5 Ways Stand-Up Comics Hate Free Speech

5 You Can't Talk Back In Comedy Clubs

I don't know if there is a bigger double-edged sword in comedy than the fact that, in general, the audience is vehemently discouraged from speaking while the comic is performing. I actually talked about it once before in a column about "victims" whom we should stop feeling sorry for, in which I brought up the Daniel Tosh rape joke controversy and pointed out that, had the audience member in question adhered to accepted comedy club etiquette, that incident never would have happened.

I still stand by that, but it's worth noting that in that same column, I made it clear that I thought the joke itself was indeed pretty awful. I'm not alone there -- even Tosh himself apologized eventually, and that's precisely why the controversy didn't destroy his career.

Comics take the stage with an inherent advantage over the audience, in that out of everyone in the room, only the person with the microphone is allowed to speak. It's a rule; talk too much while in the audience, and you run the very real risk of being kicked out.

But here's the thing: That's not a rule intended to uphold free speech. It's meant to ensure that the other people in the crowd who paid money to be there don't have their night ruined by some cackling drunkard. What it's not meant to be is a license for comics to drop all standards of human decency when addressing what, in the big scheme of things, is a minor nuisance. Comics like to use the analogy of a person who inevitably gets attacked by the animal they're taunting at the zoo. You brought it on yourself, you know?

What people leave out of that argument is that, in almost every case, no matter the circumstances, those animals are killed afterwards.

Why? Because they can't be trusted to control their natural instincts around humans. Am I saying that unruly comics should be shot in the head? No, but I am saying that if you don't know the difference between handling a heckler like a professional and calling a woman a cunt because she had a few too many drinks before your precious comedy show, then maybe you deserve whatever happens next.

Think of it like this: What if you were talking in a movie theater, and instead of politely asking you to turn it down, the usher said he hoped your mother died of AIDS. Would you complain to a manager, or are all bets off because everyone knows you're not supposed to talk in a movie theater?

Right, having your freedom to tell jokes in peace threatened does not give you an automatic license to stop being a decent human being. A comedy show can be an emotionally charged situation for everyone involved. Things often get out of hand. Sometimes a comic has to apologize for something they said. Thinking that doing so from time to time represents an attack on the integrity of comedy is actually an attack on the overall notion of a person being able to say whatever the fuck they want when the situation calls for it. Yes, it's your job as a comic to shut down an unruly audience member on occasion. But if you can't do it in a way that doesn't make matters worse, then political correctness and free speech aren't the problem. You're just shitty at your job.

4 Comics Confuse Disagreement For Censorship

Fact: Despite what anyone may say to the contrary, the "PC Police" are not keeping comics from saying the things they want to say. That we as Americans are free to say whatever the fuck we want has been the case for as long as we've been a country. But like so many other splinters of society, comics mistake the inevitable fallout from speaking their minds in a way that offends people as sign that their freedom is being infringed upon. That is just not the case. Give me the name of one comic in this country who was locked away in a labor camp for telling a joke. You can say whatever you want. You get to go on living your life as a free member of society. No one can take that freedom from you.

What people can take from you is your job. Comics have learned that time and time again. One of the most recent cases involved Gilbert Gottfried, who was fired from doing AFLAC commercials after tweeting a series of jokes about the tragic earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011.

His jokes were seen as offensive by more than a few people, and as a result, the insurance company that had been paying him severed all ties with the screechy-voiced comic.

Is that how freedom of speech is supposed to work? Yes, that's exactly how it's supposed to work. Again, it's not like he was arrested. People have the right to say what they want, and other people have a right to react to it, provided that reaction doesn't infringe upon your right to be a person who's alive and free. Taking a job is not the same as taking a person's freedom, and equating the two borders on insensitive. There are people legitimately getting beaten and incarcerated for the things they say in some countries. Sorry you're less rich because you can't wait a month to start tweeting about a tragedy, though.

Oh, but what did AFLAC think they were signing up for when they made Gilbert Gottfried their spokesperson? After all, we're talking about a man who made a 9/11 joke on, like, 9/18. In New York City. And when it didn't go well, he launched into one of the most legendarily offensive and disgusting jokes of all time instead.

They had to know something like this would happen at some point.

That's true, and I'd counter that by asking this: What exactly did Gilbert Gottfried think he was signing up for when he agreed to work for AFLAC? Were they supposed to retweet those jokes? They're a fucking corporation. One that sells insurance, no less. That's a thing people sometimes buy in reaction to a tragedy. If you think they're going to staunchly support the voice of their goddamn duck mascot because "it's just comedy," then trust me when I say that AFLAC is not the naive party in this story. Once you sell out, you're expected to behave a certain way. Doing otherwise will have ramifications. That has nothing to do with free speech. It's just business.

Oh, and make no mistake about what I'm saying in that last paragraph ...

3 Comics' Ultimate Goal Is To Sell Out

You should be trying to get on television. That's your goal if you're a comic. I mean, it doesn't have to be; it's just that if it's not, people won't consider you a "real" comic. We're talking about an industry in which "making it" means telling jokes for five minutes on a late-night talk show, thus assuring yourself a free pass to do the same in any strip mall comedy club in this great nation for time eternal. There's nothing wrong with that, obviously. A career path is a career path. But you probably don't need me to tell you that no one gets on NBC by way of being a vehement defender of free speech.

No, you tailor what you say to fit what they want. Otherwise, you don't perform on their show. This is the opposite of saying what you want and not worrying if it offends anyone. It is the exact opposite. But if it's not something you're shooting for as a comic, there's barely any point in doing stand-up comedy at all. That's why so many people die on Last Comic Standing every year.

