Daily Wire's New Full-Length Comedy May Change the World

 

There have been no good comedies coming out of Hollywood for years. All superheroes and 3D animations.

As a result, Daily Wire has announced the release of their own new full-length comedy, “Lady Ballers.” Mocking “transgender” participation in women’s sports, and full of cameos by right-wing figures—they say because no conventional Hollywood actors would take the roles.

At the same time, as many enough have noticed, old TV comedy staples like Saturday Night Live or Steven Colbert or the Daily Show are no longer funny. They seem to have abandoned laughs altogether.

Why?

Because comedy works by revealing truths you are not supposed to notice or say. That’s the punch in a punch line—the “reversal of expectations.” It cannot be predictable, or it is not funny. It must be something that is both true, and unexpected.

When society as a whole, or the audience, or those financing a show, have guilty secrets they do not want exposed, comedy becomes too dangerous to their conscience to enjoy or allow. What if someone should hear the beating heart below the floorboards? What if someone should notice it, and say something without thinking?

This is why narcissists never have a sense of humour. This is why those living with narcissists always have the feeling of “walking on eggshells,” having to guard what they say. This fear of saying the wrong thing prevents the spontaneity required for artistic expression, and especially for comedy, which most needs spontaneity.

And this is why European courts used to employ a court jester—to tell the king the truth, to keep it all honest and prevent hubris or delusional thinking.

The decline of comedy, and art generally, is the surest sing our culture is in trouble. 

Hollywood films have become unspontaneous and uncreative; new ideas of any kind have come to look dangerous to the powers that be. Safer to recycle old “brands” and “franchises,” swapping races and genders as an excuse for a remake, as a safe and unthreatening novelty.

While making sure they are not “triggering” to the narcissists; deleting anything that might challenge their delusions.

So too with pop music. Pop performers are no longer selected for talent, or for any unique quality. They are selected as safely compliant, visually appealing vehicles; and every song sounds more or less the same. Deficiencies can be fixed in the studio. Soma.

And yet, we are now also seeing the signs of rebirth; and it started with comedy. Many comedians have now come out as “far right,” choosing their art over politics and personal safety: Dave Rubin, Greg Gutfeld, Steven Crowder, Roseanne Barr, John Cleese, Ricky Gervais, Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, Norm Macdonald, on and on; a list that seems to grow every week. And we are seeing the traditional role of the court jester being reasserted, in the face of furious censorship, over the Internet.

Daily Wire and Angel Studios have now begun turning out new TV shows and films at a surprising clip, and audiences are eating them up. At least some significant portion of the population is not depraved. When these films and shows start outgrossing Hollywood, we will know the future is won.

Now this full-length comedy, “Lady Ballers.” This may be the most devastating blow yet to woke narcissism. There is nothing a narcissist hates more than being laughed at.

This Is Full of Unsanitary Language

 

But it is interesting as a reflection of popular opinion of Trudeau now even in a supposedly left-leaning place like downtown Toronto.

Corner Gas

 

Being out of the country for many years, I have just discovered “Corner Gas,” a longtime runaway hit on Canadian TV. I believe it is the most popular Canadian scripted show of all time. Launched in 2004, it is still running as an animated series.

Brent Butt, creator and star, says he does not know why it was and is so popular. What is it about this particular troupe of eight characters? Butt is a brilliant writer, and has done several other projects, but none have approached the success of Corner Gas. What was the magic formula?

I think it is obvious; but a thing long forgotten. Comedies work best in a rural setting. This was something the ancient Greeks knew already. Comic characters, for them, were formulaically rural folk; the word “clown” literally means “rustic.” 

The reason, I believe, is that comedy works by releasing tensions; the punch line is a spring abruptly unsprung. More broadly it works by allowing us escape from our worries. A rural life implies that: a simple life away from our troubles. Most Shakespearean comedies involve retreat into a forest or wilderness, a “green world,” as Northrop Fry noted, which somehow resolves the problems of the protagonist.

