Why there will never be a right wing Robin Williams

[4now]

You may have noticed that conservatives dominate talk radio. That’s because talk radio, in large part, works by oversimplifying, stretching, distorting and/or ignoring the truth, eschewing nuance and boiling things down into easily digestible sound bites. (If the generalizations I just made reads a little bit talk radioish, it’s because… I’m not just telling, I’m showing, of course.) The left, however, have comedy. And that’s because, though it’s not often brought up, comedy, or good comedy, at least, is based on empathy, something the right, in general, lacks (see: immigration, affirmative action, rights of any disenfranchised groups). And that is why the right will never produce their own version of Robin Williams.

All good comedy requires empathy. Because a good comedian cares enough about people to observe them and their behavior and get into their heads. And in no area of comedy is empathy more needed than in impersonations, which requires a comedian to literally become someone else. A bad comedian impersonates someone in a way that merely makes fun of them. A good comedian can do it in a way that humanizes the person. That’s also why you don’t see too many conservatives performing one-man-shows. (Thank goodness! Though a one-man-show about a right wing one-man-show could be great.) Also, right wing comedy bullies the underdogs, while progressive comedians use comedy to speak truth to, or make fun of, power.

Robin Williams was a genius mimic. And in his performance in The Birdcage, for instance, we don’t see an over the top homophobic rendering of a gay character. We see an impeccable rendering of an over the top gay man. It’s a character someone truly homophobic could never play.

For a controlled experiment backing up my theory about the connection between empathy and funniness, see Dennis Miller. He used to be funny until he became a right winger after 9/11, and his comedy was replaced by mean-spirited rage, directed at the the underdog, not the powers that be.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/13/why-there-will-never-be-a-right-wing-robin-williams/

[SheilaT]

1. It's my observation that conservatives

in general do not understand there is a difference between poking fun at someone, and being mean.

[stillwaiting]

48. I agree. When one of us calls one of them out they always say they're just joking.

They aren't being funny. They are being assholes.

[hifiguy]

2. The best comedy

always is finely attuned to the foibles of humanity or mocks the powerful. Or both. The only funny right winger I ever encountered was P.J. O'Rourke, and he hasn't been funny for fifteen years. Like Miller, he turned into a one-dimensional mean-spirited asshole.

[SoCalDem]

3. Good comedy/satire always starts with TRUTH

rightwingers never acknowledge truth.

[JI7]

4. i agree, good comedians are often more intelligent thant he average person and have

a good understand of people and just society overall. robin williams was not just able to get the people and things that were like him but even those who had different backgrounds and experiences.

this is why the best jokes often involve some everyday thing which others could relate to and they are able to make it funny.

and your description of talk radio is also why liberals tend to not do so well on there .

i always said things like films, tv shows, music , books are to liberals what talk radio is to right wingers.

[FSogol]

5. Gary Trudeau said it best

[underpants]

6. That is excellent

[4now]

8. Now THAT was funny

[edhopper]

7. Dennis Miller would disagree

and he would disagree using an obscure reference that no one would find funny, ironically proving the premiss right.

[tk2kewl]

12. was he really ever funny though?

[Bigredhunk]

28. -

I thought Miller used to be pretty funny on his HBO "Dennis Miller Live" show. I remember one particular joke from the end of the show segment during which he'd show images on the TV screen and caption it. On the screen they threw up a picture of Colin Powell and Newt Gingrich. Miller said, "Here's a picture of a Colin and an asshole."

What's weird is how much he changed, or at least appeared to change, after 9/11. I remember Al Franken saying something about Miller's changing into a conservative. People kept asking Franken, "What happened to Dennis?" Franken basically said that nothing happened to Dennis, he'd always been conservative. I suppose Franken would know him a lot better than the general public would (with their time spent on SNL). But either, A) Miller really pushed himself to the left (faking it) because HBO required him to lean that way, or B) He really DID change a ton after 9/11 (and Franken was wrong). I think it was on Phil Donahue's short-lived MSNBC show where Miller explained his going more to the right after 9/11. It was an interesting show (watching from Phil's POV). Miller talked about thinking NY had really been "cleaned up" (fewer bums and/or criminals). When he'd ask his NY friends what happened to the place, they'd respond with something like, "Oh. That was Hitler" (referring to Giuliani). Miller would think, "Really? Hitler?" I guess that bothered him a lot, so he started looking to the other side(?) IDK. I think David Mamet has done the same thing for the same reason.

