Comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage Tuesday night during a performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. This was part of the “Netflix Is a Joke Fest” and, wouldn’t you know it, Chris Rock was also performing.
A man rushed the stage and tried to tackle Chappelle. The comedian did not appear to be hurt, but the same cannot be said about the attacker who was quickly detained and beaten by security and Chappelle.
It’s a very scary time to be a comedian. There are plenty of Americans who have completely lost their sense of humor, offended by anything and everything.
Is comedy in danger?
Can you name any American comedies in the last five years that actually made you laugh? I wholeheartedly can’t find more than a handful. Our culture has turned too self-serious, petrified to take risks and make people laugh. Off the top of my head, here are seven exceptions:
The Disaster Artist, Game Night, Dolemite is My Name, Longshot, Palm Springs and Bad Trip.
Coincidentally, these attacks on comedians are happening at the same time mainstream studio comedies are suffering. Nobody has really cracked the code since the Apatow era.
Comedians like to push and push and push until that very fine line of what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable is somewhat squeezed to its very limit. As George Carlin once said, “It’s a comedian’s duty to find the line and deliberately cross over it.” That, to me at least, is what some of the very best comedy can do.
Just last week, Bill Murray supposedly crossed that “line” by joking around with a co-star on the set of “Being Mortal.” A complaint was filed, production got shut down and Murray’s reputation has probably been severely damaged because of it. “I did something I thought was funny, and it wasn’t taken that way,” he said in a television interview. Adding, “The world’s different than it was when I was a little kid. What I always thought was funny as a little kid isn’t necessarily the same as what’s funny now.”
The truth is, in comedy, there really shouldn’t a firm line as to what's funny and what's in poor taste, but in our fevered social media reality everyone now loves to immediately point out when they they think that line has been crossed. "Tropic Thunder" and “Blazing Saddles” would have Twitter and the media up in a frenzy if released today. The universally positive reviews turned into abhorrently negative ones from scared and shrieking critics afraid to be called racist.
For months, people close to CEO David Ellison had hinted that he would leave if state AGs didn't drop their antitrust suit against the $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery merger.