For a time, American television conformed, perhaps by accident, to the old formula, and had a run of huge comedic hits based on rural life: Beverley Hillbillies, Hee Haw, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction. Then the marketing mavens realized with alarm that they were not appealing to the most desirable market. Most Americans lived in cities, after all. Especially most Americans with money to spend. So the geniuses, in lock step, cancelled all the hillbilly opreys, though still the most popular shows, to reflect the real lives of their desired audience. The replacement sitcoms were all set relentlessly in suburbs or the city. Mary Tyler Moore was going to make it after all. 

They did fine; some were great. But they ran against no rural competition. If there was a thirst in the audience for such an escape from their dreary daily lives, it was not satisfied.

One notable exception: Gilligan’s Island. A show with a puerile premise and without good writing. Nevertheless, the escapist setting alone seems to have gained it, in the absence of any other non-urban competition, cultural immortality.

Overall, nobody in Hollywood seems to understand how comedy works. At least, nobody with money to fund a TV show. But here in Canada, Corner Gas hit upon that same ancient formula. Everyone in Toronto wanted to imagine themselves living in Dog River.

It is also the old Canadian formula. Dog River is a colony of Mariposa. Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Small Town is, along with Anne of Green Gables and Songs of a Sourdough, one of the three founding documents of English Canadian literature. All three are about people living in isolated communities. It is the shared Canadian literary experience. Largely as a result, the soul of Canada is in its small towns. Largely as a result, the soul of Canada is comic, so that Canada keeps generating brilliant comics and comic writers like Brent Butt.

No More Clowning Around

Unsurprisingly, my left-leaning friend Xerxes enthusiastically supports the firing of Don Cherry. “About time,” he writes.

I think Cherry was fired for doing his job.

Can anyone think Cherry was there just as a hockey commentator? Such a popular figure, voted one of the greatest Canadians, making so much money for his employers and sponsors, because of the quality of his hockey insights? People with the expertise for sports commentary are thick on the ground. There is really rarely much to say in that regard. It ain’t rocket science. Most after-game shows are deadly boring.

Don Cherry is an entertainer. People watched for his flamboyant act, his outrageousness. His recent comments about immigrants were entirely within this character and role. Just what he was there to do.

Don Cherry is a clown. He even wears motley, for goodness sake. He even has a straight man.

Humor requires the reversal of expectations—always. That’s what makes things funny. Accordingly, the job of a clown or comedian is always to say or do things that are superficially outrageous.

To fire a clown for clowning is unreasonable and unjust.

You might respond, “Don Cherry’s not funny.” Matter of taste. He does not make people laugh out loud. But he obviously entertained. His viewership numbers prove it. He made folks smile.

It is worse than bad form, bad manners, to be unable to take a joke. Joking also serves important social functions. For one, jokes and laughter allow us to let off steam, which otherwise will be expressed in more disruptive ways. Every clown also at least in part serves the traditional role of the court jester: gently and unthreateningly speaking truth to power. We always need this so as not to slip off the rails and be lost in our own delusions. There is not much authentic humour in a totalitarian state.

Firing Don Cherry is a strong indication that this is the way we are headed.

And any aggression here, any ‘bullying,’ is not by Don Cherry, but by the wider society. He has always said things like this; he has not changed. The rules have, without fair warning.

And there was nothing objectively wrong with what he said this time, for anyone, let alone a clown.

Xerxes cites the legal adage, “your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose.” This helpfully demonstrates why all ‘hate speech,’ let alone anything Cherry said, should be constitutionally protected. It is in the US. The Canadian Constitution matches the American in guaranteeing free speech; but in the US, this matter has come to the Supreme Court, and they have ruled so.

For words, after all, never come in contact with anyone’s nose.

Except in certain specific circumstances, words cause no material harm. The specific circumstances are well-defined in common law: libel, slander, fraud, incitement to violence. One can see the common thread: material harm. Upsetting someone does not count. Any such imagined harm is ultimately self-inflicted: nobody is obliged to watch Don Cherry.

Abandon this principle, and there is no free speech whatsoever. The term then means nothing.

But even were this not the case, Cherry’s recent remark was not “hate speech,” illegitimate as that term is.

