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Oct. 22, 2020 - The Charlie Kirk Show
34:59
Babylon Bee and How the Left Killed Comedy
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Has The Left Killed Comedy 00:02:10
Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production.
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Hey, everybody.
Has the left killed comedy?
There is a dark truth to why we don't laugh as much anymore in our country.
Also, I have some recent news about the president's chances of winning re-election.
We have some positive news that we are going to share exclusively here on the Charlie Kirk show.
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The left has killed comedy.
Why it matters.
Buckle up, everybody.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
Turning point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
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Why Witches Burn 00:04:25
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We're going to start today with a story that might not be top-line news.
We will dive into what I believe is the growing good news for Donald Trump.
We will go into the story around Hunter Biden.
We'll also talk about big tech and my fight and my struggle with Twitter and the decision that we will reluctantly make.
However, I want to start with a story that I think impacts our entire civilization, our entire culture.
Something that we take for granted that really no longer exists as much in 2020 as it did in 2019 or 2015.
There's a story out today that says that Facebook has demonetized the satire site Babylon B, and it claims that Monty Python spoof incites violence.
So the Babylon B is probably the premier satire site in the country.
The Babylon B is the best website when it comes to mocking and making fun of the ruling class and the leftist political intelligentsia.
There is no website that is more effective and better at poking fun at the absurdity of the left.
I encourage all you guys, you guys go to BabylonB.com.
It's hilarious content, to be perfectly honest.
For example, one of the stories is: Biden offers anyone who votes for him a seat on the Supreme Court.
Perfect satire is when it is almost believable, where you're almost questioning whether or not the story is true.
That is where satire is at its very best.
And in times like these, with the absurd being abundant, in times like these, where the left and the cultural elites are pushing the boundaries of what we consider to be normal and right in our world so unbelievably far.
Now is the time where we need comedy, where we need satire more than ever.
Comedy, from a utilitarian standpoint, pushes boundaries.
Comedy is what allows us to have a reprieve from the ever declining culture that we live in.
Comedy is the only mechanism that gives us a capacity to question those in charge.
Put simply, comedy keeps the ruling class humble.
And so Facebook has now demonetized the satire site Babylon B, because they claim that the Monty Python spoof incites violence.
They think that this clip that comes from the great Monty Python movie, which is of witches and ducks, one of the greatest scenes of the Monty Python film, is inciting violence.
In fact, let's play tape cut five of this exactly.
Monty Python, cut five.
Tell me, what do you do with witches?
Burn!
And what do you burn apart from witches?
Boar witches!
Wood!
So, why do witches burn?
Because they're made of wood.
Good.
So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?
Does a wood sink in water?
Oh, no, it floats!
It floats over into the pot!
What also floats in water?
Bread, apples, very small rocks, cider, a great gravy, cherries, mud, a trenches, church, lead, lead, a duck.
One of the most famous scenes in movie history has now, according to Facebook, been saying they're inciting violence.
Seinfeld's Post-Racial Argument 00:14:48
Now, Facebook doesn't say that, or Twitter doesn't say that, when they're coming after us Trump supporters, where they're calling for our death or they're following us to the streets.
That's fine.
They call that free speech.
But a civilization that does not allow comedy, which is exactly what's happening with these big tech elites, a country that does not allow mockery of the people in charge, is a civilization that is getting towards creeping totalitarianism.
Comedy allows us to challenge the absurd.
And by the way, liberals and the left, they loved comedy when George W. Bush was president.
They used comedy to try to get more power.
They constantly made fun of how George W. Bush spoke.
They made fun of his presidency.
They made fun of his policies.
They used comedy as a relentless drumbeat to try to get themselves back into power.
George Carlin, who I didn't agree with his politics many times, but he was very funny.
He said, quote, a comedian shouldn't just make people laugh.
He should also make them think.
Comedy is really rooted in truth.
Think about your favorite comedians or your favorite movies.
You laugh when you see something that you know is true presented in a unpredicted, new, fresh, exciting, and yes, lighthearted way.
The greatest comedians in the modern era, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, they were equal opportunist offenders.
They would make fun of liberals.
They'd make fun of Republicans.
They would make fun of people in the middle.
The greatest comedy in the last 30 years is without a doubt Seinfeld.
And people say it's a show about nothing.
That's one way to put it.
