The Death Of Humor & The Rise Of “Activist Comedy”

Jacob Smith |

Mar 28, 2022

Source: Don't Look Up (2021), Netflix

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The act of comedy may still be alive but the art of comedy has less life than Howard Stern’s current audience.

Adam McKay (Director) attends the New York Premiere of “THE BIG SHORT” from Paramount Pictures & Regency Enterprises, at The Ziegfeld Theater in New York, NY on Monday, November 23, 2015.

One of the biggest symptoms of a broken society is the inability to laugh. Not because we, the people, have lost the ability, it’s because the people in charge of the genre now dictate what is and isn’t funny. No better example of this that filmmaker Adam McKay.

If you are a bit older, you may remember Adam McKay as the man who is responsible for comedies such as Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys. If you are a bit younger, this may surprise you because McKay hasn’t directed anything funny in the last 13 years.

HOLLYWOOD, CA – JANUARY 06: Director Adam McKay attends a ceremony for Steve Carell who currently stars in “The Big Short” from Paramount Pictures and Regency Enterprises who was honored with the 2,570th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the category of Motion Pictures, in front of The Egyptian Theatre on January 6, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Adam McKay

Instead, McKay has spent the last few years perfecting a new genre called “Activist Comedy” which is just as funny as political activism meaning it’s not funny at all. That’s not a shot at McKay, he would probably tell you himself that there is nothing funny about the content of his films. They are political warnings more than they are black comedies.

McKay has been releasing progressive hit pieces disguised as movies that aim at anyone who is of the political right of his own Twitter account. He has perfected the art of frontrunning (and sometimes gaslighting) whatever the progressive crusade for the current election cycle is and Hollywood loves it.

Adam Mckay’s last three films have received a total of 45 major award nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars), Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globes), and The British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) alone.

Adam McKay and Steve Carrell participate in “The Big Short” Sneak Screening and Q&A at the AMC Theaters in Century City, CA on Saturday, December 5, 2015..(Photo: Alex J Berliner/ABImages

In 2015, he wrote and directed The Big Short a “comedy” that tackled Wall Street and corporate greed amidst the height of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

The film pointed the finger at Wall Street and bankers for causing the 2008 financial collapse while ignoring legislation written by Congress that allowed banks to lower financial standards under the guise that homeownership was a human right. But because the film had Margot Robbie in a hot tub, people loved it.

Left to right: Steve Carell plays Mark Baum and Ryan Gosling plays Jared Vennett in The Big Short from Paramount Pictures and Regency Enterprises

In 2019, he doubled down on this formula with the film ‘Vice’ a film that operates under the left-wing belief that George W. Bush was such a bumbling idiot that his Vice President Dick Cheney was the guy actually running the show and blames him for the war in Iraq.

McKay recently had to admit that his film was “flawed” because it didn’t lay enough blame on the heels of Democrats who openly supported and voted “Yes” on the 2003 declaration of war.

But hey, no one in Hollywood truly cares about the facts, it was an anti-GOP movie which was enough to score the director 20 major award nominations which are the most he has received for any movie in his career.

Source: Vice

This brings us to last year’s Netflix original movie Don’t Look Up. A film that attacks anyone who isn’t actively screaming on social media about “climate change,” the progressive belief unless every single person on Earth (except celebrities and world leaders) agrees to a lower standard of living for the greater good of mankind, the world is going to end and it will be your fault for not listening to “the experts.”

Activist comedy has been very successful for McKay. Why? Because A-list celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jennifer Lawrence agree to do the films as they are all progressive activists themselves. Then as McKay props up left-wing narratives that have more venom towards the enemies of progressivism, he is celebrated and awarded by his peers in the industry who think the exact same way he does.

Hollywood LOVES these films, even if audiences don’t.

There is no better example of this than Don’t Look Up. Despite sitting at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, a certified rotten score among critics, it still managed to score a nomination for Best Picture.

For reference, that is the lowest score of ANY movie nominated for an Academy Award this year (2nd lowest being Nightmare Alley at 80%). How does a film like this bank four nominations? Because politics trumps all, including comedy.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Don’t Look Up is a film about a group of astronomers that discovers a comet will impact Earth within the next 6 months unless Congress acts now to stop it. But Congress and the rest of the world don’t seem to care about their impending doom…get it? The film is a metaphor for people who refuse to acknowledge the immediate threat of “climate change.”

McKay himself stated about the film: “It (Don’t Look Up) was made for a global audience to call out a system ignoring the greatest threat to human life in history — climate crisis.”

The comedy of the film is how flippant and dismissive everyone is about how we are all about to die and by everyone I mean Republicans. Meryl Streep is in the film as the substitute for Donald Trump and Adam takes great joy at mocking Trump rallies and Trump supporters.

The punchline here is that if a comet really was heading for Earth, Republicans would tell you to not look up because it’s a left-wing conspiracy.

Now if the objective here was to mock the American right, you could argue that this is simply a big joke that you are just on the receiving end of. But as I said, Adam Mckay doesn’t make comedies, he isn’t laughing at you, he’s screaming at you.

At one point in the movie, Leonardo DiCaprio, a man who flies around the world in private jets screaming about the end of the world in between banging supermodels, has a breakdown wherein 100% serious fashion he screams directly at the viewer and says:

“I think this whole administration has completely lost their f***ing mind and I think we are all going die!!”

Comedy…

This is the fundamental problem with activist comedy, in a nutshell, progressives can not separate their personal disdain of the viewer from the punchline of the joke. Nothing about that scene was meant to be “funny,” it was meant to yell at you for being too stupid to listen.

It’s the cinematic equivalent of Michael Richards screaming at hecklers at The Laugh Factory.

DON’T LOOK UP (clockwise) MERYL STREEP as PRESIDENT JANIE ORLEAN, LONNIE FARMER as AIDE #1, JENNIFER LAWRENCE as KATE DIBIASKY, LEONARDO DICAPRIO as DR. RANDALL MINDY, ROB MORGAN as DR. CLAYTON “TEDDY” OGLETHROPE, JONAH HILL as JASON ORLEAN, RICHARD DONELLY as AIDE #2 Cr. NIKO TAVERNISE/NETFLIX © 2021

This isn’t a comedy, it is a vent session for multimillionaire elites.

But look at it this way, it could be much worse. McKay could be teaming up with Will Farrell again in an attempt to make real comedy…just as long as your definition of comedy is the same as The Joker.

Source: Batman: The Killing Joke

When Hollywood tries to make you laugh, you get woke comedy that uses things such as the patriarchy for a punchline. In a glass half full world, maybe it’s a good thing that Hollywood isn’t making traditional comedies anymore but that doesn’t mean what comes next will be any better.

Comedy as we know it is dead and progressives killed it.

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