It is one thing to criticize people as groups based on race, creed, or colour. That is, at best, morally wrong, even if it must not be illegal. The problem is that these are things over which no one has any control. (Religion fits here because, if one believes, one’s conscience puts the matter beyond free choice.) But “immigrants,” or rather, to use Cherry’s words, “you people that come here,” are defined only by a shared action, done freely, that of moving to Canada. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that actions have or should have consequences, implying certain responsibilities. If it is discriminatory to make general unfavourable comments about such a group, defined only by a voluntary action, then it must, to be just, be considered equally discriminatory, and a firing offense, to make any criticism of lawyers, or politicians, or used car salesmen, or the rich, or the Toronto Maple Leafs, or Torontonians, and so forth. Theoretically, it would seem wrong even to say anything against, say, criminals.

Which may, I suspect, be the real reason behind the growing social intolerance. A lot of people have a guilty conscience, and so are invested in objecting to anyone pointing out anything wrong about anyone. This seems of a piece with the US Congress trying to impeach Donald Trump for asking for investigation of a possible crime by Hunter Biden, rather than investigating Hunter Biden. Or the US media suppressing the story of Jeffrey Epstein, and attacking in full outrage the supposed ‘whistle-blower’ who revealed that the story was suppressed. The crime now has become pointing out the crime.

Surely it is obvious that it will be impossible to run a democracy on that basis. Let alone tell jokes.

Another little bit in Xerxes’s column perhaps shows why clowns are needed.

He reports approvingly that “the United Church of Canada has policies that will not permit an unmarried minister to fall in love with a member of the congregation.”

Now, that statement is surely false. To begin with, falling in love is not something any authority can prevent from happening, or even know has happened. Moreover, it is an entirely good thing, and certainly not harmful to its object. See St. Paul on the nature of love. Surely any denomination should want its ministers to fall in love with all their congregants; it is the core of the Christian message.

What he or the United Church actually mean, surely, is that their ministers are prohibited from having sex with members of the congregation. They do not want to say this because it sounds unsettling. It requires the tacit admission that their ministers are otherwise free to have sex outside of marriage.

This is the sort of politically correct falsehood, meant to mislead, that we need clowns to call us on. Like John the Baptist in his day, they “make the paths straight for the Lord.”

Which is to say, aside from gravely harming our democracy, and social peace, the firing of Don Cherry does not speak well for our shared morality either.

Monty Python's Dive Bombing Circus

Have recently been re-watching old Monty Python Flying Circus episodes. Just about everything seems to be available online through YouTube.

I still find them funny. I love absurdist humour, and that is what they mostly were. You can’t beat the fish slapping dance.

Each of the six Pythons seemed to bring something special to the show:

John Cleese was the comic genius. He could write brilliantly and perform brilliantly. He could do complex verbal humour, and striking physical humour, both at the highest level.

Graham Chapman was the acting talent. He was always completely the person he was acting. This made him fantastic as a deadpan comic or straight man: no matter how absurd the situation, he seemed real and believable and vaguely troubled by it all.

Michael Palin had what can be a comic’s greatest gift: he was intrinsically likable. This is the complete package for some great comics: Jimmy Durante, for example, was not really funny, just consistently lovable. Charlie Chaplin was mostly lovable, not funny. Palin was like that—always an eager puppy. Great comic persona.

Eric Idle’s talent was as a lyricist. His songs are some of the most memorable things from the series. He wrote in the tradition of W.S. Gilbert or Flanders and Swan. He was also probably, next to Cleese, the best comic writer.

Terry Gilliam had the visual imagination. Idle provided the sound track, Gilliam provided the scenery. Without it, Python would not be Python. It was the most distinctive element.

Gilliam has made a name for himself as a major director since the series ended. Yet the best director in the group was Terry Jones. That suggests how good Jones is. When the group did their own movies, they always chose Jones, not Gilliam, to direct. They knew both best; they knew what they were doing. If you re-watch Life of Brian, as I just did, with an eye for the cinematic element, it is astounding how good Jones is. He simply chose not to pursue this path after the series ended. He’s been spending his time on Medieval history—doing what he likes, not needing to worry about money.

I also recently re-watched the famous debate between Palin and Cleese, on one side, and Malcolm Muggeridge and the Anglican bishop of Southwark, on the other, on Life of Brian—supposedly the late Douglas Adams’s favorite bit of television. Muggeridge and the bishop hated the movie.