I think it's a show about everything.
And the reason that it was so incredibly effective is that it harmonized and resonated with all people.
It made fun of everyday situations that we are all going through.
Grocery store shopping, dating, friendships, transportation.
Seinfeld touched everything.
And it did it in a way that was unapologetically self-deprecating.
And that's the key to good comedy.
Good comedy requires the capacity to make fun of yourself.
And this is exactly why the left hates comedy.
Because they have no tolerance to make fun of yourself, to make fun of themselves, or to have any sort of space to not take themselves very seriously.
You understand what we're doing is very serious, don't you?
We're trying to save the world from fascists and conservatives.
We don't have time for laughter.
And this makes perfect sense when you start to see the late night hosts like Jimmy Fallon, to a lesser extent, Jimmy Fallon, but Jimmy Kimmel, I should say, Stephen Colbert.
Do you notice that the audiences of these late night comedians no longer laugh, they clap?
Do you notice that they're not laughing at what they're saying?
They're agreeing.
They're clapping.
This is a tragic death of American comedy.
And we see it here through Facebook demonetizing the satire site Babylon Bee, because they claim it incites violence.
What's really going on here is a full push to restrict speech that is incredibly effective in debasing the credibility of the power class in our country.
The people in charge need to make sure that the comedians and the critics are shut up.
It's exactly why 20th century dictators like Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin and Mao Cedong always locked up the comedians that made fun of them.
Always.
There is no greater tool at challenging people in charge than mockery, humor, lightheartedness.
It can communicate to wide swaths of people.
And this is one of the reasons why I think President Donald Trump is on pace to win.
Because the left has not effectively made fun of conservatives.
Instead, they get angry.
They get venomous.
It's almost like a political drumbeat endlessly.
How are we supposed to make fun of?
How are we supposed to make sense of, I should say, some of the nonsense that the left is pushing in our culture?
Unlimited amounts of genders.
The ever-present hypocrisy.
Well, that's exactly why conservative meme culture has taken over.
Comedy is all that keeps us between madness with all the nonsense happening in our country.
Comedy allows us the freedom to challenge people in charge, to hold them accountable, to spread truth, because comedy is truth.
And so let me just read some of these Babylon B articles.
See exactly why the ruling class hates this website.
Heartwarming.
Amy Coney Barrett just adopted a local troubled youngster named Hunter.
The best satire, again, is so on the verge of real.
He makes like, yeah, I could see that.
Is that real?
Is that not?
And when you read the real news and you're wondering if it's the onion or Babylon B, then you're in trouble.
By the way, the onion, which is left-wing comedy, left-wing satire, never gets demonetized.
It's only comedy that they don't like.
Health experts now recommend maximum social distancing by attending a Biden rally.
If you are unable to challenge people in charge, which is what comedy does, what comedy is supposed to do, then you do not have a civil or decent society.
And comedy is about truth.
Truth has never been a left-wing value.
Power is.
Truth and the pursuit of truth is what built Western civilization.
And this is exactly why we are seeing the death of comedy.
People that I grew up listening to, people that I thought that were funny growing up, they've just become political mouthpieces and they complain the entire time.
And you can see this in the overuse of expletives and swearing with late-night comedians.
People that used to be hilarious.
They are just, they're swearing and they're angry more than they are actually making substantive jokes.
Plenty of madness right now.
Plenty.
Seinfeld, I think, is one of the greatest American comedians because he has really no political, I think, bias whatsoever.
Jerry Seinfeld created Seinfeld, of course, with Larry David.
Probably the most effective TV show in communicating the challenges of 1990s urban American life.
And Jerry Seinfeld was asked recently about diversity in comedy, as if that actually matters.
And this is exactly why the left will lose the culture war long term.
They are losing the capacity to self-deprecate and make fun of themselves.
Jerry always made fun of himself.
And that's why he was so effective.
Let's play cut seven of Jerry Seinfeld being asked about diversity in comedy, as if that means anything.
Play cut seven.
People had tweeted at me when I said I'm interviewing Jerry Seinfeld.
Ask him about their gender diversity on this show.
Yeah.
I mean, people think it's the census or something.
I mean, this has got to represent the actual pie chart of America.
Who cares?
It's just funny.
You know, funny is the world that I live in.
You're funny, I'm interested.
You're not funny.
I'm not interested.