Anyway, re: Miller...I'm sure there's plenty of clips out there of him on Dennis Miller Live. I have a bunch of them on videotape. There's no way you can watch them and say he didn't lean left in the 90's. He definitely took a pretty sharp turn to the right after 9/11. I remember watching the show less and less because he'd have (lame) jokes against liberals. Coincidentally, his HBO show ended in August of 2002 (it had started in 1994). I bet you dollars to donuts that HBO cancelled him because they didn't like his conservative bullshit. He must've been under contract, because he's had 2 or 3 specials on HBO since then. I bet they cancelled his show and fulfilled the remainder of his contract by allowing him to have specials. The specials completely suck, BTW. I remember in one of them he said something about Obama being a good speaker. He said, "Good for him. Let him go sell Shamwows, we've got a country to fix." I'm thinking, "That takes some balls, considering your guys are the ones who broke the country in the first place."

[tk2kewl]

31. i've never had hbo so my exposure to miller...

was snl, which i didn't watch much during his tenure, and mnfl on which i thought he was not funny and was a distraction to the game

if he turned right at 9/11 you'd think by now he'd have realized that the joke was on him so to speak

[Brainstormy]

15. Dennis Miller was never

funny

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

17. I wouldn't take Dennis Miller lightly.

he declared war on his own career and look what happened......

[4now]

24. Thats funnier then anything Miller has said in years.

[lpbk2713]

19. ABC put Miller on Monday Night Football for comic relief.

He turned out to be one colossal embarrassment for everyone associated with MNF.

[tenderfoot]

26. Dennis Miller relied on writers

he hasn't a original bone in his body.

[Mr.Bill]

34. Funniest line I ever heard him say was

(referring to the Grenada invasion) Reagan used a carrier task force to knock over a fruit stand.

[WillyT]

9. K & R !!!

[msongs]

10. "right wing" comedians are never really funny nt

[phantom power]

11. Good comedy punches up. Conservatism is based on punching down.

[YoungDemCA]

16. Nailed it.

[lpbk2713]

13. Those anal retentive asswipes have no idea what humor is.

Dennis Miller and Victoria Jackson ... I rest my case.

[unblock]

14. i don't think it's necessarily a left/right or an empathy thing. it's about power.

i think a disempowered group is a good environment in which to grow comedic talent. there's the need for laughs, and it's a challenge to find laughter without someone to show you the way. so a funny kid can thrive.

meanwhile the powerful have to cobble together fairytale fantasies trying to rationalize holding a disproportionate share of the resources. the fantasies keep bumping up against reality so the constant frustration turns into anger and hate. that environment is great for cranking out limbaughs and other hate radio jerks.


we need laughs to make living with unfairness and injustice bearable.

they need laughs to reinforce their entitled position, so their humor is at the expense of others.


impersonations is a good example; their brand of impersonations is to make a complete caricature of someone or some stereotype so it can be laughed at in ridicule.


on edit: doonesbury says it much better, above....

[YoungDemCA]

18. Another good response

nt

[SheilaT]

50. You have a very interesting point about

the disempowered and the outsiders. While not all comedians have been from those groups, think of all the amazing Jewish, Black, and female comedians we've had. All are classic outsiders.

[kwolf68]

52. DL Houghley (spelling)

is a black comedian who is a gawtdamn riot.

[Gothmog]

20. Conservatives lack a sense of humor

Conservatives are simply too dumb to be funny

[Nuh Uh]

21. Believe it or not there are some funny Republicans

I may be wading in dangerous territory by saying this, but we're ignoring some remarkable talent like Bob Hope, Bill Cosby, Drew Carey, Jeff Foxworthy, that come from the other side of the aisle. The best thing that those people have done was not concentrating on one side or the other, but finding laughter in what everyone does no matter their politics.

[nomorenomore08]

43. But as you alluded to yourself, their humor is mostly apolitical.

[Prophet 451]

47. Fair enough, there are a few

That said, I didn't know that Bob Hope was Republican and I'd imagine that Republicanism meant something different in his day.

[whathehell]

53. Bill Cosby is a Republican?

Do you have any links to that assertion?

