By far the most insufferable part of theJokerpress tour has been its director, Todd Phillips, who will not stop blaming “wokeness” for the current state of comedy. His latest comments are included inJoaquin Phoenix’s Vanity Fair profile, and they’re as insightful and thoughtful as you’d expect from the guy who made公路旅行andThe Hangover. Of switching from making comedies to dramas, Phillips says,“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture. […] There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the fucking funny guys are like, ‘Fuck this shit, because I don’t want to offend you.’ It’s hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter. You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, ‘I’m out.’”
This is startling news, I was not aware that every “f-cking funny guy” has quit. I will miss the humor of John Mulaney, Nick Kroll, Anthony Jeselnik, Jim Gaffigan, Hannibal Buress, Julio Torres, Gary Gulman, Deon Cole, Rob Delaney, Bo Burnham, Hasan Minhaj, Eric Andre, Mike Birbiglia, Kumail Nanjiani, Tom Segura, Tim Robinson, Nate Bargatze, Martin Short, Chris Redd… And if “guys” also means women—not quite sure with Todd Phillips who has never particularly valued women in his storytelling—then I am doubly devastated because that means no more Hannah Gadsby, Tiffany Haddish, Tig Notaro, Ali Wong, Wanda Sykes, Maria Bamford, Chelsea Peretti, Aparna Nancherla, Natasha Leggero, Phoebe Robinson, Kristen Schaal, Nicole Byer, and many others.
This is truly a devastating day. We have lost so much in the woke wars.
显然，托德·菲利普斯（Todd Phillips）充满了sh-t。“唤醒文化”并没有毁了喜剧，也不是一无所有，唯一抱怨“唤醒文化”的人就是选择不随着社会和偏执而演变的人。在当今的社会意识中，仍然有很多喜剧演员在工作，蓬勃发展，嘲笑比您少的人是不好的：打击。非常清楚，没有“唤醒文化”或“取消文化”之类的东西。作为科迪·约翰斯顿恰当地指出，只有富裕而成功的人抱怨他们有时会为自己的sh态负责。Shane Gillis being fired fromSNLdoes not mean he is “cancelled”, it just means there was a consequence to his bigotry. Otherwise, Shane Gillis is fine, he’s already back performing standup and probably making more money than ever thanks to his newfound fame. When people say “X is cancelled” it is just a figure of speech. No one has actually been cancelled in any meaningful way, except for Lenny Bruce, the one and only comedian who has ever had his career ruined because of something he said.
I honestly wonder if Phillips even means the sh-t he’s saying, or if he just knows who the core audience forJokerreally is and he’s appealing to the fanbros. He is a deeply cynical man, I’m not sure he really thinks comedy is suffering so much, or if he is just being savvy. But he’s not wrong, it’s been a rough year for studio comedies. Genuinely good movies likeBooksmartandThe Long Shothave not done well. But thenGood Boyshas made over a hundred million dollars, andAlways Be My Maybeis one of the streaming breakouts of the year so far. Comedies have been caught in the same wave swamping everyone (except for Disney), as audiences are pickier than ever with their dollars. That’s not woke culture, that’s broke culture.
哀叹,也真的很可笑dy is impossible now in a year in whichTaika Waititi’sJojo Rabbitis an Oscar contender. At TIFF,Jojo Rabbitwas more divisive thanJoker,with critics split on the effectiveness—and appropriateness—of Taika’s anti-hate Nazi satire. Audiences, however, embracedJojo Rabbitand gave it the audience award at TIFF, which suggests that people still find cheeky taboo-breaking satire funny. Todd Phillips is basically whining about stubbing his toe on a pebble while Taika Waititi is climbing a mountain without a safety rope.
这就是为什么我认为菲利普斯可能会在脚上射击自己的奥斯卡机会。华金·菲尼克斯（Joaquin Phoenix）是最佳男主角提名的早期领先者，Jokeris on the leaderboard for Best Picture. But Phillips might be hurting his chances at Best Director with all his complaining, especially as several of his competitors are making the kind of movie he says is impossible now (add into the mixBong Joon-ho for the lacerating class satire,Parasite). Phillips will undoubtedly say he doesn’t care about Oscar, but they all care. I will be interested to see if he keeps making these asinine comments when he’s at a roundtable, faced with directors who have made very funny, very daring films this year. How f-cking stupid will he sound spewing this line about woke culture in front of Taika Waititi? And how revealing it will be of what is actually behind the complaints about woke culture, that it isn’t really about audiences becoming humorless and dour. It’s about a certain kind of person (aging, rich, white) who resents being held accountable by the targets of their mockery, who begrudges consequences and loathes apologizing. Todd Phillips isn’t making comedies anymore not because we’re too sensitive. He isn’t making comedies anymore because we grew up and he didn’t.
