
John Cleese: We Can't Have Comedy and Be Politically Correct [video] - walterbell
http://bigthink.com/videos/john-cleese-on-political-correctness
======
tryitnow
Let me preface this by saying that my favorite comedian is Doug Stanhope. So I
like very politically incorrect humor.

However, it's an issue of boundaries.

I make terribly politically incorrect jokes with my girlfriend, who shares my
un-pc sense of humor. But I wouldn't be caught dead saying those things at
work or around my friends who would be upset by such joking. I respect their
boundaries.

Being politically incorrect with people who are going to be upset by it is
just a form aggression. It's not funny, it's pathetic and juvenile.

For comedians it's a matter of marketing: do they want to appeal to a larger
crowd and kowtow to political correctness or do they want to be authentic and
cultivate a niche market?

My guess is that John Cleese wants it both ways. Sorry pal, not going to
happen. If you want to be politically incorrect you're going to have to go the
Doug Stanhope route and be authentic and poor instead of politically correct
and rich.

~~~
norea-armozel
I feel that people to use free speech as a shield want to be able to scream at
a random stranger whatever is on their mind without that stranger telling them
to f __* off. Maybe they don 't exactly see it that way, but it seems to be
the result. It's like forcing everyone to watch Steven Universe (frankly I
don't see the point of that show or Adventure Time, go figure). Anyone worth
their salt would see this as a violation of their liberties. Yet, when we look
at universities or similar institutions like Twitter some people decide that
they must be unfettered platforms for all speech even if it's clearly
criminal. I don't see how people make a special case in this situation. Maybe
I'm dense, but I just see an institution as a person at least in the legal
sense and having all the authority to protect their reputation.

------
EvanPlaice
I'm just waiting for the day when all of the short guys join together to check
women on their 'height privilege'.

I made a minor, off the cuff remark to my roommate and her friend about how my
brother is a couple of inches shorter than me and they went off for at least a
half hour about how they won't date a guy unless he's at least 6'2". How they
don't know why short guys even bother trying to date. How they'd never, 'even
if he was the last guy on earth' subject themselves to dating somebody shorter
than their 'standard.'

I couldn't help but to think to myself, 'wow, I haven't seen this level of off
the cuff bigotry since the last time I lived in the south and experienced
real, American made, southerner racism.' Talk about hating on a class of
people about characteristics that's beyond their ability to change.

------
norea-armozel
I really wish people would stop saying this sort of bs. Deciding not to
misgender or use racist/sexist slurs isn't PC out of control. It's called not
being a bigot. Maybe I'm just not all into dropping the n/f/t-words like some
other folks. And honestly I wouldn't call myself particularly a leftist in
politics save for my views in economics. So, if PC is out of control because
people call you out for saying something racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic
then maybe your first response should be "how it is that way?" and not "stop
being so PC brah!!!1!". If this is seriously too hard for people to do then
maybe you ought not be speaking in public because there's always going to be
push back from the public audience you're speaking to. It's not a one way
street.

~~~
DJtn
The issue is the push back from the politically correct is having a serious
chilling effect where even feminist comedians are being no platformed for
having opinions that offend people. The definition of
racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia is so wide that there is a very vocal
minority of people that are able to shut down opposing opinions by being
offended on the behalf of someone else. Take Kate Smurthwaite for example,
Because she had politically incorrect views on prostitution and the burka she
was denied the ability to speak at a university due to pressure from
Goldsmiths’ feminist society.

~~~
norea-armozel
1\. The definition of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia are not that
wide. Racism is pretty clearly defined in terms of treating racial minorities
as subhuman both in legal and social terms. The same follows for sexism,
homophobia, and transphobia. The individual incident in question can be
assessed pretty clearly by this standard. For example, if you insist on
calling a POC "boy" when they're 20 years your senior then you're probably
being a racist. Also, if you insist on calling Caitlyn Jenner by her old first
name. Then you're probably a transphobe. And so forth. This isn't rocket
science. If you can't determine what's bigotry either you're not observant or
you're being dishonest. Either way, it's not the job of the marginalized to
coddle you.

2\. Having your event canceled isn't equivalent to censorship. No one has put
a gag order on Smurthwaite to not perform. You're not guaranteed a platform to
speak either beyond the voting booth or to petition. It's not the onus of
individual organizations or individuals themselves to listen or debate you.
The freedom of speech also implies the freedom to not listen to your speech.
Or to not associate one's organization or self in regards to that speech. If
you don't like this either, then IMO you're demanding to be coddled.

So, all these false claims of PC being out of control smacks of social
conservatives demanding to be taken seriously by their opposition. Guess what?
They don't talk their opposition seriously either. DEAL WITH IT is my motto.
If you can't then you're a brat.

