John Christensen opened up to an audience in dark crowded room. At first, there was a silence, a shock, and then a wave of laughter erupted among the crowd. The tension was evident – to laugh or not to laugh? This is the effect social taboos typically have in comedy. In any other context, Christensen's subliminal hint at society's paedophilia problem would be inappropriate. In the atmosphere of a comedy club, however, the ironic inappropriateness of the statement worked in his favor.
Most comedy clubs are in the darkest corners of their city – both, physically and metaphorically. One typically has to go through a dirty smelly alley or down a dimly lit decrepit hallway in order to arrive in a more darkened basement. Once there, the viewers are hidden from the dogmas and the taboos of the outside world. All inhibitions left behind, the room becomes a breeding ground for vulgarity, self-humiliation, and mockery.
This is the case of Albert's Cocktail Bar, the place for the Aarhus's only English-speaking open-mic comedy shows. Christenson has performed his stand-up act there every week for the last nine years, while also touring around Denmark.
As incredulous as the stereotypical comedy club sounds, this has been the characterization around for decades – an indecent expectation that has been subscribed to by both audience members and comedians. In recent years, however, this mutual credence of hostility and tensions has waned. Comedians have invariably been receiving harsh scrutiny and online backlash for their political incorrectness.
Dictionaries define "political correctness" as avoidance of words or phrases that marginalize and insult people from certain cultural, racial, sexual orientated, or gendered groups. In most cases, it reveals a set of values, disputes integrity, and pursues a political or intellectual agenda. This definitely an ambition, which until recently, has been exempted from the humor scene.
"I think political correctness generally is a very good thing, but being very sensitive is a separate matter," Christensen explained. "When people tell an inappropriate joke, they tell it because they expect people to know that they don't mean it, and they tell it because the joke is funny. That's an important distinction."
The problem stems back to the beginning of the 21st century, when the dynamic nature of digital media became omnipresent in our daily lives. With the availability of Social Media and video recording on smartphones, comedian's inappropriate jokes were no longer limited to the confines of the comedy club. They could no longer enjoy the trial-and-error luxury. With a few taps on a glass screen, any offended audience member can display and perpetuate their anger anywhere, at any time, and to anyone (typically hundreds or thousands of "followers," "likes," and "reposts"). This inevitably has elevated the role of the joke-teller from the fluorescent-lit shabby stage to a globalized public-speaking figure with significant social impacts.
Tonight, looking around in the darkroom of any comedy club, one can easily see the reflection of light from the audience members' cell-phones screens flicker every so often. The comedian emphasized to me that he believed the main problem is that people have now conflated their offense with being correct. Which, in turn, has risen a self-righteous power with their emotions – there should be repercussions for their offense.
"With added anonymity, I think social media like Twitter is giving people a speaking opportunity that they didn't previously have," the part-time comedian shared. "And for better or worst, I think people are becoming more vocal about their opinions and pains."
In 2014, this trend first intensified in the United States, when different social justice movements, such as "Black Lives Matter" began to take precedence. Along with a deep history of oppression, this initially set the standards for discussions about race. Then, in 2015, when gay marriages were legalized in the United States, this began to set the standards for dialogue on the LGBTQ rights. Finally, in 2017, the Women's March and the #MeToo movements set the threshold for discourse about sexual harassment, sexism, and rape. As a result, the boundaries of social taboos expanded in the American context. Combined, studies have shown, that the globalized overarching reach of social media and technology and the heightened taboo creation in America, created a climate of hypo-sensitivity and "victimhood culture."
As the forbearers of a new wave of anti-political-correctness, the association of social media's growth has been side-by-side correlated with the millennial generation's impact on college campuses. Bearing the stamp as "the snowflakes" or "spoiled narcissists," their oppression has become their means of deserving respect and assistance.
The influence and repercussions of these expanded boundaries have been felt around the world, even in a very European setting, such as Aarhus, Denmark. Christenson elaborated, "It's challenging comedians in a way because they can't just go up and be very offensive. Now there is a new standard. It's more acknowledged if someone can make a show or special that doesn't contain any of 'this stuff' and it is still funny."
Following Christensen's act, another comedian, Niels Flensborg went up on the stage. He opened his act with the following statement to the audience, "I was in the club and I met a girl who said she was a nurse. Then I told her that if she's a nurse, I want to be hospitalized a bit. She replied with; well I work in the mental department... And you probably also should."
By connecting insanity to modern-day dating and hitting on women, Flensborg's joke highlights a separate element of utilizing taboos in comedy: its ability to confront uncomfortable issues. Many comedians, such as Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, and Bill Maher have sought to use this leverage of political incorrectness as a springboard to emphasize their causes, such as feminism, discrimination, and politics. These types of satirists ironically utilize the tension of the social taboo to open up new spaces for social activism and critical consciousness. This can be attributed to the fact that political correctness's ability to curtail inappropriate language out of everyday life further reinforces society's unwillingness to face the culpability of the subject or issue.
The downfalls, however, is that this creates a limited audience for the social-justice-comedian by running the risk for him of becoming controversial and colliding with mainstream political beliefs. They will naturally not reach the adversaries.
This trend was evident earlier in the night at that Comedy Club when there was a comedian repeatedly using the N-word in his act. It seemed like an unwarranted and arduous attempt to sound cool, but one told he didn't quite understand the racist connotation the word carried. Although there were no immediate responses, the silent crowd was noticeably turned off by the impetus. And in a trivialized attempt to be controversial, the comedian had successfully lost the audience's attention.