And I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.
But everyone else is kind of with their little calculating, is this the exact right mix?
You know, I think that's, to me, it's anti-comedy.
It's anti-comedy.
It's more about, you know, PC nonsense than are you making us laugh or not?
Right, right.
I love it.
Jerry Seinfeld makes an argument for a post-racial America.
And Jerry Seinfeld, of course, gets challenged by this by everybody.
And you know what's so amazing?
That line about, what is this, the census, is hilarious, and nobody laughs.
He's in front of a live audience, and he makes a very, very funny point.
He's like, what?
Is comedy now the census?
You have to have all your little points.
And everyone is staying in the audience.
That's not funny.
Stop saying that.
That's not funny.
Stop it, funny man.
Cancel his show.
Seinfeld would not be allowed to be aired on television today if it was written.
Not even close.
By the way, the early episodes of The Office would not be allowed on television.
Go watch Diversity Day, which is like the fourth episode of The Office, and you'll say, How on earth was this ever allowed on NBC News?
Because we grew up in an America where race was completely irrelevant and you could make fun of people.
You could be lighthearted about it and self-deprecating.
Why is the left so serious?
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I was at an event last evening in Huntington Beach, California.
We had a great time, Calvary Chapel of the Harbor.
Somebody asked me privately, they said, Charlie, what do you think is lacking in America right now?
And I said, I don't think we have enough people making fun and making light of what's happening in our country.
And the deeper point of that is that comedy is a mechanism of how we are able to communicate truth to the masses and actually be able to view the madness in a way that is palatable.
If you do not have comedy, you don't have speech.
If you don't have comedy, you can't pursue truth.
And if you do not have comedy, you have totalitarianism, which is exactly what the left wants.
This is exactly why the major comedians in our country, like Sarah Silverman, who I don't think has ever been funny, they don't even try to engage in humor anymore.
They are nothing more than MSNBC hosts that swear a little bit more and use some canned, reused jokes from the 1980s and then say, Orange Man Bad, and they get standing ovations and applause, but nobody laughs.
No one laughs throughout the entire performance that they are doing.
And Jerry Seinfeld has articulated this very well.
We played in the previous segment how Jerry Seinfeld was talking about, I don't care what you look like.
What is this the census?
Hilarious.
No one laughs in this entire video clip.
People say, that's not funny.
Stop it.
Cancel him.
He's not funny.
I don't like him anymore.
And Jerry's making light when he says, my whole world is about being funny.
What Jerry's really articulating here is that we live in a meritocracy in comedy.
If you're not funny, then you're not going to be given a platform.
And if you're black and you're funny, you're given a platform.
If you're a woman and you're funny, you're given a platform.
If you're not, it's not some sort of PC check the gender box campaign.
Jerry Seinfeld was asked about this, cut eight, when he was asked about how most of his guests are white males.
He jokes about it.
I have noticed that most of the guests are mostly white males of 22 episodes.
Yeah, let's get into that.
But you take a look over here, Peter.
What do you see?
A lot of whiteies.
What's going on here?
Oh, this really pisses me off.
This really pisses me off.
And he's exactly right.
I will give the audience credit.
They at least laughed at that in some self-deprecating way.
He finally short-circuited the leftist audience that they had in front of him.
And he's exactly right.
It should upset him.
Because when you hyper-focus and hyper-fixate on just people's skin color and not actually on their character or their worldview, then you are racializing America.
And all this comes off the story.
And the reason we're talking about this is how Facebook has demonetized the satire site, The Babylon Bee.
And every major totalitarian movement in the last hundred years always suppresses comedy, always, especially comedy that makes fun of what they're trying to do.
The ruling class, the power class, there's so much hypocrisy.
There's so much wrong with what they're trying to do to our country that humor is one of the only mechanisms that we have left to hold them accountable.
This is one of the reasons why they hate Donald Trump.
He's abundantly funny.
He's very funny.
And if you are a country where you can't make fun of yourself, where you are a person that cannot engage in self-deprecation, and you take yourself so incredibly seriously, then you do not live in a free society.
And that's what's happening with these tech companies.
These tech companies have now made it a position of their policy engagement that mockery, self-deprecation will not be tolerated if you go after the left.
Now, The Onion, which is pretty funny, goes after mostly conservatives and Republicans, 90% of it.
