In an Orwellian world, only comedians can save us

 

If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

— George Orwell

When Jon Stewart was in the prime of his career he had one boilerplate response to a question he was asked over and over again. Pundits or late night hosts would tell Stewart that he was the most trusted news source in America. Stewart’s response was always a variation of the following; I’m just a comedian, and what does it say about the state of our press if the guy they are looking towards comes on after puppets who make prank phone calls?

Stewart often seemed annoyed by the question, reflexively retreating to humility because he didn’t want the title of America’s most trusted newsman. He echoed what many people believed to be true; that news is dying, and so is free speech, competent government, and our ability to remain calm, rational, and informed.

This erosion of common sense and integrity relates directly to how we consume all media. It also restricts us in what we want to say and leaves us rebelling against each other, a polarization-inspired, beligerent waltz of WTF, slinging insults via tweets and honing our snark .

Yay us.

While we’ve been at each other’s throats, social media giants have implemented censorship policies that can ban people for life for various online infractions. Offences such as deadnaming, a term that didn’t exist in the mainstream lexicon until Caitlyn Jenner was born, are especially problematic. Twitter users can choose a myriad of ways to tell you how they wish you were dead without violating Twitter’s Terms of Service, but if you tell Caitlyn that you were a big Bruce Jenner fan growing up you could be banned for life.

Stewart has been off air for four years, but his legacy remains. Comedians, not journalists, now constitute the front lines of truth-telling and real, free speech in our society. If you want to hear from someone who is unafraid of reactionary mobs you don’t choose Anderson Cooper, you choose Ricky Gervais. If you want to listen to an informative, well thought out interview, you don’t choose Diane Sawyer, you choose Joe Rogan. Maybe it is because comedians have a knack of cutting through the nonsense in order to find truth, or how they can say something controversial without watering down their words. All things considered, comedians are currently more refreshing, and certainly more relevant, than any modern day journalist or pundit.

And so, while marketing directors and cable news producers feed the short attention span of their audience, podcasters, many of which are veteran comedians, are providing quality, long form content, a strategy that has given them a larger audience than most household names in cable news.

Joe Rogan’s podcast is a case study of how comedians are now more relevant to journalism than CNN or FOX News, or MSNBC. Even typing that last sentence seems surreal to me. Nonetheless, Rogan’s marathon, casual interviews are so much more informative than some four minute segment followed by eight minutes of crosstalk by six panellists who are vying for best sound bite between commercial breaks. It’s no accident that Rogan has more YouTube subscribers as a lone wolf podcaster than almost every major cable news network. He’s a comedian, but it can be difficult to place him in some ideological box where he must adhere to a set of standards concocted by political activists or mainstream groupthink practitioners.

Rogan has interviewed several Democratic candidates, and all of those interviews have revealed more about the candidates than any cable news anchor could manage. Like Stewart, Rogan has benefited from the lack of integrity and thoroughness found in news outlets that squish rushed interviews between commercial segments for Big Pharma or defence contractors. The result is that Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard were seen not as caricatures or pariahs, but as real candidates with actual ideas.

Some have suggested that Rogan moderate presidential debates, but, like Stewart before him, Rogan does not view himself as a journalist. He is a conversationalist, and that is precisely why fans believe he is the right person for the job. But Rogan’s talents would not translate to journalistic formats, and the longer he maintains his role as the best interviewer we have, the better.

This is all happening during an era that comedians like George Carlin foreshadowed; being owned by the rich and powerful who see people’s votes as trivial, given their stranglehold on both parties. Carlin also had the wisdom to understand how our free speech protects us from tyranny, a protection that weakens every time a Twitter mob cancels someone, or tries to anyway.

Carlin may have not been able to see the impact of digital communications and how it can be used to shut down free speech, but Ricky Gervais knows. Gervais is protected by his loyalty to an overriding principle; if you are offended by something, that’s your problem. This principle may sound cynical or callous to some, but his commitment to the right we have as individuals to say whatever we want is one of the main pillars of Gervais’ success. You can’t cancel people like Gervais. He wears his principles like kevlar vests, deflecting hollow demands of decency and compulsory capitulation to mob justice. Through a sharp tongue and a wicked cackle, Gervais routinely schools members of outrage culture by disarming them of the power they wield against others who don’t have the fortitude or vocabulary to fight against them.

gervais-tweet

They have been trying to cancel Gervais for years. During this time his popularity has grown even bigger, due to both his immense talent and his unwillingness to bow to the mob. Comedians like Gervais, who have the courage to remain authentic and consistent, have been the benefactors of an ongoing Streisand Effect where they have turned outrage into profits. Just ask Bill Burr, or Dave Chappelle, or Bill Maher, all of whom have managed to get their acts to align with one of the bedrocks of a true democracy.

These performers remind us of something paramount; comedians don’t provide the example of what they can get away with saying, they provide us with the blueprint of what everyone can say. Sure, they deliver their words through a craft most of us can never master, but their example of not being afraid to speak in the first place is what matters the most.

 

Photo richhardcastle

Editor’s Note: This article was previously published on blackballmedia.ca and is republished with the author’s permission.

2 Comments

  1. Christine Oskirko

    Comedians are not the answer to our freedoms, only God is. When the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima in 1917, she told the three little children who she appeared to, that if people didn’t repent, a greater war would break out. She told them that war is a punishment for sin. Another war did break out in the 40’s. So nobody heard her pleas and what she forewarned came to pass. If the world seemed lost back in the forties, look today at the wasteland in which we live. There is a deluge of filth, 25% of Google searches are looking for pornography, a preoccupation with the occult and magic, God’s children are murdered in their mothers’ wombs, all sanctioned and promoted by the state, all sorts of perversions are not only tolerated but even exalted as a good. This age of rebellion and disobedience against what God has ordained for His children is going to have to suffer much. And there is nothing funny about that. We never hear that from comedians and sadly even most pastors. Christ is King and He will not be mocked by the disgusting Bill Maher or any other soul. Oh that fateful day when we all have to do an accounting……that in itself should humble us to fall down on our knees.

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