert (although more ellaborate than Colbert’s). You just need to look at the close resemblance to Hitler here: the outfit, the militaristic banners, the public speeches… just shows how comedy doesn’t really come out of a vacuum, just like any other artform out there.
I might disagree with these clowns, but even if they’re unfunny as shit, Steven Colbert and the rest of late night showmen use comedy in the same right way. Even if you’d make stale “knock knock” jokes, there’s always the victim where he has to be in stupor for whatever the knocking guest is.
Even slapstick where a guy trips over a set of stairs over a banana peel just tells you “man, you don’t wanna end up like this guy not being careful with not tripping over shit”.
Now, I don’t really want to make the distinction between left wing or right wing comedy. Anyone can use it. But there’s a recurring problem where right wing comedy gets banned everywhere and can turn you into a social outcast. This is not a problem of comedy being an “ideological weapon”, this is a problem of “who can use comedy as an ideological weapon and who can’t”.
It’s pretty fucking obvious that it’s a problem of who’s got the power to be able to freely use it as an ideological weapon. And those in enough power to freely use it without consequences are neither left or right. It’s rather an (((overprotected))) class which I’m not gonna mention because I might be considered an “anti-sem***” for saying so. Makes you think.
Even if Million Dollar Extreme: World Peace had no hidden swastikas that were too obvious to put, it is still a joke at the expense of the outrage fetishists out there at Buzzfeed and similar media sites. Subtle enough for the not keen enough to not notice, but for this reason, Joe Bernstein still had to try to get the show cancelled. Someone like Bernstein thought the show was putting “the wrong ideas” into people’s heads and then had adult swim to shut it down. Just so happened that Bernstein was so much of a power junkie that he had the right connections to take down the show.
So, what can you learn from here? Well, if you’re willing to use comedy as an ideological weapon, just feel free to do so. You might not be a political activist with it, but at least, in times like these, using comedy to put the right ideas into people’s brains indirectly sounds like a good idea. Just consider.
Especially when some gay latino is a clear evidence of that.
