The 2019 New York Film Critics Circle Awards honored this year's winner last night in New York City. Chris Rock was there to present “Eighth Grade” director Bo Burnham with this year’s Best First Film prize, but actually ended up roasting our current climate of backlash to any kind of comedy.
Rock roasted the current state of comedy by joking that he can no longer say anything funny anymore without a push-back occurring, “If it was five years ago, I could say something really offensive and funny right now,” Rock said, “but I can’t do that anymore, so…heyyyy!”
Last week, comedian Rob Schneider went on a Twitter rant condemning the use of Political correctness in comedy:
"Comics are the ones who are supposed to say the horrible things we all think but don’t," wrote comedian on Twitter.
I tackled a few weekends ago how puritanical we’ve gotten about comedy of all things. Some of the very best comedy is risky and defiantly rule-breaking. Why is it that we must adhere to a few lunatic fringe left-wingers to censor comedy and why are media outlets kowtowing to them? George Carlin once said, “It’s a comedian’s duty to find the line and deliberately cross over it.”