Roseanne Barr shows how political comedy should be done

Donald Trump is appealing an $83.3 million defamation judgment against him thanks to a blatantly hostile judge and jury. They ratified E. Jean Carroll’s allegations that, in 2018, she suddenly realized that, around 26 years ago, when she was at Bloomingdale’s wearing clothes that hadn’t yet been manufactured, Donald Trump casually raped her, which, she hastens to assure us, wasn’t a “sexy” rape. This narrative coincidentally tracks a Law & Order TV show plot. Trump’s expensive “defamatory” act was to deny her claims. Roseanne Barr looked at the allegations and recently had her own recovered memory.

Before getting to Barr’s short and perfect video, it’s important to point out that it arises at a time in America when—typically for all totalitarian countries—humor is not allowed. Or more accurately, any humor directed at the regime is not allowed. Gone are the days of Johnny Carson and Jay Leno ecumenically poking fun at both political parties. The “speaking truth to power” attitude that characterized the comedians of the 1970s through 1990s is dead.

Internet meme; creator unknown.

Today’s politically approved comics have a very narrow palette to use when crafting their comedy. Otherwise, they can expect to be barred from once profitable (and enthusiastic) college gigs, deplatformed from social media sites, and ignored by cable TV and streaming outlets—and they can definitely stop expecting an invitation to appear on Saturday Night Live.

Under the new rules, attacking Donald Trump is always allowed. (I’d originally written that “making fun of Donald Trump is always allowed,” but I rewrote that sentence when I realized that most of what’s directed at Trump isn’t remotely funny; it’s just mean.) Also allowed are attacks on Republicans, Christians, and white people.

However, you may not use humor to point out the problems and foibles of minorities, Muslims, members of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, or women who are not conservative or “Karens” (a code for white women). And despite the fact that Joe Biden is one of the greatest sources of humor ever to sit in the Oval Office, you may not attack him.

As you may recall, the rule that you can’t comedically approach a Democrat president went into place in 2009 when Obama entered the White House. This article from March 2009 explains the comedians’ dilemma:

Even before Obama became president, the nation’s comedians and late-night TV hosts found themselves in a state of panic. After eight years of mining pure and plentiful comedic gold from the George W. Bush White House, and doing the same with Clinton for eight years before that, they feared that the new commander in chief would be just too young and inspiring, too smart and eloquent, too idealistic and historically significant to mock.

Or, in the words of Chris Rock, Obama was shaping up to be a “comedian’s worst nightmare.”

Rock will get no argument from CBS late-night jokester David Letterman, who after hearing Obama’s first national news conference as president, summed up the challenge by saying, “He was cogent, eloquent, and in complete command of the issues. I’m thinking to myself: ‘What the hell am I supposed to do with that?’”

Only Biden’s most delusional supporters would ever argue that he’s any of the following: young, inspiring, smart, eloquent, idealistic, cogent, or in command of the issues. He’s “historically significant” only if you find it significant that, for the first time ever, we have leading America a man who is manifestly suffering from senile dementia and has been revealed to have sold out his country for decades.

Nevertheless, Biden basks in the penumbra of Obama (perhaps because everyone assumes that Obama is the one actually in charge). Mainstream comedians leave Biden alone.

But fortunately for us, Roseanne Barr was booted from the mainstream when she forgot the rule about leaving Obama and his coterie untouched. So it was that a woman who was once one of the most popular comedians in America was suddenly set free.

And that long introduction leads me to this absolutely savage and brilliant video Barr created while at Bloomingdale’s, one in which she attacks both the ludicrous “Believe All Women” trope that protects only Democrat women, as well as the wall of silence around Biden:

#believeallwomen. #meshoe #bergdorfdressingroom #loosemeat pic.twitter.com/yzebab8syO

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) April 23, 2024

That, my friends, is how you do political humor.

Image: X screen grab.