Larry Wilmore Killed Crowd at WHCD: Proof? Nobody Laughed
Thing of beauty. Not everything worked but I haven’t seen anything so devastating since Colbert in 2006 Stephen Colbert Roasts Bush at 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner
Open thread for all things 2016 related.
I watched most of it and felt that Obama has come to the realization that his big dream of hope and change may never be realized. So things said about candidates were funny some not so much so. The gorilla in the room was Bloomberg and Sanders…Obama was carefully crafted with most jokes especially Trumps to be politically correct. I did get a few good laughs…
I read the transcript. It was pretty funny, but it was pretty harsh. I’m not surprised it got a weak reception. I’m guessing that it hit a lot of nerves. As court jesters have known for millennia, there are ways one may mock the ruling class and there are ways one may not. It’s a delicate line. Personal foibles or pastimes are generally, but not always, acceptable. Anything that touches on policy, however, is risky material.
Stalin, for example, was noted for his sense of humor. He loved The Master and Margarita with its send up of the apparatchiki, his own party apparatus. That was a safe area for humor. Joking about him executing political opponents after show trials, particularly if one mentioned names, would have gotten one sent to a gulag or perhaps even a show trial and execution of one’s own.
Kaleberg my point exactly: funny and harsh. My take on the crowd reaction based on camera shots was that they knew the lines were funny but didn’t feel like they could laugh openly at their colleagues.
The bigger question is who is the actual audience for the Nerd Prom. The whole introduction of celebrities and red carpet and hype shows that this is no longer entirely intended as a trade show private roast. Certainly the reaction to the Colbert takedown in 2006 shows that there are two audiences here. And the media seems increasingly aware that they are being reduced to props for the benefit of a wider audience. Worse that that wider audience overlaps all too well with the audience that pays their own salaries.
Which is why you can have a routine that kills. But plays to a silent room. Because the real audience isn’t even IN the room.
Bruce,
Totally accurate portrayal.
Comedy with a shade of truth about yourself makes you laugh; comedy with total truth about yourself makes you withdraw in silence.
Edward R. Murrow went on about the entertainment side of television and its effects on the news side. I cannot imagine how he would feel about the news side almost 60 years later. Well, other than he would be totally appalled.
“We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small fraction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure — exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.
To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box….”
I liked Wilmore’s set. Some was funny, and some was very funny and made me cringe too. It took balls to deliver those jokes.