The Leftist War on Culture: Comedy Edition

Guest post from John Wilder at Wilder Wealthy Wise.

“I woke up on the floor of some Japanese family’s rec room, and they would not stop screaming.” – Anchorman

I hear William Shatner hates one pie:  Pe-Khaaaaaaan.

I like movies.  And I like television.  Up until recently, I used to read a lot of fiction books; now I read a lot more non-fiction.  Together, along with the news we read and the Internet sites we visit, this defines the core of our mythology, our legends, and our shared experiences outside of religion.

When The Mrs. watches movies she likes to watch them for characters – how people react and change based on the circumstances that they encounter.  That seems to fascinate her, probably because The Mrs. is a human.  Me?  I like to watch movies for new ideas and new information.  Billions of people have fallen in love, but how many have thought of a new idea?  Ideas catch my interest, which might explain The Mrs.’ cute nickname for me:  Soulless Human-Looking Robot.

But movies today, frankly, suck.  They’re awful.  Not all of them, mind you, but a big majority.  Seeing a good one is rare enough today that it actually surprises me when I see one that I like.  For the most part, what passes for a “good” movie is just one that doesn’t actively disappoint me.  The Mrs. rarely goes to movies, and even before Coronavirus made Netflix® the king of media, she just stopped going to movies in about 2014 or 2015.

I had to stop talking to a friend who said that Netflix® was the cheapest streaming service.  I just can’t be around a Hulu™-cost denier.

About that time was another event:  the functional disappearance of an entire movie genre:  the comedy.  What happened to comedy?  Since the year 2000, there have been a total of 45 comedy movies that have grossed over $100 million (in adjusted 2000 dollars) at the box office.  The last comedy to hit this threshold was in 2015.  So, the numbers prove it – comedy is currently deader than a Clinton opponent.

The strange reason that this is happening is that comedy movies just aren’t funny anymore.  It’s not that I’ve lost my sense of humor:  objectively the movies aren’t funny.  Audiences have largely abandoned them.  America clearly has an appetite for humor, there were 45 comedy films that that made over $100 million between 2000 and 2015, but the numbers keep dropping over time:  comedy movies used to take in about 20% of the box office.  In 2019, comedy was down to 6.6% of the market.

So, why are comedies not funny anymore?  The audiences haven’t changed:  teenage boys are still teenage boys.  So, it must be the movies.

When you look at the movies, they’ve gone from broad comedies that focus on making people laugh to either comedies that are created to push a particular viewpoint or comedies that depend on getting humor from extremely explicit sexual content.  Certainly, there are good sexy jokes – remember you’re reading a post from the person who invented bikini economics graphs.  But, like anything, there’s a line.  And I’m not alone in being happy that Zack and Miri Make a Porno could have just as easily been titled Zack and Miri Make No Money since it did so poorly at the box office.

Another reason is that comedy is dangerous to the Left.  To paraphrase a J. Michael Straczynski and Neil Gaiman Babylon 5 script, “Comedians say serious things and get a laugh, politicians say silly things and people take them seriously.”   At some level, great comedy is about telling a truth, but an uncomfortable truth.  That’s the reason that Stalin didn’t allow real humor in the Soviet Union.  It’s the same reason that Jerry SeinfFeld said he won’t do comedy shows at colleges – the woke crowd wants to hear humor, but only the jokes they find politically acceptable, regardless of the truth.

Obligatory Stalin Joke:  One day Stalin decides to go to the cinema in disguise and hear what people are really saying about him.  When the newsreel comes on the audience stands up and applauds each time he appears on the screen. Stalin is pleased. Modestly, he himself remains seated. After a few moments the man next to him leans over and whispers:  “Most people feel the same way you do Comrade, but you’ll be safer if you stand up.”

Sadly, the failure of comedies seems to apply to movies as a whole now – the movie industry growth has been stagnant since 2012 or so.  I think it’s tied back to the same reason, Leftists feeling that movies should be explicit carriers of Leftist politics.  Movies can have a point, but they have to have the politically correct point.  They can be poignant or uplifting, but only in a Leftist-approved way that involves someone saying, “But I’m a lesbian” during the movie, though most of the time the other patrons tell me to shut up.  Movies are crafted so they don’t allow the audience to come to conclusions outside of those approved by Hollywood and the globalist Left.

