Wake Up Call, Todd Phillips: If You Have To Offend People To Be Funny, You’re Not Good Enough To Be A Comedy Writer

Guys, get your tissues ready, you’re about to hear a real sob story: the comedy industry has lost another white, male comedy writer who can’t reckon with ‘woke culture’. That’s right, Todd Phillips – writer and director of The Hangover, Road Trip and Due Date – has quit comedy because he can’t possibly make jokes without offending people.

Revealing the painful revelation during an interview with Vanity Fair, Phillips explained that ‘all the funny guys’ are leaving comedy because of ‘woke culture’. And so, he's transitioning into comic book films, having just co-written and directed Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix (which, while receiving rave reviews from some, has sparked concern from film critics about the sympathetic portrayal of a homicidal man inspiring real-world violence).

‘Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,’ he said. ‘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 30 million people on Twitter,’ he continued. ‘You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, “I’m out”. I'm out, and you know what? With all my comedies—I think that what comedies, in general, all have in common—is they’re irreverent. So I go, "How do I do something irreverent, but fuck comedy? Oh I know, let’s take the comic book movie universe and turn it on its head with this." And so that’s really where that came from.'

Yeah, we’ve heard that age old saying time and time again, you know the one: ‘if you can’t make it work, just quit’. Because that’s what he’s really saying, isn’t it? He doesn’t understand how to be funny without offending people, so he might as well give up. Because that’s the true marker of success, not being able to adapt with the times or work hard to maintain your status as a world-renowned writer and director of comedy films.

Ironically, it’s quite hilarious, because the fact a man with that attitude has been able to achieve such esteem says a lot about his privilege. In fact, it says a lot about all the men who are supposedly quitting comedy because their offensive jokes won’t fly anymore. It says good riddance.

Finally, mediocre men who have been indulged and entitled their entire careers are realising they don’t deserve the top spots in their industry. Now, those are reserved for comedy writers and comedians who can actually be funny without making cheap jokes about people that are more marginalised them. Like Tiffany Haddish, Mindy Kaling, Leslie Jones, the list goes on.

Because, wake up call to ‘all the funny guys quitting comedy’: those jokes have never been funny to the people you were talking about. Gay people didn’t suddenly wake up and start hating homophobic jokes and women, people of colour or disabled people didn't suddenly decide to be offended by everything. You have always been offensive; now those audiences are just being heard.

It was said best by Anna Akana, a comedian and actor with over 2.5 million YouTube subscribers. ‘[Jokes about race] are also fucking cheap,’ she told Logan Paul on his Impaulsive podcast, ‘I hate the comedians complaining like “everything’s so PC”, write better fucking jokes then, keep up with the times! That’s no one else’s problem that you can’t grabble that low hanging fruit anymore. I feel like we’re also so saturated in comedy it’s like that shit isn’t amusing, make something better.’

So honestly, if a man like Todd Phillips has been forced out of the comedy industry because he can’t keep up without offending people – that sounds like a win in our eyes. Although, a small one, because evidently he's just entered a new genre with Joker, which is likely to be a huge box-office success this month despite concerns.

Naturally, the success of men like Phillips will always be better protected than the marginalised people they made careers out of offending. And naturally, they'll continue to give interviews complaining about how sad it is they can't do that any more while bathing in the success of their new project. Because we're the snowflakes, right?

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