Comedy is how many people process the harshness of reality. Jokes can cut through the nonsense. Look how people wait with bated breath for the next South Park episode to get some catharsis from the chaos of war, famine, genocide and authoritarianism. You can deny a fact, but you can’t deny a laugh. And that’s why Trump allies are going after comedians.
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If I were writing for one of those shows right now, I’d be at a stalemate: the most important jokes to write are the ones about Trump’s censorship, and yet the networks will be nervous about airing them. And it’s not as simple as just finding a different network. Where will Kimmel and Colbert go now? As media companies continue to merge, they become way more centralised and controlled by a select few. If the heads of these companies are willing to kowtow to the administration, they’re on the verge of becoming a state media.
Even if late night hosts move their shows online, they can’t escape the monopolies and companies trying to appease Trump. Online there is a four-way monopoly: Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon: all have chief executives who donated to Trump’s inauguration and are flattering him in press conferences, no doubt in the hopes they’ll secure grants to develop AI. It wouldn’t take much to suppress Kimmel or Colbert on any of their platforms.
It’s always about money. The networks don’t mind if they’re free enterprise or ruthless capitalists or oligarchs. They just want their product to give them power, status and wealth. But the idea that government bodies might punish the production for a quip about them isn’t just an attempt to stop us from talking about them – it’s an effort to change how we think about them.
At our worst, comedians are just silly writers of puns. At our best, we hold up a mirror to society. But right now, the US government doesn’t want anyone looking in that mirror out of fear they might see what’s going on.
Simon Taylor is a Melbourne-based comedian.
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