I very much admire Lewis Black but I feel he's a bit off-base here when he discusses "Political Correctness," which strikes me as a term that everyone is using with their own, self-serving definition. What one guy is ranting about when he speaks of P.C. is not what some other guy is ranting about…though under most definitions lately, opposing P.C. has become an all-purpose excuse for a lot of bad behavior.
See, the way I view it is that a comedian — or actually anyone who can get a public forum — has the right to say whatever they want. And the audience has every right to not laugh or not agree or to think that what the person said was bigoted or just plain stupid. Free Speech is not just for the person with the microphone. Lately, a lot of comedians are complaining that the audience didn't laugh or the college didn't book him because he wasn't "politically correct."
Well, maybe…or maybe his act was just lousy.
Or in the wrong place. That's another thing to consider here. If you get up before a room of older people with strong evangelical convictions and start telling dick jokes and doing Bill Maher's anti-religion act, I don't think it's fair to blame the audience if they aren't amused or accepting. You don't have a constitutional right to be appreciated everywhere you go. (A comedian friend of mine thinks that when comics complain that colleges these days are too "P.C." to hire them, what some of them are really complaining about is that colleges aren't willing to pay established headliner rates to which the comedian feels entitled.)
In the video below, Lewis Black complains that audiences freeze up and don't listen the minute he mentions "guns" before they even know what he's going to say about them. That might be the kind of Political Correctness he decries but it also might be a reaction to him introducing a topic that usually seems to go nowhere. I've seen a lot of comics discuss guns and the only one I can think of who hasn't been preachy, pedantic or unfunny on the subject is Jim Jefferies.
Black does not say people reacted badly to whatever he had to say about guns; just that the topic brought a chill to the proceedings. I don't see why that's bad. It's not wrong for a comic to take the thing you might prefer not to hear about and have a new, fresh perspective on it that will make them glad you brought it up. George Carlin did that all the time. He liked venturing into those topics.
Some Trump backers speak of "The Tyranny of Political Correctness" and what I usually think they really mean is "The Tyranny of People Not Liking What I'm Saying." It's like they should be free to make racist comments without someone accusing them of racism. After all, racism is not Politically Correct and Political Correctness is bad, in and of itself, right?
I keep hearing people say we should applaud Trump for speaking his mind. I actually don't think Trump is speaking his mind. I think he's saying whatever he thinks his base wants to hear, regardless of the facts of the matter or what he would actually do were he to be elected. But even if what he says is from the heart, so is the opposition to it. He has the right to say it. We have the right to boo it. That's how it works. Here's Lewis Black…