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Right-wing comedians around the world?

Started by tribalfusion, July 06, 2020, 08:24:16 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Trey Parker & Matt Stone are always the first that come to mind for me, given I couldn't disagree more with their politics but I've found their output (which leans heavily on their worldview) pretty much consistently funny for over two decades. 

Autopsy Turvey

Quote from: Retinend on July 07, 2020, 09:02:51 AM
It gets me wondering, why are so few comics right wing?

Comics often seem to come straight out of a cosseted bohemian university lifestyle, clutching a useless low-grade arts degree, and go straight into getting paid to piss about, remaining in many ways a child, with the child's instinct to flick the Vs behind the parent/teacher's back, few proper work or life experiences and a desperation for the approval of strangers to fulfil some need for love and attention that they didn't get as children. It is an illogical, unstable choice of career, demanding a special dysfunctional blend of insecurity and narcissism.

Quote from: thenoise on July 07, 2020, 11:06:32 AM
There is a kind of willful ignorance about the archetypal 'Tory', happy to exist in their own little bubble, avoid the lower orders at all costs, so they are unlikely to have anything particularly insightful to say about anyone's life experiences other than their own.

It is interesting that this 'archetypal Tory' now sounds so much like the archetypal middle class lefty!

jobotic

Ha ha and they the right aren't only capable of copy and pasting tedious cliches from Brendan O'Niell's template funny

Good to see you

Brundle-Fly


QuoteComics often seem to come straight out of a cosseted bohemian university lifestyle, clutching a useless low-grade arts degree, and go straight into getting paid to piss about, remaining in many ways a child, with the child's instinct to flick the Vs behind the parent/teacher's back, few proper work or life experiences and a desperation for the approval of strangers to fulfil some need for love and attention that they didn't get as children. It is an illogical, unstable choice of career, demanding a special dysfunctional blend of insecurity and narcissism.

Except a massive amount of comedians had 'proper jobs' for years before taking the plunge into stand-up. Basing assumptions on a few high profile Oxbridge graduates exhibits the same fatuous attitude as 'You won't be a lefty once you start paying a mortgage.' It's meaningless.


g0m

Quote from: sevendaughters on July 07, 2020, 12:41:30 PM
I have heard Wehn admire Merkel, and I have heard SLee refer to him as right of centre, but I can't quite square the idea that "libertarian" = "right" necessarily because libertarianism (and I am not one) has been massively perverted by selfish online Americans. Most Germans are paranoid about surveillance and being overly interfered with by the state but tend to not resent paying their taxes and agree with public funding of services, etc. In the current climate Merkel seems like Atlee.

wehn did a pro brexit show at last year's fringe

lazyhour

Quote from: tribalfusion on July 06, 2020, 08:24:16 PM
US:
Norm MacDonald

I just don't know. Maybe he is. But I also think he plays a very long game of playing with people and hiding his true opinions and personality. For example he sometimes talks about being ill-educated or will pour scorn on academia and pretension, but then he'll drop some really highbrow terminology or will admit to actually being a voracious reader of difficult, proper literature.

I just take any political statement he makes with a massive pinch of salt.

Here's one you can definitely add to the list:

Roseanne Barr

Petey Pate

Quote from: Retinend on July 07, 2020, 09:02:51 AM
It gets me wondering, why are so few comics right wing?

Stewart Lee asked this question, specifically about stand ups, some years ago.

https://www.stewartlee.co.uk/written_for_money/where-are-all-the-right-wing-stand-ups/

sevendaughters

Quote from: g0m on July 07, 2020, 02:19:10 PM
wehn did a pro brexit show at last year's fringe

I'd have to hear it, I'd imagine there's a bit more to it than reading out Farage tweets and writing an autopsyturvey-style parade of strawmen. There were some legitimate reasons to leave.

tribalfusion

Quote from: sevendaughters on July 07, 2020, 03:39:30 PM
I'd have to hear it, I'd imagine there's a bit more to it than reading out Farage tweets and writing an autopsyturvey-style parade of strawmen. There were some legitimate reasons to leave.

As I posted earlier: 

here's an interview of Wehn by conservative comedian Geoff Norcott where I think you can get some idea of his views around 43 minutes in for example. I think it's fair to say he is a right of center comic:

https://whatmostpeoplethink.libsyn.com/ep-14-feat-henning-wehn-anglo-german-relations

tribalfusion

Quote from: TheRitzBrothers on July 07, 2020, 10:53:14 AM
Some interesting cases on here.

