When can a comedian claim a right to advertise their show/event in a particular public forum or platform?
John Merrifield and Public Safety: Putting Satire on Trial?
How do we manage an encounter between satire and public safety in our society?
The Brave New World of Muckraking Comedy
Is muckraking comedy a good thing?
Spy Magazine and Today’s Brutal Political Satire: An Origin Story?
A remarkable feature of today’s political satire is what appears to be its “snark and insult” character. By most accounts, it wasn’t always this rough and mean. Perhaps the most persuasive theory on how we started down this brutal path is that the now defunct Spy magazine from the 1980s and 1990s put us on…
Seriously, Can Comedy and Cancel Culture Live on the Same Planet?
Comedy is at a quite different place today than it was just a generation ago. In that simpler time, comedy was essentially about making people laugh, whether it was slapstick humor or one involving social commentary. Then society as a whole started to change, beginning in the 1960s, with the push to create a more…
Roy Moore vs. Sacha Baron Cohen: The Maverick Politico and the Gadfly Funnyman
This is a case about a failed collaboration between a gadfly comedian and a maverick politician with allegations of fraud in the mix.
The Predicament of Mike Ward: An American Perspective on Canadian Comedy
Subscriber Content What’s the difference between a Canadian comic and his American counterpart? Simple answer: location, location, location. The brash Canadian comedian Mike Ward has had quite the unpleasant experience in his march through the comedy landscape of his country. From all indications, if he thought his native Canada was a place where a comedian…
Conan O’Brien Blinks in Joke Stealing Faceoff: When Principle Meets Reality
Subscriber Content Add content here that will only be visible to your subscribers. Well, anyone could have seen this coming: That Conan O’Brien will eventually blink in his staring contest with Robert Alexander Kaseberg, the man who accused him of stealing jokes from his Twitter and blog platforms and including them in an opening monologue…
Free Speech versus Privacy: British comedian Louise Reay sued by ex-husband
As it happens, comedians tend to have extroverted personalities and considering the nature of their jobs, that isn’t exactly surprising. Yet, they also have a private life and sometimes they actually do draw some of their comic material from the experiences of their private lives just like their other experiences. Problem is, other people in…
Attacked Onstage: When a Comedian Can Win But Won’t Sue
So, comedians, as we all know, set out to make people laugh when they’re at work. But the funny thing is, they sometimes also make people angry and mad as hell. In fact, so mad that sometimes some of these people actually do attack them. As in, (gasp!) attack them physically, that is. Cut to…