Todd Phillips, director of the movie “Joker” – says he is not a big supporter of political correctness and “woke culture,” and although he directed “The Hangover” comedies (with rapist Mike Tyson), he no longer will do comedies because of snowflakes on Twitter and other social media.
I love him.
Phillips recently sat down with Vanity Fair for an interview where he said that “woke culture” is the reason he has decided to stop making comedy films like “The Hangover,” opting instead to go for more dramatic fare like his newest project.
Phillips had found it increasingly difficult, he says, to make comedies in the new ‘woke’ Hollywood, and his brand of irreverent bro humor has lost favor.
“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” Phillips told the magazine. “There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the fucking funny guys are like, ‘F*** this s***, because I don’t want to offend you.’”
“It’s hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter,” the director continued. “You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, ‘I’m out.’”
Phillips took on his latest project, “Joker,” because he wanted to make a film that was modern and “irreverent,” that wasn’t a comedic piece. According to the director, all comedies are designed, in some way, to be irreverent.
“So I go, ‘How do I do something irreverent, but f*** 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,” Phillips said.
As you can imagine, some folks, particularly on the left, were not too happy to hear this commentary on the current state of comedy from Phillips and lashed out at him, which was to be expected.
Bill Murray Loves Trump’s Tax Plan: Makes Sense
The comedian’s accountant must have given good news to superstar Bill Murray, because he’s starting to give a dangerous opinion: Maybe Trump isn’t as dumb as we want him to be.
In a surprising interview, the 67-year-old actor said that Donald Trump’s Tax Cut And Reform bill is “fantastic.”
The news comes in the form of Murray’s recent sit-down interview with CNBC where he joined the ranks of other comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld to complain about the wrecking ball taken to his profession. He blamed the constant politicization of comedy as well as identity politics.
Of course, it’s still a bit too far for him to come out and say anything positive himself. So, he said that he was in agreement with a friend of his, a Saturday Night Live writer named Jim Downey. Downey has been “accused of being a right-wing comedy writer, if there is such a thing,” according to Murray who went on to imitate his friend:
“‘No, no, [Jim says about the idea that he’s right wing], I just think the way Democrats handle things is out. They pick out little pieces of a population and say they represent it — we represent the Hispanics, we represent the LGBT, or something.'”
Murray went on to explain Downey’s point of view, saying that comedians need to speak to everyone at once, not to small little groups. He went on to say that it’s demeaning for the group, and it’s a separation tactic by a politician looking to score points.”
Here’s what Murray had to say, because we’re at a point in culture where actors are now expected to be financial analysts:
“I think …the change in the tax law is a great thing for the corporations… I don’t pretend to understand what that will mean in the future, what the budget will have to do to take care of what people call entitlements… that may or may not work. I don’t know… but I think the first step, it’s made things easier, there was probably too much regulation, you just hope they don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater… when breaking down regulations that somehow … there’s things that don’t protect people.”
In the past, Bill Murray has been connected to characters like goofball car-regulator Ralph Nader.
Trump runs on a brilliant strategy. He’s not a Democrat, and he’s not really a Republican. He’s Trump. You no longer have to identify as a Republican to support Trump, because Trump was the outsider to the race. GOP insiders were laughing at him, saying that he’d never get 5% support of the GOP. Then they said he’d never get the delegates. You know how that turned out. Jeb! is still suffering the night terrors from getting wedgied at the debates.
So it’s safe for a leftie like Murray to defend Trump. If Trump were licking the boots of Paul Ryan and John McCain it’d be a tough sell, but he really is in a league of his own.
Meanwhile, haggish Barbra Streisand has been in a panic since she announced that her taxes have gone up. But shouldn’t a dedicated lefty wingnut like her be happy that she, as the 1% will be paying her “fair share?” But Streisand is in a league of her own, claiming that she is turning to food for comfort whenever she is faced with Trump on the television.
Donald Trump is making me gain weight. I start the day with liquids, but after the morning news, I eat pancakes smothered in maple syrup!
— Barbra Streisand (@BarbraStreisand) March 5, 2017
How much free time does she have? I’ve worked around news for years now, and I still don’t have a chance to read the headlines every morning because I have a busy life. Homes don’t clean themselves, groceries won’t buy themselves, and sometimes there’s a need to take an emergency run to the hospital because someone landed with food poisoning. Streisand here is so overcome with aimlessness that she claims that the news is unavoidable. Oh, and that it’s making her fat, because she’s also too busy to go to the gym or instruct her staff to make something with fewer calories.
But back to Murray and the state of comedy.
Jerry Seinfeld was among first of the bunch to come out and refuse to speak on college campuses due to the exploding snowflakes filling the halls of higher learning. In 2011, Gilbert Gottfried wrote a piece for Playboy complaining about “The Apology Epidemic” and in 2014 Chris Rock also announced that he’s given up on colleges because he does not want to be forced to self-censor, blaming the prevailing social views against any sort of offense.
Even left-wing John Cleese, who has called Trump a “narcissist” has cried foul:
We can “make jokes about Swedes and Germans and French and English and Canadians and Americans, [but] why can’t we make jokes about Mexicans?”
Don’t worry Cleese, because now’s the best time in years to taco bout it.
Sources: Lifezette, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Squawk Box CNBC
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