J.B. Smoove Calls Woke-ism ‘Very, Very Discouraging’

Is political correctness ruining TV comedy? 

Jerry Seinfeld certainly seems to think so, and the hosts on The View are continuing to stir that particular pot. “Curb tackled a bunch of edgy issues,” Ana Navarro marveled to J.B. Smoove this week, noting the debate around what you can and cannot say on TV anymore. “What are your thoughts on this?”

“You know, we get away with so much,” admitted Smoove. “Certain shows have already established they can get away with it. Larry has established that already.” 

But for the comedy community writ large? “We got to be careful,” he said. “Because what we don’t want to happen is comedy and stand-up to be underground. And we don’t want comedy prohibition. We don’t want something like that to happen. We want our voices to be heard. We want that extension of the real world to be able to be broadcast to you by a comedian. It takes the edge off everything in life.”

What exactly is Smoove getting at here, wondered Joy Behar. Is he saying that “so-called woke-ism” is killing comedy?

“It can be very, very discouraging,” Smoove said before launching into a hysterical hypothetical that even Seinfeld wouldn’t imagine in his worst P.C. fever dreams. 

“Now here’s what you got to be careful of,” Smoove warned. “You’re watching a stand-up special. You’re in the audience. You’re laughing. You’re having a great time. You know, the camera (focuses) on the audience all the time. What if there’s edgy material on stage, and you’re laughing your butt off, and your boss is watching it by chance. Turns the channels and see you. ‘Ha ha ha! This guy is the best!’” 

“But it was edgy, and something that’s controversial,” Smoove emphasized. “Do you get fired the next day if your boss sees you laughing?”

Say what now? Get fired because a TV camera found you laughing at a joke during a comedy special? Even Behar had to point out the ridiculousness of the scenario. “No,” she said, “maybe not.” With an emphasis on the not.

Smoove wasn’t so sure, though. “Can he say, ‘I found you to be laughing at something unpleasant?’” he wondered. “That would be horrible, but what if it turns into that?” 

No way, Behar reiterated. “That would be really over the top.”

“But what if turns into that?” asked Smoove, sliding all the way to the bottom of his slippery-slope argument.  

He did, however, convince at least one View host on his way down. “I could see that happening,” said Sunny Hostin. 

The moral of the story, according to Navarro? “If you go to the filming of a Netflix comedy special, stay way in the back.”