The woke mind virus has had a profound impact on comedy.
One critical tenet of the woke world order? Never punch down.
That means telling jokes about “marginalized” communities, groups that some say have less power in American culture. It’s why the Left rages against trans-related gags. That community lacks agency and shouldn’t be mocked, critics say.
You can tease the president or a Big Tech titan like Elon Musk. That’s punching UP. You don’t punch DOWN.
Tell that to Jerry Seinfeld.
The comedy icon spoke with Free Press journalist Bari Weiss this week for the newest installment of her “Honestly” podcast. They discussed masculinity, childhood, New York City and more.
Weiss, a liberal journalist who has been red-pilled by cultural trends, asked Seinfeld what he thought about “punching down” comedy. Does it even exist?
“Do you think punching down is a thing? Like, is that a real phenomenon?” Weiss asked.
“No,” he responded, cutting her off. “I don’t.”
“Comedy is an extraordinarily simple, binary outcome event. It’s funny, or it isn’t. And nobody cares really about anything else. They talk. There’s a lot of talk. What we really hate is when someone does something that’s not so funny and we didn’t laugh and now I’m going to criticize it because it didn’t make me laugh.”
Those who stand by the “punching down” ethos look the other way when the target is blue-collar America or souls who happen to wear red political hats. They have very little say or sway over the culture, and yet they’re fair game according to the Left.
He segued into the response to his Netflix feature, “Unfrosted.”
“The only reviews that I want to read is the absolute worst reviews that the movie received, because there’s nothing funnier to me than people complaining that I didn’t laugh because they wanna laugh,” he said.
He later described the thick skin he brings to the comedy profession and by extension others who similarly make people howl for a living.
“If you’re built right as a stand-up comic, you don’t give a flying … I’m doing this gig, I’m getting my laughs, I’m getting the money and I’m getting the hell out of here. And when your review comes out I’m in another city doing the same thing,” he said.
There’s no one opinion that has any value. Comedians live on groupthink,” he continued. “Whatever the group says, that’s the vote. We don’t have to take a vote. The vote has been taken on that joke. You can hate it. It’s still a great joke because the laugh is still there.”
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