Is “woke” killing comedy? Tucker Carlson seems to think so. But he’s not a comic. David Cross is. And the Mr. Show and Arrested Development alum isn’t buying the conservative culture war line that comedy is in danger because stand-ups take heat for “dumb” jokes about trans people, which has become a weirdly popular genre of comedy.
“All the comics bitch and moan about, you know, ‘they’re trying to cancel me for this joke I made.’ It’s most of the time, it’s a nothing joke and it doesn’t matter,” Cross said on a recent appearance on Salon Talks. And now you are positioning yourself as this bulls*it voice of ‘They’re not going to cancel me. You can’t silence me.’ For what? Your dumb joke that about trans people? Who gives a s*it? I mean, is it that important to you? Just move on and not hurt, you know, hundreds of thousands of people.”
Cross also talked about the time he realized he crossed a line and vowed not to do so again:
It was something where it was like the talking about the phrase the N-word or something. And this woman was Black. She explained why that upset her, and I explained why I thought it was I was kind of defending it and the idea behind it. And we talked for a while. And then ultimately, and this really doesn’t happen that often, but she, I saw her side to it after this conversation. Again, it was a, it was a longer conversation. We went back and forth and at the and I was like, okay. And it doesn’t it doesn’t hurt me. Doesn’t affect me in any way to not do that line? I do have a line where I’ll go, I don’t care. You’re being oversensitive and you’re seeing this thing in it that does not exist. I’ve made my intent clear. And that’s, that’s on you. So I do have my line. But this one didn’t come close to that. We had this long discussion. I was like, okay, I understand. I get it. I get it now. That’s, that doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s like. Now that I have that information and I can see your point of view, why would I continue to do it just to be some hero of free speech?
You can watch the exchange in the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQJLdKEHJDo
(Via Mediaite)