They do not get demonetized by the tech companies.
Humor As Accountability 00:07:33
They do not get challenged.
Their brand of anti-conservative mockery is perfectly permissible by the ruling class.
And so people say, well, what we don't have enough of in our country, we don't have enough comedy.
We really don't.
I was mentioning earlier The Office, and it's probably the most popular television show of my generation.
And you can look at the early episodes in The Office.
They made fun of race.
They made fun of sexual stereotypes.
They made fun of any, every third rail of American life that you're not supposed to touch, the office went after.
Same with Seinfeld.
Unapologetically, push the boundaries.
That's what comedy is supposed to do.
Comedy is supposed to push the boundaries of what is allowed to be discussed.
And then within that space, you're able to differentiate between what is good, what is bad, what is true, what is not, and maybe a little reprieve from the seriousness and the madness that is happening around us.
One of the reasons why the totalitarians and the collectivists and the ruling class don't want this is because it's incredibly effective in challenging their power.
Is that when you have a string of comics that engage in that line of cross-examination, that engage in being able to bring a light-hearted approach to things, all of a sudden, it's a lot harder to take those people in power as seriously as they want you to take them.
You take Saturday Night Live.
Saturday Night Live is not funny anymore because Saturday Night Live is just making fun of Republicans and conservatives.
And again, some of their jokes are funny every so often.
I think they had a skit about a year ago that I think they did a pretty good job of.
But SNL is nowhere nearly as funny as it was 15 or 20 years ago, 15 or 20 years ago, where they had their core cast where they would make fun of everyone at all times, where they would go through the news cycle.
I mean, Seth Myers used to be a legitimately funny person, and then he turned into a political mouthpiece.
Some of the greatest American comic talent has gone through SNL, Will Farrell, for example.
And so, what is the broader point of this?
And what does it actually have to do with the election that is just coming in 13 days?
That the fact that the American comedian class, the fact that most of these comics have been completely silent, and in fact, they have been supportive of not just the silencing of opposing ideas is so unbelievably telling, and it is a warning sign, everybody.
It is a fire alarm.
You lose comedy, you lose speech.
It is that simple.
Where are the comedians coming out and making fun of Joe Biden?
Joe Rogan, God bless him, he's done it plenty of times.
Joe Rogan, for good reason, has become the most popular podcaster on the planet because he does actually do the free speech thing.
He has opposite ideas.
I don't agree with him on everything, but he's very good at what he does, and he is a stand-up comic, one of the last.
And yet, the entire American comic class, from even Chris Rock to Dave Chappelle, the stand-up comedian class, they have decided that they hate Trump more than they actually want to make people laugh and question.
And that's what comedy is supposed to do.
It's supposed to ask the questions and be inquisitive towards the people in power.
And the left did this unapologetically and relentlessly during George W. Bush.
That's where when I grew up, I remember every Saturday Night Live episode, every late night comic would go after George W. Bush and Republicans, and it was very effective.
It was incredibly effective.
And to a lesser extent, many comics went after Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
And Jay Leno, before he retired, and boy, do we need Jay Leno back into kind of the American cultural landscape, he would make fun of everyone.
He'd make a fan of Republicans.
He'd make fun of Democrats.
And has there, there has never been a greater opportunity or a greater need for comics to stand up and challenge the madness in our country.
The double standard of the virus and the lockdowns.
The ruling elites that say it's perfectly fine to celebrate the Los Angeles Lakers winning the NBA Finals and BLM Incorporated to march through the streets, but there's something wrong with you going to church.
There's endless material for these very talented comedians to engage in this space right now, but they're one of two things.
They're cowards and they're afraid, or they're being held hostage by the scriptwriters, by the future movie deals, by the Netflix deals, by if anyone dares speak out against the power class, they might not get that next deal.
They are being held hostage by the people in charge that if you actually question the Democrat Party and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and every single one of them, you are considered to be on the other team.
You're considered to be opposition media.
You play this out over a couple years and a decade, eventually, you will have an entire generation of people that is incapable and unprepared to question anyone in power.
And that's exactly what's happening.
You have the most powerful people in our country that control the multi-trillion dollar corporations with the most talented comedians partnering together, all as one in lockstock unison.
Being we no longer believe in a pluralistic society, we no longer believe in neoliberal free speech.