Back in the 1990s I knew Lee Hurst and have a memory of sitting in a car with him between gigs when he went on an endless rant about Rupert Murdoch, the evils of The Sun, and Murdoch's appalling treatment of the print unions. Whatever people thought about his comedy, he was definitely seen on the circuit as on the laddish left along with names such as Kevin Day and Martin Coyote. So it's all the more odd to see the journey he's made to rabid gammon since those days.

Pat Condell is even stranger. Once a darling of City Limits readers he's now a full-on alt-right bigot. In his case he made a name for himself as a militant atheist but discovered that you can get more youtube clicks by hating Muslims and culturally defending all other religions against Muslims. In his social media presence there is no Fox News or Daily Express lie that goes un-retweeted if it attacks people who, purely by coincidence, happen to have a darker skin colour than Pat.

In both cases, their previous political stance was not the result of youthful naivity; both men were well into their thirties when I first encountered them. And it's hardly as if their change has come about as a result of financial success.

Yep Lee Hurst was left leaning back in the 90s and has since gone 'the god that failed' route  (also the case for Australians Steve Hughes and Shayne Hunter).




tribalfusion

Quote from: evilcommiedictator on July 07, 2020, 09:21:54 AM
Missing Kelsey Grammar there, GW Bush loving Libertarian who was a massive coke and alcohol addict after his sister was abducted and murdered.
We sadly missed his Right to Laugh show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqK-hG8Qhh4" which was a hoot*
There was a better video out there with some of his fellow comedians* but it's sadly gone, with the channel no longer having videos for me
https://www.youtube.com/user/RightNetwork/.


Also you can add to the list David Zucker, from "Zucker Abrams Zucker" fame, who felt so annoyed about one Michael Moore and the lack of love for the Republicans he made "An American Carol", a movie about proving exactly how fat Michael Moore is.


You're definitely right about Zucker and Grammar but I was thinking more about stand-ups.

tribalfusion

Quote from: TheRitzBrothers on July 07, 2020, 11:55:22 AM
Overton window, and all that aside, the nature of comedy makes it hard to pin a lot of comics as definitely left or right unless their political stance is intrinsic to their careers. With American comedians, it's even harder because the bar to being considered a liberal is now such a low one.

For example, Bill Maher is considered a thorn in the side of Trump supporters and the religious right but if he were British he would in all probability find a comfortable home in the Remain-supporting wing (or what's left of it) in the Tory Party.

And speaking of the Tory Party, here's a relic from the Thatcher Archive that makes fascinating reading.

http://fc95d419f4478b3b6e5f-3f71d0fe2b653c4f00f32175760e96e7.r87.cf1.rackcdn.com/18571C4EE5504F98867695BDF539C16E.pdf


A lot of people in the US consider Maher to be conservative-ish as well but he's more like Joe Rogan in that it depends a bit more on the specific topic at hand and of course a thorn in Trump's side can include right wing hawks like John Bolton according to many in the so-called Trump 'resistance'

tribalfusion

Quote from: sevendaughters on July 07, 2020, 12:41:30 PM
I have heard Wehn admire Merkel, and I have heard SLee refer to him as right of centre, but I can't quite square the idea that "libertarian" = "right" necessarily because libertarianism (and I am not one) has been massively perverted by selfish online Americans. Most Germans are paranoid about surveillance and being overly interfered with by the state but tend to not resent paying their taxes and agree with public funding of services, etc. In the current climate Merkel seems like Atlee.


There was a point long ago when people might have thought about libertarian socialism aka anarchism but at this point, libertarian (without a modifier) is widely understood to be a conservative ideological marker and for good reason.

There are certainly Germans on the right who would love to carve up the welfare state but they are more constrained than their counterparts in many other countries.


dothestrand

Bill Maher got a bit of a free pass because he, like Chris Hitchens, had no time for religion. However, this form of atheism often crosses straight into Islamophobia - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/oct/06/bill-maher-islam-ben-affleck

tribalfusion

Quote from: lazyhour on July 07, 2020, 02:33:21 PM
I just don't know. Maybe he is. But I also think he plays a very long game of playing with people and hiding his true opinions and personality. For example he sometimes talks about being ill-educated or will pour scorn on academia and pretension, but then he'll drop some really highbrow terminology or will admit to actually being a voracious reader of difficult, proper literature.

