MovieChat Forums > Can We Take a Joke? (2016) Discussion > Irony that people like Oliver, Colbert, ...

Irony that people like Oliver, Colbert, are PC police but want exemption

posted 8 years ago by murad23
6 replies | jump to latest

I find it Ironic that people like Oliver, Colbert, et al can both be PC police but don't expect their own.

As left of center Salon noted the large majority, especially of major comedians are partisan and working to relentlessly to attack the GOP 9:1 in nasty attacks.

I mean I have some respect for a few of the comedians in this film who are non partisan or attack both sides, but many comedians are themselves PC Police and partisan yet expect their own bigotry to be immune.

[–] doggie_rodriguez 8 years ago

Nice rant. Except Oliver and Colbert don't do that. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism. And what bigotry comes from liberals? They like blacks, gays, etc... They want everyone to have the same rights. Isn't that sorta the opposite of bigotry?

[–] Beef_Jerky_Time 8 years ago

Censorship is the problem.

When you tell someone they cannot say something which you claim you, or others, can say you don't have equality - you have fascism.

Black Lives Matters crashing the Orlando shooting's service to the gay community is an example of this type of fascism.

Younger folks claiming older folks shouldn't get the vote is another.

Liberals are actually pretty darned good as bigotry 

Stupid - foolish, gullible, doltish, dumbbell...
Need input!

[–] SteverB 7 years ago

...especially of major comedians are partisan and working to relentlessly to attack the GOP 9:1 in nasty attacks.

Major comedians ARE partisan and do attack the GOP a lot. That's because there are no popular right-wing comics that I can think of and seriously, there's a lot about the GOP, especially these days, to mock and attack.

I might be generalizing, but it seems that rather than try to find a relief valve with comedy, right wing people tend to be the most outraged people of all, usually fueled by right wing radio and TV, and only seek out views that agree with their own or adopt views that are easy to adopt without having to do extra research. So, no, comics generally don't speak to people on the right because they are outraged by almost anything.

__________________________________________
"In your opinion?"
"Um, yes your honor, in my opinion."

[–] notafraid1989 7 years ago

right wing people tend to be the most outraged people of all, usually fueled by right wing radio and TV, and only seek out views that agree with their own or adopt views that are easy to adopt without having to do extra research. So, no, comics generally don't speak to people on the right because they are outraged by almost anything.

This is pretty spot on.

It's interesting that stand-up comics and right-wingers have ended up aligned against political correctness, but they're against political correctness for totally different reasons.

Stand up comics are against political correctness because it is leading to a form of censorship. Right-wingers on the other hand are against political correctness because of the people and ideas behind it, but they are generally perfectly okay with their own forms of censorship.

In one breath right-wingers will say that PC liberals need to grow a pair and shut up. And then in the next breath they'll start screaming about someone saying 'happy holidays' instead of 'merry christmas'. And they'll try to organize boycotts because an actor made a political statement they disagree, or someone didn't do the right thing during the pledge of allegiance, or a tv show is portraying something they don't want to see.

Right-wingers are all for policing free-speech, so long as they're the ones doing the policing.

--------

Also OP seems to have a mixed up understanding of what "PC" and "PC Policing" means. Political correctness is a culture which deems certain speech or behaviors to be socially unacceptable based on the surrounding social-political climate. PC Policing is when a person or organization attempts to enforce that PC culture by attempting to censor, boycott, or demand an apology from the person or organization engaging in the speech or behavior that is perceived as being politically incorrect.

When someone like John Oliver or Stephen Colbert engages in a commentary or satire which is intended to illuminate the irony, hypocrisy, or absurdity of a person or organization's speech or actions; that is not "PC Policing".

I don't think it's just OP that has this mixed up though. Right-wingers are known to hijack and redefine terms. So it wouldn't at all surprise me if they've hijacked the term "PC/PC-Policing" and redefined it within their bubble to simply mean expressing any liberal opinion I don't agree with.

[–] bryhain84 7 years ago

Jon Oliver doesn't so much expect exemption as mock himself and welcome criticism.

[–] gcarras (2727) 7 years ago

The most important point of all. Glad you mentioned it. And speaking of ATTACKS..
HOW MANY of said comics DEFENDED the victims of 9/11/01 attacks..