Instead, we take ourselves so unbelievably seriously that we're going to make America in our image.
And if you get in the way of us doing that, we are going to insult you, we are going to follow you, we are going to punish you.
Obey.
And so, as we see the demonetization of the satire site Babylon B, as we see comedians self-censoring or being censored by others, this is a fire alarm because this is the first step towards cultural tyranny.
If you cannot have the most talented people that engage in the space of questioning via humor, like every great comedian has in the last 40 to 50 years, then other speech will disappear like that.
The great comics of the last couple decades were unapologetic in speaking out against the decisions of the political and governing elite.
Now, the left takes themselves so seriously because they do not believe in self-deprecation, which is the root and the heart of all humor.
Hollywood Kicks Out Chris Pratt 00:06:01
And they want it to disappear.
And the reason they want that to disappear is they've always been after freedom of speech, which is at the heart of good comedy.
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The left will not tolerate anyone that does not agree specifically with everything that they deem to be important.
Chris Pratt, who, of course, is from many different movies and TV shows, Guardians of the Galaxy, Parks and Recreation, Jurassic World, and more, has been deemed by the internet, whatever that means, according to Foxnews.com, that he is the worst Hollywood Chris.
Goes on to try and cancel him.
This is Amy Berg, whomever that is.
All because Chris Pratt allegedly goes to a church that is anti-LGBTQ, some support of a church that is anti-LGBTQ.
Ellen Page has regurgitated this for quite some time.
Chris Pratt said at an awards ceremony before that people need to get back to Jesus.
I agree with that.
And people have come to Chris Pratt's defense just because of all this nonsense.
Mark Ruffalo says that Chris Pratt is as solid a man as there is.
And all of a sudden, there's this sudden push to try and cancel Chris Pratt, all because he does not agree with every single point of whatever secular left-wing position that is deemed to be the current theological belief of Hollywood.
And what's really fascinating to me is that we, as conservatives, We are perfectly okay with the presence of people that disagree with us within our, in our planet, in our world.
You see here that the left is not okay, not that even someone disagrees, But that someone might have even a slight skew of a different worldview within a position of leadership or authority within Hollywood, And so this story is gaining traction.
Robert Downey Jr.
Has come to his defense, and there's a great threat that if you dare disagree in Hollywood, that you will not be listed to movies, you will not be able to continue your career, and that is exactly how the collectivists operate now.
They have never believed in freedom of Expression.
They do not believe in diversity.
They definitely do not believe in disagreement.
And we see this all the time at Turning Point USA, where young people who speak out in any sort of disagreement, any sort of opposition to the dogmatic, predominant view of the academic intelligentsia or the people in charge, the power class, you can get kicked out of class.
You get kicked out of the sorority.
We deal with this all the time.
Just got another message from a young lady yesterday that she said she's getting kicked out of her sorority because she wore a Trump shirt.
Does not surprise me at all whatsoever.
And so the question for many people that are on the sidelines witnessing this is what will it take for you to engage against the people that wish to silence and destroy anyone that they disagree with?
And this is exactly why if we do not get back to being able to challenge the people in charge via comedy, because comedy is rooted in truth.
In fact, standupcomedyclinic.com, I never heard of it before.
I was just kind of doing this in preparation of the show.
I completely agree with this.
It says, quote, I always tell my students when they sit down to write comedy, don't sit down to write something funny, but sit down and try to write something true.
Then turn it funny.
The truth, the truth, the truth.
I think that's exactly right.
And as Dennis Prager often says, truth is not a left-wing value.
Therefore, comedy is no longer a practice that the left enjoys.
The only comedy that they will use is not so funny, expletive-filled attacks towards conservatives, Christians, and Republicans that they don't like.
That's the only sort of speech that they feel comfortable interfacing on.
And so to answer the question to the person who asked me privately yesterday in Huntington Beach, what do we need more of?
We need more truth tellers and we need more comedians.
We need to make America laugh again.
Please email us your thoughts on this episode.
I'd love to get your feedback.
Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.
Thank you for listening.
Get involved with Turning Point USA, the nation's largest, most important student organization that is fighting for freedom and liberty on campuses across the country at tpusa.com.
Please consider supporting us at charliekirk.com slash support.
Thank you guys for listening.
Thank you for fighting.
We'll be back with more.
God bless.
Talk to you soon.
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