I just take any political statement he makes with a massive pinch of salt. Here's one you can definitely add to the list: Roseanne Barr

Roseanne has definitely gone off the deep-end and Norm has been actively supporting her which speaks again to his own political proclivities as well.

tribalfusion

Quote from: dothestrand on July 07, 2020, 07:21:31 PM
Bill Maher got a bit of a free pass because he, like Chris Hitchens, had no time for religion. However, this form of atheism often crosses straight into Islamophobia - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/oct/06/bill-maher-islam-ben-affleck

It's also because of the general confusion, particularly in the Anglo world, about how to understand people being 'socially liberal' while simultaneously holding views about concentrations of private power,  economic democracy and labor which would unambiguously put them straight into the right wing in Germany or Finland etc

Ant Farm Keyboard

Quote from: thenoise on July 06, 2020, 09:38:44 PM
Who's that antisemitic French comedian that was all the rage 6 or 7 years ago? Dieudonne?

Yes, Dieudonné. After that, he lost the lease to the small theater that was his headquarters in Paris (which is very close to where I live, so I saw this fucker a couple of times in the streets). And his YouTube channels were deleted a few days ago. He lost a lot of support after he started to broker "anti-system" insurances, with the argument that not a cent would go to Zionists. These were standard insurances on which he took a premium commission, and people finally realized he had always been trying to get money from them.

There is also impersonator Jean Roucas. In the eighties, Roucas was the main voice for a political puppet show, Le Bébête Show, first as part of specials then as a daily show. It predated your Spitting Image, but most of the comedy was corny, based on weak or dated puns (that Roucas didn't write), and by the end of the decade they had lost their edge to Les Guignols de l'info. After Le Bébête Show and his radio show were cancelled, his career hit a rough patch, he was a contestant in some reality TV show around 2005, and announced around 2013 that he had joined the Front national. It was even more of a disaster to his career, so he has been forced to stay out of politics for a few years.
Actually, impersonators, from the late Thierry Le Luron to Laurent Gerra, are often on the right side of the political specter, but they seldom show any bias in their performances.

Much more moderate than Dieudonné or Roucas, there's comedian Christian Clavier, who had the title part in the first Asterix movies but was before that a member of the Splendid ensemble and a big contributor to plays and films such as French Fried Vacation or Santa Claus Is a Stinker, before hitting it big with Les Visiteurs. At some point, he was even regarded as the heir to Louis de Funès, before starring in a string of stinkers.
Clavier is good friends with former president Sarkozy, and has reinvented himself as the lead in many interchangeable comedies about a middle-class, middle-aged dude who's confronted with diversity, migrants, etc. in the Serial (Bad) Weddings franchise, With Open Arms, etc. Even the posters for these films look exactly the same.

tribalfusion

Quote from: Ant Farm Keyboard on July 07, 2020, 07:38:06 PM
Yes, Dieudonné. After that, he lost the lease to the small theater that was his headquarters in Paris (which is very close to where I live, so I saw this fucker a couple of times in the streets). And his YouTube channels were deleted a few days ago. He lost a lot of support after he started to broker "anti-system" insurances, with the argument that not a cent would go to Zionists. These were standard insurances on which he took a premium commission, and people finally realized he had always been trying to get money from them.

There is also impersonator Jean Roucas. In the eighties, Roucas was the main voice for a political puppet show, Le Bébête Show, first as part of specials then as a daily show. It predated your Spitting Image, but most of the comedy was corny, based on weak or dated puns (that Roucas didn't write), and by the end of the decade they had lost their edge to Les Guignols de l'info. After Le Bébête Show and his radio show were cancelled, his career hit a rough patch, he was a contestant in some reality TV show around 2005, and announced around 2013 that he had joined the Front national. It was even more of a disaster to his career, so he has been forced to stay out of politics for a few years.
Actually, impersonators, from the late Thierry Le Luron to Laurent Gerra, are often on the right side of the political specter, but they seldom show any bias in their performances.

Much more moderate than Dieudonné or Roucas, there's comedian Christian Clavier, who had the title part in the first Asterix movies but was before that a member of the Splendid ensemble and a big contributor to plays and films such as French Fried Vacation or Santa Claus Is a Stinker, before hitting it big with Les Visiteurs. At some point, he was even regarded as the heir to Louis de Funès, before starring in a string of stinkers.
Clavier is good friends with former president Sarkozy, and has reinvented himself as the lead in many interchangeable comedies about a middle-class, middle-aged dude who's confronted with diversity, migrants, etc. in the Serial (Bad) Weddings franchise, With Open Arms, etc. Even the posters for these films look exactly the same.


Thanks for posting. Gérald Dahan would be an important left-wing exception to your point about right-wing impersonators in France.

On a related note, would you mind suggesting French comedians/humoristes you would classify as left-wing? People who come to mind for me at least in part are Guillaume Meurice, Nicole Ferroni, Christophe Aleveque, Didier Porte and Gérald Dahan though I wouldn't necessarily call them all comedians in the English sense of the word.

