Eliminating laziness: did ‘woke culture’ ruin modern comedy?
To the uninitiated, in the post-pandemic world of 2020, you might think that so-called ‘woke’ culture is destined to be the death of us all, sterilising the art world and stifling public debate. It can often be easy to forget that the term ‘woke’ merely refers to an individual being vigilant to racial prejudice and general discrimination. But tell this to the likes of Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock or John Cleese, who have repeatedly complained about their imagination being restricted by changing values, and you’ll be branded as an honorary member of the “tofu-eating wokerati”.
As per its definition, the idea of ‘wokeness’ is no bad thing. The problem is that this concept, which was popularised at the turn of the 2020s following the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, has now been weaponised by those who don’t particularly like how tolerant society is becoming. No platform demonstrates this barometer of tolerance and social tastes better than comedy, with contemporary performers and writers feeling the challenge of navigating the moral web of what they can and can’t say, with social media allegedly being the judge, jury and executioner.
There’s certainly no doubt that any topic is fair game when it comes to the world of comedy, and anger should indeed arise when these liberties are curtailed, but the catch for performers is that if divisive topics are approached, you better make sure your material is actually intelligent, insightful and funny. The likes of Ricky Gervais, for example, ‘defy wokeness’ by targeting oppressed groups, like the transgender community, telling senseless, indolent jokes, and then wondering why they’re being targeted with hate online.
Wokeness is apparently to blame for such hate, yet, in reality, the word is weaponised by comedians who have failed to move with the winds of change and whose material simply isn’t as funny as their own egos tell them it is. Woke attitudes have certainly changed how businesses, organisations and society, in general, communicate, but this transition shouldn’t be an excuse for comedians to down tools. It should be seen as a challenge to work smarter.
Yet, few comedy writers see it this way, with there being a distinct departure from the kind of blockbuster comedies that used to rule the Hollywood roost back in the 2000s, such as Anchorman and Superbad. Recent movies of the same ilk, like Sony’s No Hard Feelings or Universal’s canine comedy Strays, indeed, feel like lame iterations of former success in the genre, while it is the independent film circuit that thrives in this area, with notable recent triumphs including Sebastián Silva’s Rotting in the Sun and Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s Theatre Camp.
Meanwhile, the jaded filmmakers of yesteryear decry the impact of wokeness instead of driving to elevate their own material, with Todd Phillips, who dominated the 2000s with such bro-comedies as Old School and The Hangover, feeling forced over to the dominant superhero genre. “Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” he cried to Vanity Fair back in 2019, “There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the fucking funny guys are like, ‘Fuck this shit because I don’t want to offend you.’ It’s hard to argue with 30million people on Twitter.”
Of course, wokeness is an easy out for a talented filmmaker who, in reality, demonstrated his inability to craft compelling comedy over three tedious Hangover movies, failing to move with changing values and aptly adapt his writing style. Phillips isn’t the only one who has moaned about woke culture, with countless other comedians having publicly longed for the ‘good old days’ of comedy in which sexist and racist jokes were rife and exclusively white male comedians ruled the circuit.
Changing steadily with the attitudes of the times, comedy is an ever-changing organism that fills the holes of the cultural appetite, and currently, people crave diversity in performers and material after decades of stale familiarity. So, yes, wokeness did destroy modern comedy, ripping up the monotonous playbook that had become commonplace in the industry and forcing a change of standards that has since led to the emergence of vibrant voices, from Patti Harrison to Emma Seligman to Tim Robinson, who excel over their predecessors.