Among the myriad reasons you shouldn't feel sorry for comics who whine about political correctness, this is one of the biggest and most obvious. They don't want everyone to be able to say whatever they want without restriction -- they want to be able to do that, but also sometimes compromise completely, while accepting zero criticism for either.

That's why it sincerely bothers me to hear someone like Jerry Seinfeld crying about political correctness.

For starters, has it really been that long since I've seen Seinfeld tell jokes? Because I don't remember him ever saying shit to offend anyone. He was one of the main creative forces behind one of the longest-running sitcoms in network television history. Now that he's made a sufficient amount of money from playing that game, though, political correctness is ruining comedy.

Unfortunately, like so many other things, getting away with this kind of parallel living has become increasingly difficult, thanks to the Internet. That's probably why ...

2 Comics Disregard The Internet

I feel like this would be a good time to mention that, yes, I have done stand-up comedy. I still do. All the time. I go out of town for it sometimes. I get paid on occasion. I waited until now to mention that because, given the sheer number of words that most Cracked articles contain, it's inevitable that somewhere on some far-off Facebook page, someone who "actually does comedy" will post this and bemoan the fact that "bloggers" are constantly chiming in with their opinions despite having no idea what they're talking about.

If you don't believe this is a thing that happens regularly, go friend, say, 10 comics on Facebook. Trust me, unless they're so famous they've reached their friend limit, they will be your friend back. They want nothing more. From there, wait for the next Jezebel article about a shitty rape joke, and then watch the fireworks start.

Comics would love to have you believe that only a person who stands in a club with a microphone in their hand understands comedy. This attitude raises a pretty obvious question: What the fuck are you doing telling jokes on the Internet, then? If you're using Twitter, Facebook, or any other Internet outlet for anything other than promotional purposes, you forego your right to be treated as some kind of special form of comedy animal who lives above standard rules and regulations. These complaints about "bloggers blowing things out of proportion" almost always happen after a comic tweets something that rubs people the wrong way.

Well, those people who get mad don't have to understand "comedy" in that situation -- they just have to understand Twitter. You're comparing apples and oranges. That's especially true of comics who have hundreds or thousands of followers. Your comedy shows are not attended by that many people. Ever. You are not operating in the same realm when you post something on Twitter. If you don't realize that, it's not the people who get mad about your tweets defending catcalling who don't understand comedy. It's you. Comedy isn't just one thing anymore, no matter how much anyone wants it to be. If you can't adapt to that, you'll die off eventually.

Also, acting like "the Internet" is still some kind of fringe segment of society is senior citizen shit. Everyone uses the Internet. It's just another word for "the world" now. Sure, way more people are able to share their opinions with the world now, including those who may be critical of your comedy, but taking that as some kind of assault on your profession is stupid. Rest assured that women have always hated rape jokes -- it's just that the technology to make it the issue it deserves to be didn't exist until recently. We also didn't always have the means to record the police when they beat and kill innocent citizens. That we do now is in no way, shape, or form an assault on law enforcement; it's technology fixing a glitch in society. Segue alert!

1 You Can't Talk About Certain People

Did you hear that Bill Cosby is an admitted rapist? Like, a serial rapist. It's been in the news a bit. Many of the women he's accused of assaulting were on a magazine cover recently, like the most tragic Wheaties box of all time.

Do you remember how that story broke? The Internet. Someone in the audience filmed Hannibal Buress telling a joke about Bill Cosby raping women and posted it to YouTube. That got picked up as the news story that it very clearly deserved to be, and the rest is history.

Here's the thing, though. Hannibal Buress had been telling that joke for years. In the days after the story finally became huge, Patton Oswalt said in an interview that, within the comedy world, people knew about the allegations for years. There was a reference to it on 30 Rock years before it was actual news.

So what the fuck? If it's a thing people knew well enough to make jokes about for years, why did Bill Cosby have a career well into his early hundreds? Because he's Bill Cosby. In almost any form of entertainment, you're likely to find some sociopath wreaking havoc at the very highest levels of success without fear of repercussion because their talent makes people rich. Ending their career would cost a lot of people a lot of money, and being the one responsible for that will cost you the same. These are working conditions that comedy willingly accepts. Bill Cosby wouldn't have "succeeded" for as long as he did otherwise.

A more recent example can be found in the case of Jen Kirkman, who said that very thing on her podcast in reference to a male comic who's a "known perv" but is so huge that, if you say anything bad about him, your career will be over. In the name of not misquoting anyone, here's what she said, verbatim:

That's unfortunate as fuck, and I don't doubt that it's true for a second. However, what's also unfortunate is that when someone took the clues presented in the story (along with previous allegations by other female comics) and wrote an article speculating as to who the comic in question may have been, it was somehow deemed irresponsible journalism. When a writer from another site, Jezebel, said she was just trying to provide Kirkman with a platform, the comic replied that she already had one in her podcast. She then deleted the podcast episode in question.

In theory.

So how long are "irresponsible bloggers" and other Internet users supposed to wait before giving a situation like that the attention it deserves? One of the biggest tragedies of the Cosby story -- aside from all the rape, of course -- is that the victims were assured that if they ever said anything, either no one would believe them or they would never work again. Nevertheless, here we are in 2015, vilifying an Internet writer for maybe trying to get a decade or two jump on what could be a very similar story, on the grounds that they're sticking their nose in something they don't understand.

With that, the story effectively died, and who Jen Kirkman may have been referring to didn't matter anymore. Maybe it will 20 years from now. It's hard to say. Until then, we'll have to make do with the wealth of clever jokes and sly references that history has shown us go hand-in-hand with knowing there's a sexual deviant terrorizing your industry.

Adam is available to tell jokes at your comedy shows. Contact him on Twitter @adamtodbrown.

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