According to Wikipedia, “Cancel culture is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a culture in which those who are deemed to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner are ostracized, boycotted, or shunned.” The dictionary defines political correctness as “conformity to prevailing liberal or radical opinion, in particular by carefully avoiding forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.” Was it lazy writing to just throw these quotes and definitions here? Maybe. Or was it efficient? Or was it a desperate attempt to write words from others until words from my own head start coming off my fingers.
These two things aren’t the same, but they often go together. People accused of not being PC are often those canceled. Let me start this blog off by saying that I don’t think either of these things are completely bad. Like there is definitely reason to “cancel” people sometimes. Palpatine needed canceled in Star Wars. Syndrom needed canceled in The Incredibles. And Hitler needed canceled in Germany. And I think that the idea of being politically correct can have a good heart behind it. It’s good to avoid putting down a group of people.
Here’s the “but.” Sometimes political correctness goes too far, or becomes impossible to follow. At a time when culture is changing faster than it has at any other point in history, you could say something today that no one bats an eye at, but say the same thing tomorrow and you are a horrible monster. This creates a lot of traps for people, especially for those aiming at humor in the realm of entertainment. Think of the Seinfeld series finale; they go on trial for making fun of a fat guy getting robbed, instead of helping him. In the trial, all the times they did crazy things or mocked people or whatever are brought up by character witnesses. They’re on trial for all the things that make the show funny.
We can’t do this in real life; we can’t put people on trial for being funny. Humor is an art and sometimes it can miss. Dry humor, sarcasm, etc: all the stuff everybody claims to love is being choked out. When you have to be so careful to not offend, how can you be funny? The whole point of comedy is to take the gloves off; look at life like a game. The game often includes poking at people, but if the penalty for poking is too steep, who’s gonna poke?
It’s like how the NFL added all these rules about hitting the quarterback. Defenders have to make a choice between playing the game how it was meant to be played and getting a fat fine, or backing off and giving up an opportunity to sack the quarterback. Mainstream comedy has felt the effects of this PC/cancel culture, and it’s worrying to me that we will sacrifice good comedy for superficial rules.
If you have to be careful to not use stereotypes wrong, you have to worry about being funny. I get it, there’s a line here. Some things should not be said, or at least not in certain contexts. But I don’t want to see people be less funny because they are scared of saying something that is deemed offensive, even though it may not even offend those that are taking the brunt of the joke.
I think the disconnect here is that people tend to think that if someone is making fun of something, they are by default stating that they are better than whatever the thing is. Although this assumption could be correct in a normal conversation (even though it is often not), the assumption fails in the context of comedy. Making fun of one group or one side is not a statement of, “I’m better than you.” It’s a statement of, “This stereotype is funny, just like there’s funny stereotypes about my group.”
It is said that people bond the strongest over two things: overcoming an obstacle together, and laughing together. We are all goofy goobers in our own way, and if we can’t make fun of each other then we are really missing out on an easy, organic way to connect through our differences.
Okay, enough dancing around lol. Here's the meat of what I’m saying; if we cancel people for not being politically correct or whatever (and like I said, sometimes it's necessary, think Hitler), we risk canceling voices that could be the most creative comedians of our generation. Do we really want to miss out on experiencing the art from someone who’s willing to take a chance… or to take it up a notch, do we really want to miss out on experiencing the art of someone who is willing to do something that we “think” is a mistake?
Some people will always do something absolutely appalling and disgusting to me. They will do something or say something I could never understand. Yet, being so different from me, they probably have something I need to hear. Somewhere in all of the bad stuff is a gem as good as anything I have. Let’s not kill comedy for the sake of saving offense. Let the game be played, the way it was meant to be played.
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