As a founding member of the British comedy troupe Monty Python, John Cleese knows a little something about comedy and about offending people, Cleese says the essence comedy is being critical, and although it sometimes causes offense, we shouldn’t try to protect everyone from experiencing negative emotions by enforcing political correctness.
Like many speakers and comedians, Cleese has been warned to avoid university campuses – which should be the places where people are exposed to ideas, because of runaway political correctness. It’s notable that no Monty Python movie has been shackled by political correctness. Utilizing humor, they have jabbed most all of society’s sacred cows. From history to religion and sexuality – few human experiences or institutions have escaped their critical and humorous lampooning.
Here in America we have a unique phenomenon taking place. We are ultra PC on colleges to the point of limiting the educational experience. Meanwhile the most hateful example of a hateful, non-PC person is running for office, and nothing he says is censored.If you know what’s happening, I’d love to hear your ideas.
Cleese explains humor and the danger of political correctness.
And the whole point about humor, the whole point about comedy, and believe you me I thought about this, is that all comedy is critical. Even if you make a very inclusive joke like how would you make God laugh? Answer: tell him your plans. Now that’s about the human condition; it’s not excluding anyone. Saying we all have all these plans, which probably won’t come and isn’t it funny how we still believe they’re going to happen. So that’s a very inclusive joke. It’s still critical. All humor is critical. If you start to say we mustn’t, we mustn’t criticize or offend them then humor is gone. With humor goes a sense of proportion. And then as far as I’m concerned you’re living in 1984.