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P.C. is the Enemy of Social Progress. Lisa Lampanelli on Why Comedy’s the Antidote. | Big Think.
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June 26, 2015
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5:31Now PlayingCOMEDY CLIP
To me audience members are paying for punch lines not for prose. They're not paying to see us do therapy for ourselves; they're paying to hear us make light of subjects. So if I can't make it funny, I'm not going to make them sit through it. If comedians would start taking seriously the political correctness that's been rampant for the last 20 years, and it took Seinfeld to bring it to light in the last year or so, then comedy kind of would disappear. I mean look at Louis C.K.; look at Jim Norton; look at myself; look at people who just bring horrible things to light and learn how to make light of it through comedy. If we don't shine a light on it, who's going to? But I think it to somebody like Seinfeld, who's a clean guy for him to say, "Enough; are you kidding me?" So Jerry welcome to my world. That's what I've been dealing with for 25 years. What's funny about college students is it's not the college students that are sensitive; it seems that it's the administration and people afraid to offend the college minorities. I have an audience full of every age group. I have eight nieces and nephews aged 14 to 25 and when they were in college I did some benefits after their colleges, the older ones, and they never seemed really ruffled by any of the stuff I did because I refused to edit. So I don't remember anyone in that age group ever coming up to me and saying, "How dare you?" I think it's the administrations who's scared to offend anyone and I kind of get that. It's like a network being afraid to ruffle any feathers or viewers, but it's just all fear-based. If they only saw that inclusion is better than exclusion, if I include you and if other comics include you, that's a compliment.
Whatever we're most afraid to talk about, that's where comedy should go, says famously outrageous (and outrageously funny) comedienne Lisa Lampanelli. We're spending way too much time tiptoeing around each other for fear of causing offense, and it's driving people and communities apart. Whatever makes us laugh brings us closer together.
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