As the late great Ellen Willis wrote in the late 1970s:
Humorless is what you are if you do not find the following subjects funny: rape, big breasts, sex with little girls. It carries no imputation of humorlessness if you do not find the following subjects funny: castration, impotence, vaginas with teeth.
Jon Schwarz posted the other day:
This is a recurring theme for him, as I've pointed out before. It's not that I think the Right is good at being funny, though as Willis's joke indicates, a lot of humor depends on whether you're the target.
There's not much to add to my previous disagreement with Jon. I reminded him that it was thanks to him that I learned about Barack Obama's "joke" about killing the Jonas Brothers with predator drones, so I know he knows how unfunny liberals can be. And he's no fan of liberals or Democrats in general. (For what it's worth, Obama's latest forays into humor as he campaigned for Abdul El-Sayed are not an improvement over his past performances.)
But the line "hate & fear inherently can't be the basis for good comedy" irked me. It reminded me of Mel Brooks's posturing about comedy as a sort of holy vocation. I think hate, at least, definitely can be the basis of good comedy, but there probably can't be any consensus about good comedy. It's legitimate to object that you don't find a particular bit or joke amusing, just as everyone has the right to be offended by whatever offends them.
What annoys me about the Babylon Bee is its own brand of piety, which is the same as Brooks's: the Bee also decries political correctness as the death of comedy, and boldly proclaims its readiness to offend even liberals. Fine, but offending liberals is like offending the right. It's very easy to do, but it's not enough in itself to make good comedy.
