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The Political Correctness Movement Will Kill All Comedy
- John Cleese of the legendary comedy group Monty Python speaks out against the dangers of political correctness in comedy.
- “All comedy is critical,” and “with humor goes a sense of proportion. And then as far as I'm concerned, you're living in 1984,”
- Cleese said he has been warned about performing at colleges, due to labeling everything as cruel.
Monty Python member John Cleese has become the latest comedy legend to wade into the shark-infested waters that is the debate over political correctness in comedy.
In a video for commentary website Big Think, Cleese warns that oversensitivity from political correctness is hurting comedy and could lead to a society where free expression is not allowed.
Cleese lays out a theory that “all comedy is critical,” in that it in some way comments or passes judgment on something the joke-teller observes, and therefore whoever is being judged by the joke could feel offended by it. Cleese objects to offended parties trying to regulate other peoples' thoughts and behaviors, as that leads to a culture where ideas are not allowed to be freely exchanged and dissent is suppressed.
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Cleese says that he's been warned against performing at colleges, because it's on university campuses in particular where “the political correctness has been taken from being a good idea, which is ‘Let's not be mean in particular to people who are not able to look after themselves very well,' to the point where any kind of criticism of any individual or group could be labeled cruel.”
Go to TVGuide.com for the full article, and watch the video commentary here.