Could You Make an Edgy Comedy Today?

We were talking today, or yesterday rather, with Russell Peters about when was the last time you saw a good comedy movie and can you make a good comedy movie anymore? Or have they made it so dangerous in terms of being cancelled that comedy movies are no longer something you can do? There's a movie called, I think it's called The Overnighters. I might need to double check on that. I think his name is Adam Scott. Is that a guy, a comic actor? And then who's the guy from Rushmore? Who's great? Jason Schwartzman. Jason Schwartzman and Adam Scott. I think it's called The Overnighters and it's fucking hilarious. And how long ago did it come out? I might need a check on that too. Maybe five years ago? Four years ago? Yeah, that's about the cut off. It's a really low budget, all in one place movie and it's hysterical, I think. I would wonder what is the cut off in terms of when was the last time of really good The Overnighters? The Overnighters, 2015. When was the last time there was an edgy comedy? This one's not edgy. But it's good. I mean I guess there's some, it depends on what, edgy means so many different things to different people. But it's really fucking funny. You know what I watched the other day? Super bad. Holy shit. You could never make that movie today. It's amazing how many things just a few years later. I mean the new Borat I thought was pretty funny. Oh yeah, yeah. But that's a weird one, right? Like he figured out a loophole. You're kind of doing parody and you're doing this thing where you're freaking people out like when she has her period at the dance off. There's things that he could get away with in that, it's a beautiful genre in that regard. You could do stuff in a kind of parody movie that you can't do in a regular movie. Yes. But don't you find there's never been, maybe I'm wrong, I feel like maybe I'm such a comedy cunt that I'm like, don't you feel like there's never been a ton of great comedy films? I feel like there's like a few a decade. It's hard to do a movie like I watched Step Brothers the other night. It's another movie you could never do today. I think it's hard to do those. Like some people just like Judd Apatow was really good at making those kind of movies or was really good. I don't know if he's made one of those kind of movies in a while, but those like really ridiculous over the top movies. But the language and the subject matter and it's like the stuff that they talk about and say to each other, I just don't think you can do that today. Or if you did do that, you would face a tremendous amount of criticism. Even though most people agree, like if you try to watch Step Brother today, fucking rock solid funny movie man, really funny. Right. I was crying, like crying laughing. There's some really funny moments in that movie where you're like, I forgot how good this is. When he rubs his balls over the dude's drum set. Right. Like there's so many of these moments where you're like, this is so crazy. But it feels like now people are getting more comedy from podcasts and stand up than movies because it's making, like I watched the Oscars and they didn't even make a joke. There was like zero jokes because everybody's so afraid to be funny. Who hosted the Oscars this year? I think there was no host. It was just like, we just bring people up. I mean, they weren't even like attempting to do jokes. The only jokes were the voiceover lady that says like, stay tuned, coming up, Brad Pitt. I swear to God, Brad Pitt's coming. That was like the only attempt at humor. It was like really. Well, when Kevin Hart didn't do it because they wanted him to apologize for jokes that were homophobic for many years ago. And he said, look, I'm not going to do this. I've already apologized for those jokes. I evolved. I grew. I'm not the same person anymore. And that's fine. I don't need to do it. And then they didn't have a host that year, I believe. And I think that's it. I don't think they've had a host since then. Right? I don't know. You might be right about that. I know the one year they had two. It was James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosted it. Oh, okay. Because they went non comics, but it does feel like right now it's like rude to even try to be funny on that high level. Yeah. It's very bizarre. I was listening to a podcast the other day that I love that's sort of like a mental health podcast. And this lady was telling the host who's like a straight white guy. He was like, I'm learning about privilege. And he was saying even my self-deprecating humor is a little bit offensive because it's my privilege to do self-deprecating humor because as a straight white male, people assume I'm joking. But other people couldn't make such jokes because of whatever history. And they were literally discussing earnestly how straight white men shouldn't really try to be funny. Was that guy a Castrado? It felt a little Castrado-y. Yeah. I mean, it was just a really bizarre conversation. You can never be woke enough. That's the problem. It keeps going. It keeps going further and further and further down the line. And if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it will eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk. Right. Because it's your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history. It will be you're not allowed to go outside because so many people were imprisoned for so many years. I mean, I'm not joking. No, I know. I know. It really will get there. It's that crazy. Yeah. We just got to be nice to each other, man. And there's a lot of people that are taking advantage of this weirdness in our culture. And then that becomes their thing. Their thing is calling people out for their privilege, calling people out for their position. You know, it's fucking crazy times. Yeah, most definitely. But I do feel like there's more. It feels like I hear more people sort of speaking out against that kind of stuff than I hear from people saying that's a good idea. Like, I think there's way more people that are like, what? That's insane. Well, especially in our circles. True. Yeah, maybe I'm in a bubble. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, we're definitely in a comedy bubble. I mean, this is what we do. We talk shit. Right. You know, when you talk shit and you see something stupid like that, like, I was a straight white man, I shouldn't be self-deprecating. Like, bitch, the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, I mean, I'm in a lot of trouble if we can't do that. Yeah, we're humans. If you're a human being, you should be able to express yourself. You shouldn't have to take into account all the other people that are either not heard or not expressing themselves currently or not in the same, you know, whatever category is you. Come on, man. We can't do that because that's what you're doing is you're you're forcing yourself to think double and triple about every single fucking thing you say and whether or not you have the right to say it, whether or not you have the right to express yourself. Yeah. And then then nobody's having fun. That doesn't seem like a way to live at all. It's a terrible way to live. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips, easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience on Spotify. You can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan experience.