Carlos Mencia Says ‘Punching Down’ in Comedy Isn’t Real

Apparently, Carlos Mencia is going to revive his career by stealing Dave Chappelle’s shtick this time.

The conversation about a comedian’s responsibility to choose their targets carefully has been going on since long before the entire comedy world knew that the Mind of Mencia host had been cribbing all of their jokes throughout his career. Mobs of protesters followed Andrew Dice Clay around throughout his heyday in the 1980s for how he repeatedly and gleefully attacked women, immigrants, racial minorities and gay people under the thin guise of humor to the point where comedy’s moral compass, George Carlin, had to step in and warn The Diceman that the same people to whom he was pandering with his “off-color” comedy probably wouldn’t love him so much if they knew he came from a Jewish family.

Enter Mencia — despite being a Honduran immigrant whose “Early Life” tab on his Wikipedia page reads like a fearmongering, pro-Trump propaganda story, Mencia has recently begun to cater toward the conservative comedy world, speaking to right-wing radio host Ryan Schuiling earlier this month and telling him that the “new” comedy rule about never punching down is, itself, one big joke.

Mencia’s anti-woke comments inspired alt-right comedy bloggers and media analysts from across the internet to laud Mencia as a “rebel comic” who refuses to kowtow to the liberal elite — so maybe he’s actually borrowing Rob Schneider’s bit.

“If you’re easily offended, please leave,” the veteran comic said of his preferred audience, because he’s apparently allowed to be picky nowadays. “It’s because I care. I care about your time. I care about you. I care enough to know that I’m not for you. This is who I am.”

“Once you buy into that, it’s such a beautiful, cathartic thing to watch everybody just give in to the laughter and see the difference between comedy and anger, between racial and racist,” Mencia opined. “All of this stuff becomes comedic fodder. And I think that’s where I’m living right now. And I think people need that. People need to be told you’re not a bad person because you laughed.” 

When the topic about the blowback to Chappelle’s ongoing anti-trans comedy campaign arose, Mencia went after critics who call out comedians for “punching down,” or disparaging marginalized groups who don’t have the power to push back. “Think about the phrase itself, ‘punching down,’” Mencia suggested. “It assumes or presumes that you either place me above those people or I do, and I don’t. I don’t understand punching down. I don’t get it. When I do jokes about me or my family, it’s okay,” he continued. “Self-deprecating humor can be just as hurtful sometimes as everything else.”

“I can go up there and talk about how I’m overweight, but the minute I talk about how you’re overweight that’s where the line gets crossed, and that’s the hypocrisy,” he said.

Of course, Mencia failed to acknowledge that, seeing as he is presumably aware of what goes on in his own head, he’s able to make self-deprecating jokes about himself and know for sure that there is no intentionality of actual hatred or prejudice behind them. On the other hand, if, for instance, a conservative white comedian walks onstage and starts trashing Honduran immigrant families, there isn’t that same assurance that the joke doesn’t come out of a desire to spread anger and hatred toward the target.

“We, the truth tellers, are needed. We’re also the valve for people who are angry, who are taking life a little too seriously,” Mencia proclaimed, missing the point that racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-immigrant comedy is so often used as a “socially acceptable” outlet for such anger to find friends and convert followers.

But, hey, now that Mencia has given the conservative comedy world the all-clear to punch down, maybe he’ll finally land a spot on The Joe Rogan Experience.