Opinion: More and more comedian-related controversies and attacks on performers should lead us to rethink what sort of liberties, protections and impact we allow comedians to have.

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I don’t know if you heard — maybe the news hasn’t made it around to you yet — but during this year’s Academy Awards show Will Smith slapped host Chris Rock across the face after Smith took exception to a joke about his wife. Yeah, really, it was crazy. You should’ve seen it. I think we should talk about it; I felt like that whole thing got somewhat swept under the rug.
The only reason I recall that event is its relation to similar retaliation against another relevant comedian and its bookmark in a seemingly growing trend. A man tackled Dave Chappelle on stage during a performance, in a move almost as disjointed as that guy’s arm ended up being after security got to him.
I propose the second attack probably does not happen without the first as an example, and comedy venues should be amply prepared for any ripples these attacks may cause. Security should be vamped for VIPs and local standup acts alike. People shouldn’t be assaulted for doing what they were paid to do — unless you’re a boxer, I guess. Regardless, that should be the end of the conversation, right? We can all agree on that, and nobody has to make a bigger deal out of it, right?
“I think this is the beginning of the end for comedy,” Howie Mandel said in regard to the Chappelle incident.
Alright, still no funny business in this funny business, apparently.
Realistically, these are paid shit-talkers, in my experience, shit-talkers get hit sometimes. Justified or not, it happens. These were by far not the first comedians to face physical threats, and most likely, they won’t be the last.
Let’s reexamine the Will Smith incident because we still love doing that. If you take away the occasion, the names and the exposition of relationship troubles, the formula is fairly straightforward: X said a joke that hurt Y’s feelings. Z is Y’s partner. Z hits X.
The degree of retort felt a bit exaggerated, and there should have been measures in place to prevent it, but the math checks out. Comedians aren’t impervious to consequences they may invite through their words.
This bodes double for another trend of discontent audiences have toward comedians. Mandel’s quote is a premonition of comedy being “canceled.” Look, society hasn’t become more sensitive; it’s become more interconnected. We understand each other more than ever, and as such, some punchlines about race and sexuality don’t hit like they used to.
Your audience hasn’t become intolerable; it has become intelligent. The jokes you tell them should better mirror that.
Dave Chappelle happens to be the face of this conversation — or the butt of the jokes. Chappelle is a very clever wordsmith. However, if he can’t use that talent to craft material above the “Uh oh, he said the forbidden thing, and they won’t like that” level of humor he’s been parading of late to entertain a shifting audience, perhaps time shouldn’t wait for him to figure it out. Perhaps that era of comedy really is ending. Yet to believe people will stop telling jokes altogether without you is the expected level of hilarious arrogance only a prestigious comedian could hold.
It does seem like popular comedians’ go-to when they or a colleague receives flak is to reinstate their self-worth to society. Whitney Cummings volunteered herself for this role earlier this year, tweeting, “It’s our job is to be irreverent and dangerous, to question authority and take you through a spooky mental haunted house so you can arrive at your own conclusions.”
Slow down, Socrates. Boiled down, you tell jokes for a living. You’re the penis-pun-person. Just as I am the bad-take-guy. Tell me a penis pun, please.
I agree that any piece of art — and comedy is art — is a product of its environment and always serves as an important timestamp of history. In that sense, comedy will always hold political and social weight. However, it’s better when we organically recognize this importance without it being the excuses and guilt trips of a controversial party. Your main goal is a chuckle, not a revelation.
Cummings said it herself in the rest of the same tweet: “Comedians did not sign up to be your hero… Stay focused on the people we pay taxes to to be moral leaders.”
There needs to be a reevaluation of comedians in society. They should be offered better protection at all levels and venues, though there needs to be recognition of how they can talk themselves away from harm. Comedians aren’t the messiah of societal boundary-pushing when they can’t take being called a transphobe for telling transphobic jokes. They also aren’t philosophers first; they are storytellers.
So, from one supposedly dying occupation to another: relax.