Legendary British comedian John Cleese has hit out at permanently offended woke people, insisting that they have no sense of humour and are contributing to the death of comedy.
In an appearance on the Daily Beast’s The Last Laugh Podcast, Cleese noted that woke people simply do not understand the intricacies of comedy.
“There’s plenty of people who are PC now who have absolutely zero sense of humour. I would love to debate, in a friendly way, a couple of ‘woke’ people in front of an audience. And I think the first thing I would say is, please tell me a good ‘woke’ joke,” Cleese urged.
“What they don’t understand is that there’s two types of teasing,” Cleese continued, noting that “There’s really nasty teasing, which is horrible, and we shouldn’t do it, full stop. But the other type of teasing is affectionate. You can tease people hugely affectionately and it’s a bonding mechanism.”
“All humour is critical. You cannot get laughs out of perfect human beings,” Cleese continued, adding that “If you’ve got someone up on the screen who is perfect, intelligent and kind and flexible and a good person, there’s nothing funny about that. So we only laugh at people’s frailties, but that’s not cruel. You can laugh at people’s frailties in very funny and generous ways.”
Cleese was recently at the centre of a ‘woke’ storm when his Fawlty Towers show, made some 40 years ago was temporarily canceled after complaints that it featured a ‘racist’ character.
Cleese called the BBC “cowardly and gutless” for removing an episode of the show, pointing out that the racist character in question was the target of ridicule in the show.
I would have hoped that someone at the BBC would understand that there are two ways of making fun of
human behaviourOne is to attack it directly.
The other is to have someone who is patently a figure of fun, speak up on behalf of that behaviour
Thank of Alf Garnett…
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 12, 2020
But it’s not just stupidity
The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats
It used to have a large sprinkling of people who’d actually made programmes
Not any more
So BBC decisions are made by persons whose main concern is not losing their jobs…
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 12, 2020
The BBC’s website refers to my ‘fury’
I think my comments were quite measured and moderate
So why would the BBC refer to them as my ‘fury’ ?
Because it will get them a few more ‘clicks’
This sort of thing happens when marketing executives and tabloid journalists take charge
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 12, 2020
Cleese has previously warned that political correctness will lead to the death of comedy, noting that “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.”
[embedded content]Cleese has been acutely aware of the threat cancel culture poses for decades:
Hard to tell if I recorded this 30 years or 10 minutes ago… pic.twitter.com/GPDURhYIJL
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 12, 2020
After daring to question the diversity overlords, Cleese also recently found himself being labeled a ‘racist’:
[embedded content]His staunch refusal to deviate from his views has made Cleese the target of harassment.
