I’m exhausted with comedians. I’m tired of the schtick of the brave and unfraid truth-teller, when the consequences for telling jokes that don’t land or behaving poorly is a canceled Netflix series or ostracism. Guess what, if I tell edgy jokes at work or harass people I might get fired or excluded too.
I do appreciate the ability to wrap difficult truths in humor but guess what: that’s actually a defense mechanism, you can always hunker down behind “I was joking, I’m a comedian.” There are people who make a pittance and put their livelihoods and sometimes lives on the line to tell difficult unvarnished truths; they are called investigative journalists. Offensive/provocative and dangerous to power are two different things and the Venn overlap isn’t that big.
Bill Burr, who can be funny, can get fucked. It takes zero courage to be funny and also non-misogynistic and racist. And I like that he is those things and I’m glad our society has rewarded talent that doesn’t shit on others with lucrative renumeration. But that wasn’t enough, he also needed to be remunerated by a bloody, woman-hating, racist, theocratic nightmare family and then he tells me in Variety why this is cute cultural exchange. Actual truth tellers about Saudi get cut up into little pieces.
Oh, it’s actually not that bad, you say? The only rules are “no jokes about the royals or about religion,” and that sounds reasonable. Here, let me translate: “you can joke about anything except the pillars of our rapacious and oppressive system of power.” Vladimir Putin has similar rules to appear on his TV. That’s….not really a concession.