Another year is over and a new one has just begun. – John Lennon
With all due respect to the former Beatle from Liverpool, England, I can’t think of a better way to start off an article about one of the most important elements in our pop culture, comedy. This time of year, most people in some sort of media role always like to review the previous year and look ahead to the new one, and I’m not excluded from this. However, my focus generally centers around something that gives a good insight into how well the country is doing.
For me, that has always been comedy and for the past 10 years, the barometer I have used has been how brave comics feel to crack jokes and hurt people’s feelings. Just like facts, jokes do not care about your feelings, nor should the comics who tell them.
I know that might be unsettling to some. But that is okay, and also, I don’t care.
When somebody can take an everyday situation, make a humorous observation, and deliver a well-crafted line, it is genuinely a joy to sit back and laugh at it. We need more of that in this country today, and less of the cancel culture stemming from anything that slightly makes somebody’s eyes water–not from laughing but from crying from a hurt sense of self–directing how we act.