And it’s been getting worse.  By most measures, the last three Star Wars® films have been the worst of the franchise.  Sure, The Force Awakens® got big box office numbers, but that was primarily because people were so excited to see a new Star Wars™ film that they would have spent money to go see Chewbacca® having lice combed out of his hair for three hours.

There was a movie about Chewbacca® making vases out of porcelain.  It was called Hairy Potter.

But Star Wars® became something different after Disney© bought it.  It became woke.  The main character was a girl.  I’m okay with that.  But in this case, the girl had powers far in excess of, well, anyone.  After merely touching a lightsaber® and never having trained with it, she defeated a man who had trained with one for years.

Yeah.  I would rather have watched the Wookie™ be de-loused.

To cap off The Force Awakens, a thoroughly uncharismatic group of characters with no chemistry defeated yet another Death Star™ in a way that was so memorable I can’t recall it.  Heck they might have unplugged it for all I remember, but I certainly do know that Luke Skywalker® didn’t drop a torpedo into a reactor exhaust.   When I left the theater after The Force Awakens, I was done with Star Wars®.  For good.  What had generally been a dependably fun series of movies was gone.

But having a series of movies is now the norm.  Movies had become a batch of either remakes of old movies or movies in a franchise.  Since 2000, 119 movies (at least) have been released as part of a franchise.  23 of those are Marvel® franchise movies.  And, I’ll admit that in many instances those franchise movies have been entertaining.  But after 23 movies, I think we’ve reached Peak Marvel™, since they’re quickly becoming woke, too.  The final straw for many will probably be Thor, who is reportedly going to be replaced by a woman, and Ironman®, who will be replaced by Nic Cage in a suit he made out of old Coors Light™ cans.

Understand – it’s not enough to create a new character, the Left wants to destroy existing characters by replacing them utterly:  2016’s Ghostbusters is another example.  I think these changes are because Hollywood simply cannot help itself.  For the longest time they were content to make money while slowly changing culture to the Left.  Now?  The message that seems to be seeping in is that there is a need to pay for the sins of humanity even if it costs the studio money.  Who should pay for those sins?  Well, not the filmmakers.  Really, it’s just the people they don’t like.

Don’t forget, celebrities are just like us!

And why?  There has been a push to replace the dominant culture in the United States.  That includes replacing old taboos with new ones that reflect the new culture the Left is seeking.  The main idea is that you can do anything and there should be no repercussions.  This especially includes sex, where the purely physical has been raised to the level of the sacred and there is no whim that shouldn’t be not only tolerated, but celebrated.  This also includes career choices, where every Grievance Studies graduate with no discernible skills should be given a living wage, complete health care, and the respect that they feel that they deserve, paid for by you and me.

This is really an infantilizing of the culture:  it’s the promotion of the idea that whatever urge you have should be indulged.  The Mrs. described it as a culture of spoiled children with daddy issues:  the fault is with their boss.  Or their boyfriend/girlfriend.  Or their parents.  Or society.  It’s never their fault.

In this instance, it’s easier to blame a Civil War general or a Founding Father than to blame themselves for their condition.  The result?  Pull down a statue, and complain about Thomas Jefferson.

I was named after Thomas Jefferson.  He was named a very long time ago, so you were probably named after he was, too.

This spirit has even invaded books.  I used to pick up a science fiction book at random in the book store and feel that there was a good chance that I’d be exposed to new ideas and have fun in the process.  More recently, a lot of the books have become a slog.  I wondered if it was me.  I then picked up some stories written a few decades ago, and was pleased.  It wasn’t me.  Those old stories had more ideas and fun in a typical paragraph than most novels do today.  Today, the novels seem all about preaching and explaining how awful people are.  Back then, even though we faced a daily threat of nuclear annihilation, those stories were more positive about mankind and our future than the ones I see today.

We are in the midst of a concerted effort by the Left to destroy the culture we live in and the values it stands for.  Old writers, old statesmen, and old heroes are all being viewed through the lens of the new culture and the new values in an effort to destroy them for sins they never committed.  The Left understands the stakes:  until they destroy the old culture and values, they will be judged by the old standards.

And they know they will be found wanting.  Especially their comedy movies.

Those are just awful.

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