[AndreaCG]

54. I haven't heard about Jeff Foxworthy lately

I do stand up and met him once. Super nice guy. Not especially a comedian but another phenomenally nice republican is Meat Loaf.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. The punchline for a lot of Right Wing humor is when someone they hate dies....

Often though, they'll just steal a joke and switch things around so it doesn't fit and then guffaw over their own cleverness.

I tell them it's like the way they twisted the intelligence in Iraq.

[nxylas]

32. Example

A week or two back, Ross Douthat actually used the line "reality has a well-known conservative bias" in his NYT column, with no acknowledgment of its origin.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

45. Thus proving my old saying, "People who can't take a joke,....are one".

[thesquanderer]

23. Edge-y comedy is subversive

Conservatism, by definition, is not.

[classykaren]

25. Open mind is needed for the creative process.

Just wait till election time again they will be stealing on the liberal songs for their campaign.

[fantase56]

27. one man show....

there is a one man show about a right wing one man show.... it's called the Colbert Report

[Mr.Bill]

36. Funniest thing I ever heard Colbert say

was when Bill O'Rielly was on his show saying anyone who knows him will tell you he (O'Rielly) is really a nice guy. All that stuff he does on his show is just an act. Colbert looked at him and said "If you're an act, then what am I?"

[Bobbie Jo]

41. Colbert is wicked clever.

It will be interesting to see what he does with the Tonight Show.

[John1956PA]

29. Adam Carolla is right-wing, foul-mouthed, and non-humorous.

Once, I sampled Carolla's right-wing ranting style on Glenn Beck's radio show which was (and still may be) syndicated through conventional radio broadcast stations. Carolla's profanity was bleeped out. He seemed to think that it was humorous to utilize compounded obscenities in nearly every sentence. Also, the subject of his rant was tasteless. His premise was that in today's society there is too much emphasis on rewarding children who try and fail. He feels rewards should be granted only to winners.

[nomorenomore08]

44. I'd bet money he was a bully back in school. He really strikes me as that type. n/t

[SheilaT]

51. Another good point. A lot of what passes for right wing or even just conservative humor

is nothing other than bullying.

[Initech]

30. To be a right winger, you have to have zero empathy for anyone, fact!!!

[C Moon]

33. Interesting. Thanks for posting this 4now.

I'm thinking back on my favorite comedians, and you seem to be right on.

[BlindTiresias]

35. Nope

Because punching up is comedy and kicking down is cruelty.

[cstanleytech]

37. 100% not true.

Sarah Palin is extremely funny to watch on stage and is a truly excellent comedian.

[red dog 1]

38. I never thought Dennis Miller was funny, even before he became a rabid right-winger

There aren't very many "funny" conservatives, IMO.

One conservative that I do like is writer-humorist Roy Blount Jr.
Unlike Miller, he is a talented guy, and has written many best-selling books
He is also a musician in an all-writers band, the Rock Bottom Remainders.

Another funny & talented Republican is musician Kinky Friedman, who once said:
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder"

My favorite Robin Williams joke is:
A rabbi walks into a bar with a frog on his shoulder...bartender asks "Where'd you get him?"
The frog answers, "Brooklyn, there's hundreds of 'em."

[Thor_MN]

39. Some comedy is based on ambiguity. Consevatives HATE ambiguity.

They tend to have binary thinking, 100% right or 1005 wrong. On, Off. Black, White.

No shades of gray, no partial solutions. They will contort their entire world to try to cram a binary position on it. If you refuse to see things that are out of place, lots of humor is totally lost.

[canoeist52]

40. Case in point; Lt. Steven Hauk: "Sir, in my heart, I know I'm funny."

Also;

" Dickerson: This is not military issue, airman. What sort of uniform is that?

Adrian Cronauer: Cretan camouflage sir. If you want to blend in with a bunch of drunken Greeks there's nothing better.

Dickerson: That is humor. I recognize that. I also recognize your brand of soldier. "

[Unknown Beatle]

42. I remember reading

that kkkarl rove was the funny guy in bush's inner circle. rove is about as funny as watching a turd being flushed down a toilet. Then I saw him with gregory dancing and singing "I'm mc rove". Talk about a cringe worthy moment. Funny guy, indeed...not!

[Dawson Leery]

46. k/r

[HughBeaumont]

49. Are you kidding me? The funniest person in the WORLD is a conservative!

. . . . Oh, wait, we're talking about people who make you laugh on purpose . . . .