Who won? I think it was a split decision. Palin was crushed by the archbishop, and pretty much knocked out of the debate. But Cleese got in the best line, against Muggeridge. Muggeridge and the bishop lost sympathy by being openly insulting towards the film, not acknowledging its value as humour. And, worse, by not discussing the theology, but dismissing it out of hand. They came across as grumpy old men. I suspect they were at a disadvantage from only having seen the movie for the first time a few hours before. These were only first impressions, they had not had time to compose any substantial arguments, and no doubt they were shocked.

On the other hand, Cleese loses sympathy today by characterising the bishop’s and Muggeridge’s position as simply unintelligent. Which comes across as disrespectful and even as a backhanded admission that they were right.

Cleese justified the film in debate, and gave its central message as, “Don’t just believe what you are told. Decide for yourself.” Good advice, but not illustrated by the film. In reality, in Britain or throughout the developed world, either when the film came out, or now, sincerely believing in the Christian message is a minority position. It is the subversive and independent position. Going along with the herd in these days or those meant mocking Christianity, chasing worldly success instead, and enjoying Monty Python.

If you want something that makes the point Cleese claims to have been making, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People might have qualified. But, tellingly, it is not funny. Another piece that makes the point, even more dramatically, is the New Testament. Which, as Cleese admitted, they could not find a way to make funny. You probably cannot really make this point and still be funny.

The more fundamental problem or issue, to my mind, is that Python was straying here from what was best about them: absurdism. Like too many other celebrities once they find an audience, they began exploiting their platform to promote their personal opinions on this, that, and the other thing: on religion, on Christianity, on politics, on The Meaning of Life. Meaning. Note that word. Being funny was no longer enough for them.

I can’t really fault them for this—it is exactly what I do here, albeit without the audience. But in the case of Python, it goes uniquely against the essence of what made them great. This explains, I suspect, why they themselves found their comic muses drying up, and found they could no longer do the series. And they turned out, I think, as is most likely to be the case for celebrities who speak outside their own expertise, not to have any particular great or interesting insights on things like the Meaning of Life.

Why would they, any more than the next guy?

Funny

Who are the greatest English-language humourists of all time?

A matter of taste. But here’s mine.

Jonathan Swift: the greatest satirist. Not just “A Modest Proposal,” maybe the greatest essay in English, but also Gulliver’s Travels. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but in the grand tradition of satire: you do not know he’s cut off your head until the next time you go to bow.

Stephen Leacock. Humour often does not wear well—mostly because it depends on the element of surprise. But Leacock wears as well as he ever did. I loved him as a kid, and read everything then. I reread some a few years ago, and it was still as good. “He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” He made people funny yet never stooped to making anyone a pure object of fun. As comedy traditionally does, with its grotesques. Nothing cruel, no painting anyone as only a buffoon. His characters were never two-dimensional humours; you always sympathized with them.

Buster Keaton. Overshadowed in his day by Chaplin, and even Harold Lloyd. But he has better stood the test of time. Chaplin was sometimes guilty of special pleading, of jerking tears. Keaton was Gibraltar in his integrity. If the joke did not work on its own, it did not get any help. There was a purity to it, an almost mathematical quality.

Jack Benny. I have only in lengthening years fully appreciated the greatness of his art. He could take a line that would not be funny if anyone else said it, a line that had no visible punch line, and make you laugh, just about for as long as he wanted. He could say “Well,” and it was screamingly funny. And without any obvious mugging or broad gestures. He was the master of timing. He was the master of minimalism.

It is harder to judge more recent humourists; we cannot yet tell how they will wear. Among the ultimate greats may be Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Michael Myers, John Belushi. More recent than that, it gets even trickier.

Overrated: Groucho Marx. Too easy to imitate, and he got his shtick in the first place from George S. Kaufman. Often not funny so much as obnoxious. Anyone can be obnoxious.

Mark Twain. Tiresomely predictable in his cynicism.

Mel Brooks. Too desperate for a laugh.

Lucille Ball. I could never watch her as a kid. I did not find it funny to constantly see someone messing up. It required an utter lack of sympathy with the character.