Answer this question:
Who can’t you joke about?
The answer changes every 5-10 years.
The people you can’t joke about are the people that wield the power.
If you want to be edgy as a comedian, you need to give voice to common consensus that is surface controversial.
“You can’t say that!”
This goes way back. Every Shakespeare play had a fool. And the fool had free-pass to criticise the king. Only the fool in a play, ostensibly in a foreign court, could give voice to those opinions which would get a normal person’s head chopped off.
Lenny Bruce didn’t get arrested for his racial slurs, which were still woven into common parlance at the time. Bruce was arrested for saying the word “cocksucker” in a gig.
This set, Lenny Bruce explaining his arrest, is comedic genius.
After that, his sets were often deep critiques of Police State America.
Two years ago, tweeting favourably about Trump was enough to get you fired from your job. Hate-mobs in a frenzy of modern day McCarthyism went on virtual lynching sprees. So most kept quiet. And those who spoke up paid the price so we all could speak freely on that account.
Two years ago, you’d lose “friends” in England if you voted to leave the EU. Now the remainers will listen to your “justification” so long as you wear a solemn expression of regret.
Dave Chappelle broke a lot of barriers in his Netflix comedy special, Sticks & Stones.
Even his audience was awed in silence, horrified gasps replacing applause and laughter during the LGBTQ and abortion bits.
Most reviews of Dave Chappelle’s Netflix comedy special, Sticks and Stones, will focus on the content: jokes about school shootings, the Me Too movement, and transgenders, while Dave aligns himself with Louis C.K. and Kevin Hart and leaps to the defence of Michael Jackson. But some appreciation has to be expressed for the artfulness of Chappelle’s delivery.
Chappelle is a luxury brand of comedian. A superior craftsman.
Despite how effortless he makes it look, Chappelle is one of the hardest working men in the comedy business and every bit is colourful, nuanced, and evocative.
Content and issues of “offence” aside, how genius is the metaphor of the LGBTQ movement as a road trip each letter stuffed into one car?
How genius is it when Chappelle turns his attacks directly on the audience?
How Chappelle returns to jokes established in the first half of the show within the kernels of later unrelated jokes is mesmerising. It’s like watching a ballet dancer as the orchestra returns to an opening motif.
Chappelle’s transition from a masterful sociological critique of the Jussie Smollett incident into a musing on the difference between white and black poverty in childhood is beautiful.
Chappelle is carrying on the comedic traditions of George Carlin, Patrice O’Neal, Bill Hicks, and Richard Pryor in a way that would make all those past greats proud.
In Sticks and Stones, Dave Chappelle skated to where the puck was going and timed his special impeccably.
Two years ago and he would have been too ahead of his time. Perhaps the special wouldn’t have even aired. But he timed it right on the ridge, the turning point.
Now people are piling on.
It’s safe to be controversial in 2019.
At least on certain topics.
Pro-Trump?
You’re safe.
Pro-Brexit?
Safe.
Critiquing the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community?
Safe.
Gender pronouns?
Getting safer every day.
People piling on today are pussies.
Pioneers in the free speech space – comedians like Dave Chapelle, speakers like Jordan Peterson, interviewers like Joe Rogan – paved the way.
Tweet all you want about these topics, but don’t for a minute think you’re being edgy unless you were swimming against the tide 2-3 years ago. You’re riding a wave now. Anyone hopping on these trends for the first time in 2019 is a poser.
What CAN’T you talk about now in 2019?
WHO can’t you talk about?
Answer that question.
Answer it loudly.
Then you’ll be edgy in 2019.
What do you think?
Who are the protected class going into 2020?
Get there before Dave Chappelle and you have a 100% chance of being edgy… and ostracised. But at least you’ll pave a path for those too scared to tread it today.