Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault
The other day, my friends and I were debating the overall quality of various comedians. After going through at least 30 comedians we could name off the top of our heads, we accepted defeat and decided to use Google to help us out. To no surprise, all Google provided us was 1) a link to different websites rating various male comedians 2) rows of male comedians. Every so often a female comic would be thrown into those lists, but they did not promise anything fruitful. It made me question two things: one, why is Roseanne Barr considered a comic? and secondly, where are all the women in comedy?
Comedy has always been a male-dominated field. From stand-up to hosting gig, cis* men have always been given the upper hand. That was until 2016 also known as the best and worst time to be a comedian. 2016 proved that it was a bad time to be a comic because apparently, many male comedians don’t understand consent, yet hopeful because they get to be another person making people laugh in the age of Trump. However, it wasn’t #AllMaleComedians. The rise of #MeToo had a much larger impact on comedy than many people thought it would. Long-lived and seemingly universally loved comics like Louis C.K., T.J. Miller, Aziz Ansari were soon exposed for harassing and violating women. Which caused an uproar from some fellow comics and seemingly the general public, but here we are, almost a year later, and Louis C.K. is performing in underground clubs and receiving standing ovations. I started to question why Louis C.K. was even allowed to perform again, but then it hit me, nobody in the industry was that outraged.
Granted, there were a plethora of comics who spoke against Louis and fellow comics, but comedy has this long-winded history of inner conflict when it comes to defending their own. A few years ago, in a set by comic Daniel Tosh, a woman called him out and said “rape jokes are never funny,” to which the comic thought the best response was to make a joke about how “[it would be] funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” Appalling? Yes. Horrible? Of Course. Not Funny? You’re right, it’s not. However, despite the disgusting statement from Tosh, he was supported and defended by other comedians. It created a huge, on-going fight of censorship and what is considered to be funny within the community.
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As horrible and sad as the response to Tosh’s comments are, I’m not surprised. Comedy, for the longest time and even today, has been a “boys club,” and almost every comic in some way is affiliated with another one, so when you attack one, you attack the whole pack. There’s nothing more hurtful or aggravating to a comic than being told that they aren’t funny or that their joke was offensive, so clearly comics are in a weird spot where they’re pushing back against these call-outs. That being said, we should call these people out anyway. We should let them know that we won’t tolerate their jokes, regardless of how big (their egos) they are. This in no way means all male-identifying comics are the reason for hatred in the world, nor does it mean that they are all a part of the problem, but it does say something larger about the societal implications of inclusivity and marginalization. Thus, created the conversation of “punching up” in comedy.
Essentially, “punching up, not down” is a philosophy started in the early 2000’s in comedy that claims a comedian can make fun of a group that is not oppressed, especially if you’re a minority. A woman can make fun of a man, a person of color can joke about white people, but you can’t switch those roles. If you have any systematic or institutional advantage, you cannot make jokes about those who do not. Following this conversation, the issue of “censorship” rose once again, but I just have to stop and ask, if you can’t make a joke without being sexist, homophobic, racist, xenophobic, or flat out violently aggressive, then maybe you shouldn’t be a comic at all.
I know it seems all dark and gloomy, and that maybe comedy is dying because of “censorship,” but in reality, we’ve only been given some fantastic comics. Including people like Jaboukie Young-White, John Mulaney, Ali Wong, Negin Farsad and the list only goes on. These comics are proof that you don’t have to be a bad person to be funny, and that “censorship” in comedy, isn’t as big of a deal as (to no surprise) male comics made it to be.
We’re in an interesting point where comedy is evolving and changing with social media and activism, and that should be seen as a positive development, not as a “unnecessary censorship.” Support artists who aren’t offensive, who don’t want to be offensive, and who try to revolutionize an industry that has been dominated by one perspective for so long.
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