Flensborg pointed out to me that the comedian failed when he didn't think about the demographics of his audience (diverse and English-speaking), his timing of the joke was off, and there was a serious doubt of his intentions. He shared, "The line is drawn when there is a doubt of whether something is real or not. Or when something sounds more like a propaganda speech more than it is comedy. When someone goes up on stage and the audience is not sure if he is just joking?"
Amy Schummer, Bill Maher, Dave Chapelle, Aziz Ansari, and Louis C.K. – are a list of just a few comedians who have received Twitter backlashes and career deprecating repercussions for their "politically incorrect" jokes. Amy Schummer and Bill Maher were both forced to publicly apologize for "racist" jokes, Louis C.K. was "dropped" by Netflix, HBO, and FX for his downfall following the #MeToo movement scandal, and Aziz Ansari's stand-up shows were picketed for his "alleged sexual misconduct."
The extent of widespread backlash towards social taboos reached its climax in 2018, with the firestorm following Roseanne Barr's acclaimed racist tweet. The star of the hit ABC TV-show, "Roseanne" tweeted about President Obama's senior advisor. She posted, "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj." The tweet generated a retaliation from thousands of fans and followers towards the comedian on the social media platform, calling the joke and the comedian a "racist." Barr responded, "It was just a joke," following the pressure from the society, the ABC Network immediately stopped the show. Subsequently, the network fired the Grammy-winning comedian and cancelled one of their highest-grossing shows.
Falling into a pit of pro-Zionist and anti-Liberal conspiracies, the fired sitcom star attributed the situation to the fact that her "extreme conservatism" and "support of President Trump" did not align with the network's liberal views.
When asked about if the "candidate Trump's xenophobia or racism is a disqualifying trait for the office of the presidency?" Barr answered, "Well, that's your opinion."
The motivations for the falling out between the former ABC star and the big media corporation also represents the underlining tensions easily observed in the United States between this rise of hypo-sensitivity in "victimhood culture" and the growing tolerance of sexism, racism, and xenophobia, facilitated by a rise of conservative resistance to political culture.
In 2016, Donald Trump's anti-PC presidential campaign triggered conservative voters and alt-right movements across the United States to lash out against being politically correctness – calling it "radical Liberal propaganda." Combined with normalizing these values through many of the President's policies, such as deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, banning Muslims from entering the country, introducing stop-and-frisk policies; his policies and campaign have legitimized sexist, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric as being celebrated and finally being un-censored in the everyday language. Naturally, the rampant presence of commonplace racism, sexism, and xenophobia, has further invigorated the leftist intolerance of the topics.
While merely an attribute to the highly contentious political atmosphere created by the 45th president, comedy bears the beast of the burden as being on the front lines for critics of political incorrectness. Some of the highest grossing comedians, such as Dave Chappelle, Trevor Noah, Louis C.K., and Anthony Jeselnik, found success in their careers for their ingenuity of politically incorrect jokes. Proponents argue that comedy is not the field where political correctness belongs, claiming that "nothing is out of bounds to make fun of." While detractors argue that these defenders clearly supersede the impact their jokes have on society.
Chris Rock, former host of "The Chris Rock Show," spoke out about the rise in political correctness during an interview with Vulture magazine, he explained about the writing process: "It can get downright offensive. . . . But if you think you don't have room to make mistakes, it's going to lead to safer, gooier standup. You can't think the thoughts you want to think if you think you're being watched." A few years earlier, in a rift of outrage, Louis C.K. also scorned the movement of radical offense, "It's a dumb thing to take at face value… And if you do, you are not allowed to laugh at any more jokes. You are not allowed to laugh at any jokes that have any violence or negative feelings attached to them, ironically or otherwise."
Whether a Republican or traditionalist, what ultimately undermines and connects these outspoken dissidents is their dominant male privilege revealed in the material. The numbers of women and minorities in comedy continuously get overshadowed by their white male counterparts – but if that's the case the socially-tabooed-jokes should be reserved for their voice. With the increase of diversity in the comedian culture, the United States, and even the world, their predominant voices are no longer solely acceptable as the dominant. And this has become the new social norm.
The parallel rise of these factors, such as the increase of social media presence and the increase of diversity in America, have simultaneously had side effects on the population's perception of general norms. Collectively, in this new era of social taboos, Big Media Corporation's, such as ABC, HBO, and FX, have taken note of the changing environment and what that means for business. It can be acknowledged, that comedians should be more willing to adapt to the new era of a PC audience and be more aware of how social media emphasizes their role as public figures. But if this is not sufficient to ward off pain and suffering, then maybe, other media organizations should follow ABC's lead - take the responsibility to clean intentional hate speech and fake news from their platforms.
As the night comes to an end, the laughter becomes softer and more varied. The crowd is growing tired and weary from the rollercoaster of emotions the comics have taken them through. After sitting in a room with people from all different spectrums of race, gender, and identity, there was not one person who could have avoided offense tonight. And, of course, that is their choice. The prescription they subscribed to when they decided to spend the evening in Albert's. Nevertheless, one thing is true: ten, twenty, or thirty years ago we probably all wouldn't be sitting here together enjoying this free evening of comedy. Diversity has become synonymous with our time and generation. And as a result, this has reconfigured the boundaries of social taboos. It's the comedian's job to prescribe the same respect for his audience – and adapt with the times.