~~~
DJtn
I think you've just shown how hard it is to define racism. We have different
definitions of racism, Most people define it as discrimination against someone
because of their race. Since we can all have different ideas on whats racist
who is the arbiter? Currently it seems to be up to the small number of
politically correct to decide what is racist and what isn't.

Having your event cancelled in a university because of a few people is
censorship. The comedy society in Goldsmiths wanted to hear what Kate had to
say and arranged for her to talk at the university even though she was labeled
a sexist. Their right to listen to other ideas were denied when the feminist
society threatens to picket at it. We have a group of people who want to
listen to "sexist" material and a group that don't, Would you not agree that
the correct outcome would be to let Kate have her event and people who want to
listen can go and people who don't want to listen don't go?

The university denied the people who had arranged the event with Kate the
ability to listen to her. The university favored the censors over the
tolerant. Its important that the offensive have the ability to speak even when
there is a backlash from the minority.

Would you feel any different if instead of the politically correct there was a
rabid group of religious zealots in university picketing to get people kicked
of campus because they are seen as sinners?

~~~
norea-armozel
Wow, there's so many flaws in your argument I'm not sure where to begin.

It seems you want minorities to listen to any and all bigoted opinions without
protest and you want to treat such opinions as morally equal. When you're part
of a minority that gets assaulted, murdered, and discriminated in general you
don't have to listen to any and all people's opinions. If you think that I as
a transwoman _must_ listen to TERFs, social conservatives, and hand wringers
then you're greatly mistaken. Their opinions are morally invalid for many
reasons chief among them is their desire to control others. Being
ostracized/protested by a minority is nowhere near being harmed by said
minority.

And if a private party like a university feels its reputation is contingent on
reaching out to those minorities then that's their authority to do so. It
doesn't matter what you or I think either way. If you don't like that
university then don't attend it. Or call your representative and see if they
can cut its public funding. Either way, you, the comedy society, and the
comedian are not entitled to any platform. Free speech is not about fairness,
it's about whether or not the state or collusive corporations are
intentionally impeding your ability to speak. The comedian isn't out of work
because of one gig. The comedy society isn't defunct because it has to find
another venue to present comedians. If said university went out of its way to
tell every other venue holder to not let that society or comedian act in their
interests then that would be true harm.

Also, the fact people throw the word censorship around seems troubling to me
for a couple reasons. First, it's turning into the modern bogey man of our
day. If Twitter bans someone I swear every other day I see someone claiming
its censorship whether the account was by a political conservative or liberal.
It's ridiculous. Stop using a word as a bludgeon to get your way. Deal with
the fact private parties can and will protect their reputations. Second,
calling anything censorship at will has the same effect as censorship
especially when the opposing side has pointed out rightly the bigotry of a
specific opinion (ex. people who refuse to desist from using racial slurs).
And that's exactly how I've seen it used both on Twitter and on here. If you
don't like being called a bigot then ask the accuser why they called you one.
You'd be surprised how easily such an accusation is disarmed by one question
(Wil Wheaton did that easily despite the slow uptake by certain people on
Twitter yesterday).

Simply put, learn to interact with people, especially minorities. And stop
blaming them when they're in the right.

~~~
13thLetter
"It seems you want minorities to listen to any and all bigoted opinions
without protest..."

Nobody was "forcing" any person to listen to anything, so this critique has
pretty much gotten off on the wrong foot right at the start.

~~~
norea-armozel
Yet free speech advocates are all for forcing private institutions to open
their platforms to any and all speech. Sorry, but if you can't see this as a
problem and probably a violation of property rights (especially in the US)
then I can't say we'll ever agree on anything.

