In the midst of the , you may have missed . While doing the press rounds to , the billionaire comedian offered a few thoughts about "why TV isn't funny anymore." His explanation? . (His new movie, by the way, is about – a topic so edgy and iconoclastic that I'm surprised that the woke-mob that runs Hollywood let it happen at all.)
I won't waste anyone's time arguing about how funny today's TV is compared to the TV of yesteryear. But I think it's worth dwelling for a moment on the nature of Seinfeld's critique (which, by the way, is one that he, and other comedians, ).
It falls in line with the rich tradition of blaming political correctness for all the ills of the modern world.
Donald Trump , including after calling for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." Author Anne Rice did it, ("Aren't we becoming something of a lynch mob culture?" Rice added on Facebook.) Jackson Miller, a former Virginia legislator and member of the "Redskins Pride Caucus," said that
[Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Code Switch's Up All Night newsletter. You can .]
What these statements seem to do, remarkably consistently, is avoid engaging with why someone might find a particular type of joke, or comment, or act of mass discrimination perpetrated by the most powerful person in the world, distasteful. Instead, they caricature the *type* of person who takes issue with these things: a snowflake, a buzzkill, a crybaby.
And one of the convenient things about the term "politically correct" – like "woke," or "cancel culture" or dare I say "DEI," – is that . Does being politically correct mean capitalizing the term Indigenous? Not ? Trying to ? It's all in the eye of the person trying to dismiss someone else's concerns as whiny.
But "I notice that the people who are saying you 'can't say anything,' are saying everything on Netflix for $20 million a whack."
Which has me wondering: If the ones who complain loudest about "PC culture" are wealthy, beloved, highly respected power players who have the resources to – again, make a movie about Pop-Tarts – who is the real crybaby after all?
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