And lastly, is there an equivalent French forum to Cook'd and Bomb'd and where would you discuss comedy in French otherwise online?

Thanks!

sevendaughters

Quote from: tribalfusion on July 07, 2020, 06:41:51 PM
As I posted earlier: 

here's an interview of Wehn by conservative comedian Geoff Norcott where I think you can get some idea of his views around 43 minutes in for example. I think it's fair to say he is a right of center comic:

https://whatmostpeoplethink.libsyn.com/ep-14-feat-henning-wehn-anglo-german-relations

Listened. I didn't think it was terribly conclusive. Small c conservative, but also made a cogent point about the obvious sense that the basics of feminism entails.

tribalfusion

Quote from: sevendaughters on July 07, 2020, 08:27:53 PM
Listened. I didn't think it was terribly conclusive. Small c conservative, but also made a cogent point about the obvious sense that the basics of feminism entails.

Wehn agrees with Geoff Norcott's conservative points all throughout that interview. Wehn's own comments about feminists eating meat and eggs supposedly demonstrating feminist 'hypocrisy' is a textbook right-wing type whataboutist move.  Stewart Lee, who knows and likes Wehn, has described him as conservative. Wehn has repeatedly praised Angela Merkel etc.

I think it's fair to say Wehn is right of center.

Flouncer

Quote from: TheRitzBrothers on July 07, 2020, 10:53:14 AMPat Condell is even stranger. Once a darling of City Limits readers he's now a full-on alt-right bigot. In his case he made a name for himself as a militant atheist but discovered that you can get more youtube clicks by hating Muslims and culturally defending all other religions against Muslims. In his social media presence there is no Fox News or Daily Express lie that goes un-retweeted if it attacks people who, purely by coincidence, happen to have a darker skin colour than Pat.

When I saw Condell in the list above, I thought, "That can't be the same bloke, surely?" I can't imagine that purple-faced YouTube bigot even cracking a joke, never mind doing a stand-up set - he seems like the most humourless cunt imaginable. What was his act like?

evilcommiedictator

Quote from: TheBrownBottle on July 07, 2020, 01:38:36 PM
Trey Parker & Matt Stone are always the first that come to mind for me, given I couldn't disagree more with their politics but I've found their output (which leans heavily on their worldview) pretty much consistently funny for over two decades.

Good point, although I'm not sure after having an interesting line on "MemberBerries" and screwing up Hillary winning, having an entire series of South Park based around one joke, "PC Babies", geddit, they're babies and politically correct, the cry when people are not PC, they're babies, like the actual PC people, geddit, like babies, and they're PC, and their mum is "Strong Woman" because geddit

zomgmouse

Most comedians are just edgy centrists

KennyMonster

Quote from: dothestrand on July 07, 2020, 07:21:31 PM
Bill Maher got a bit of a free pass because he, like Chris Hitchens, had no time for religion. However, this form of atheism often crosses straight into Islamophobia - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/oct/06/bill-maher-islam-ben-affleck

He also thinks America has a right to interfere with democratically elected governments that pose him no threat if they happen to be nearby.

Right wing cunt.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: tribalfusion on July 07, 2020, 08:09:18 PM
And lastly, is there an equivalent French forum to Cook'd and Bomb'd and where would you discuss comedy in French otherwise online?

Cuisinier et Beurmb.

I hope this helps you with your scholarly research.

Retinend

Most people are centrists.
Most comedians are edgy.
Quote from: zomgmouse on July 08, 2020, 02:35:49 AM
Most comedians are edgy centrists



"Most comedians", "edgy" and "centrist" are the retinends of the syllogism and "Most people" the eliminand, fact fans

Jake Thingray

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on July 08, 2020, 08:53:38 AM
Cuisinier et Beurmb.

I hope this helps you with your scholarly research.

If we still had karma on here, you'd get a positive one from me for that.

sevendaughters

Quote from: tribalfusion on July 07, 2020, 08:57:33 PM
Wehn agrees with Geoff Norcott's conservative points all throughout that interview. Wehn's own comments about feminists eating meat and eggs supposedly demonstrating feminist 'hypocrisy' is a textbook right-wing type whataboutist move.  Stewart Lee, who knows and likes Wehn, has described him as conservative. Wehn has repeatedly praised Angela Merkel etc.

I think it's fair to say Wehn is right of center.

It just seems like a category error: the leftist comedians have to be reasonably out Marxists or self-confessed socialists to qualify, whilst anyone with a conservative thought gets lumped on this thread. I don't see it, right of centre may he be.