Mixing Comedy with Politics
As the world is still getting used to the idea of Trump being the new president-elect, many have begun to use comedy as way to generate more conversation about controversial topics. Comedians such as Trevor Noah, Micheal Che, Chelsea Handler, and many others have begun to use humor in order to make the world aware of issues that many wouldn’t necessarily find humorous.
Micheal Che, a SNL star from New York, showed his political comedy abilities in his stand-up special on Netflix called Micheal Che Matters which referenced the Black Lives Matters movement. During his stand-up he covered all topics from the poverty he sees every day to him being pro-choice, no topic was off limits. In one portion of the stand-up Che begins to talk about the oppression that African Americans continue to receive with the recent increase in police violence against African Americans. Che jokingly says, “We’re saying Black Lives Matter, not that they matter more, just matter.” Then continues on to say, “Should we dumb it down to Black Lives Exist?” As the audience laughs, he makes a very valid point. We as African Americans always see to fight for the bare minimum and still gets questioned about whether it’s acceptable or not.
Donald Trump criticized SNL on Twitter on Sunday morning for being too one-sided. How do you feel about what he said?
“I honestly agree with him. Oddly, I agree with him. We try to write that way. But the thing that Donald Trump doesn’t understand is that when you’re that ridiculous, it’s kind of hard to talk about anything else. You have this ridiculous orange billionaire doing stranger and stranger things, what else is there? But I do agree with him. I think the show should show all views and we make a conscious effort to do so. “