~~~
13thLetter
> Yet free speech advocates are all for forcing private institutions to open
> their platforms to any and all speech.

No, they are not in favor of _forcing_ them to do so. You are making the
unfortunately common mistake of confusing _advocating_ something with making
it _legally required._ These are not the same thing, and you'll be a more
convincing advocate for your side once you really get that.

What free-speech advocates are stating is that while private universities are
_legally allowed_ to ban speakers, because as you correctly state they have no
obligation to provide a platform to anyone or anything they don't want to...
that this is _illiberal behavior, not in the spirit of freedom of speech, and
these universities are not living up to their claimed principles when they do
it._

Which it is.

~~~
norea-armozel
>You are making the unfortunately common mistake of confusing advocating
something with making it legally required.

Nope I'm not. Try again.

>because as you correctly state they have no obligation to provide a platform
to anyone or anything they don't want to... that this is illiberal behavior,
not in the spirit of freedom of speech, and these universities are not living
up to their claimed principles when they do it.

This is still trying to force a private institution to conform to your wishes.
If you can't deal with a university telling you to eff off and your response
is to try to bully them into opening their platform then you're a bullying
twit imo. The HRC, GLAAD, and etc never demand that Liberty University
(socially conservative institution) let say Dan Savage speak at their
university. Why should the door be open only one way? You can speak big lofty
words about free speech all you want, but the reality is that it's built on
hypocrisy as the majority of online "free speech" advocates are socially
conservative (they now call themselves culturally libertarian which IMO is an
insult to libertarianism as a political position). So, I can't say I'm a
supporter of the majority of free speech advocates since their agenda is as
clear as day (i.e. to force widely rejected view points into class rooms of
moderate to socially liberal institutions but not to open the door the other
way to socially conservative ones for liberal speakers).

~~~
13thLetter
> This is still trying to force a private institution to conform to your
> wishes.

I'm curious what your opinion is of our current advocacy campaigns attempting
to "force" tech companies to hire more women, or "force" movies and TV to to
have more characters who are ethnic minorities.

> The HRC, GLAAD, and etc never demand that Liberty University (socially
> conservative institution) let say Dan Savage speak at their university.

Maybe they should! They'd certainly be well within their rights. Although I'd
be interested to learn more about a situation where someone like Savage was
_prevented_ from speaking at Liberty University, as I hadn't heard of that.

~~~
norea-armozel
>I'm curious what your opinion is of our current advocacy campaigns attempting
to "force" tech companies to hire more women, or "force" movies and TV to to
have more characters who are ethnic minorities.

There's a huge difference between writing a crappy article on Kotaku and some
jerk threatening to dogpile Twitter w/ false SEC/FTC reports. This has been
the crap that's been circulating since NRx/alt-right and GG reared its
collective fugly head. And they often operate under false pretenses of "free
speech."

>Maybe they should! They'd certainly be well within their rights.

Or maybe they know something certain free speech advocates refuse to disclose:
institutions are largely fossils of their time. Trying to convert an
evangelical university to their cause is as Quixotic as you can get.

>Although I'd be interested to learn more about a situation where someone like
Savage was prevented from speaking at Liberty University, as I hadn't heard of
that.

Because social conservatives know what the believe and will exercise it to its
fullest within the law (and sometimes outside of it)? Just saying.

So you can stump for a cause that does not need protection (considering the
strength of EFF and the ACLU on these matters) or you all can admit that maybe
just maybe being PC isn't all that bad. And maybe just maybe a bigot should be
freely called a bigot and jeered by the general audience whether or not John
Cleese wants that to happen. Guess what? The Marx Brothers dealt with jeers
and rotten tomatoes thrown their way so I'm sure modern comedians can deal
with mean tweets and crappy Kotaku hit pieces.

------
kaonashi
Sure you can:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99s19HBs-6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99s19HBs-6A)

~~~
atlantic
I see his point, but it's not very funny.

~~~
kaonashi
not a lot of sight gags; his observational comedy about observational comedy
is a chuckle

