Comedy is losing its punch for me

[SHRED]

While watching Colbert it struck me how less and less funny this trump situation is getting to me.
Oh Stephen is the best. He is funny.

Is it just me or is the seriousness of what is happening starting to lose it's comedic punch for you also?

[jpak]

1. !

[Wounded Bear]

2. I've lost the enjoyment of comedy a while ago...

I think it pre-dates Trump, though. Modern comedy just seems so.......pointless.

[edhopper]

3. I can't watch the Daily Show any more

too much truth in how fucked we are. Hard to sleep afterwards.

[monmouth4]

4. And here I thought I was the only one or just an old fuddy-duddy. n/t

[spanone]

5. trump is as funny as a world war.

[femmocrat]

6. I still laugh at Colbert.

But that SNL summer news show last night was not funny, IMO. I was even disappointed in Bill Hader's Scaramucci.

[cwydro]

7. "Its" not "It's"

"It's" is a contraction for "it is."

[SHRED]

10. Thanks

[BigmanPigman]

8. Actually, I'm finding myself giving a loud, robust, "HAH, Ha Ha!" reaction while watching the news.

It is all so ridiculous and ludicrous. Of course Colbert is necessary but his statements are supposed to be funny.

[Beausoleil]

9. Likewise

It is NOT to laugh.

I find myself SMH more often than not.

[Miles Archer]

11. It's like the Bill Hader "Mooch" skit on SNL last night

As I've said on DU before, I'm an Italian-American. We poke fun at the stereotype more than anyone who is not an Italian-American. We have fun with it, we exaggerate it.

But Scaramucci is an idiot, the worst of the worst "goombah" morons under our big umbrella.

Hader's skit is being applauded as genius, spot-on, whatever. I watched it and thought "so WHAT." And it wasn't because it offended me...it didn't.

It all goes back to what Alec Baldwin said a few months ago, when he expressed doubt over continuing his cameos on SNL as Trump. I'm paraphrasing here, but it was essentially that the best satire is rooted in finding some likable quality in the subject and somehow humanizing them. He neither likes not admires Trump, and felt that he no longer wanted to portray him with any kind of frequency.

Hader simply mimicked the worst of what's already right on the surface...anything he said in the skit could have been said by Scaramucci himself, it provided no insight, it added no dimension. He repeated the "Bannon ****ing his own ****" line, and hey...Scaramucci already said that, you know?

Same for Borowitz. On any given day I rate his satire around "B" with the occasional "A" and "C." In the Trump era, much of what he writes is "C" material, for the same reasons Baldwin laid out, and what I've shared here.

We really don't need World War III, especially if it's a nuclear war. China has stated...through the media, not through "official statements"...that if North Korea attacks the U.S. first, they will "remain neutral" if the U.S. responds. If the U.S. attacks North Korea first, they will "defend" North Korea, and I think we all know what that means.

I think you nailed it...it's "the seriousness of what is happening starting to lose it's comedic punch," and no...it's not just you.

[Whiskeytide]

19. I noticed some of what you're ...

... saying a while back on SNL. Even back to 2008. * The skits on the debates were sometimes word for word what they had actually said. I remember thinking it was alarming when satire couldn't improve on and embellish the stupid.

Although I will concede that Fey did an excellent job on Palin. "I can see Russia from my house..."!

[Weekend Warrior]

12. Find different comedic outlets.

Non-political.

Download Strange Brew, hoser.

[marylandblue]

13. Keep your srnse of humor up

People in the worst of situations still laugh about it. It's a natural defense mechanism and it is good for you.

[SWBTATTReg]

14. comedy allows me to process tRUMP and reinforces my deeply neg. feelings about tRUMP/enablers

keeps me from going crazy and I feel that's teaching the majority of Americans how idiotic tRUMP, the repubs/enablers and their policies are...they had years and years to come up w/ something viable and they didn't...on anything!!!

Why?

Because they weren't doing their job ... why else nothing was prepared already??? In 7 years what the hell were they doing? What? Drinking Jack Daniels or whatever?? They had 7 years! to prepare, 7 years! to prepare, when they would eventually get control of the government. It's also no excuse 'oh, we didn't think we get the presidency etc., blah, blah, blah...'. NO EXCUSE FOR NOT DOING YOUR JOB, SHOULD BE FIRED!!

This is a party of mostly old white guys sitting around the fireplace, sipping their Jack Daniels, and bitching at everybody else for the bad job everybody else (not them, heavens no!) is doing, and that they could do a better job...

now that they have it, they are a joke, period...no conscious, no guts, no balls, no intelligence, other that what the Koch brothers /Mercer family tells them...these guys are proving exactly why none of us likes politicians, (or at least their kind of politics) ... the kind that would steal the lollypop from your baby's mouth...

[UTUSN]

15. COLBERT/KIMMEL/MYERS do it with a great edge. The ones I don't like are the ones

who try to make the DRUMPFs look "cute". But, yes, over all, the DRUMPF thing ain't funny.

[Dave Starsky]

16. It was funny at first.

Back when none of us took him seriously as a candidate. It has long since ceased to be funny. The stupid things he does are only enraging.

[nolabear]

17. Not me. I think it's more important than ever.

I do think we're in danger of becoming deeply depressed over the horrors of the day, and that's not an inappropriate response, but it's a helpless one. Comedy shows the ability to still spit in adversity's eye, to maintain some personal integrity (not in the moral but in the literal sense) and those things are vital.

Comedy also reminds us to be humble and to realize that we are silly creatures who hold on to silly things. That's often not easy to admit now because we feel so genuinely attacked and meanness is ramping up so quickly in social media.

I have always loved this very serious poem about laughing in the face of horror. I'm an atheist but I do think some things are sacred, just because we hold them to be.

[yallerdawg]

18. Trump has taken away our sense of humor and joy.

One of my favorite new shows is "I'm Dying Up Here" about the trials and tribulations of stand-up comedians back in the day. Not even the stand-up routines are funny, it's a dark, grim weekly experience. Perfectly reflects the times we find ourselves in now.

There is very little funny left.

[Initech]

20. Trey Parker and Matt Stone said South Park is no longer going to do topical episodes.

Because I think their rationale was something along the lines of "how do you parody something that's already insane to begin with"? They are definitely right!

[Beausoleil]

22. Good point

Drumpf and the GOP are running a parody of a democratic republic.
Unfortunately it's our reality.

[Sunlei]

21. what Republicans have done and continue to do to America (and other countries people) isn't funny.

[fleur-de-lisa]

23. I think it's less funny because

jabs at Hair Fuhrer are not really fiction anymore. All comedians need do these days is provide actual tweets or video of the Orange Menace.