They use popular social movements to boost their comedy, then as soon as they are called out for their own bigotry they decide to go to the side of people who won't bash them for their bigotry.

Being a victim of prejudice doesn't give you permission to be prejudiced against other people. I have zero respect for anyone who plays the victim while actively hurting others.

There's something dark in how I always thought Kazakhstan was a made up country because "there's no way" they'd just make a movie like Borat about a real place

“It’s supposed to be offensive!” Oh, so you *meant* to cause harm? Well that makes it okay then.

You nailed it with that Amy Schumer analysis. A lot of white/liberal comedy is based around the formula of “the [cis/het/white] public zeitgeist sees X as bad. We all know X is bad, so the audience wouldn’t expect someone to be openly X. Therefore, if I were to “ironically” be X, the audience will find amusement in this shocking simulation of X, because it safely reminds them X exists and shows them why X is bad and deserves mockery.” This formula works for minstrelsy, straight dudes jokingly being gay, ironic racism, ironic misogyny, and probably more white/liberal comedy tropes that I’m missing.

I'm surprised Bill Maher didn't get a single mention in this at all.

As someone who is visibly Muslim and grew up in an ultraconservative white suburb in Texas post 9/11 (after living in a fairly liberal Philly Suburb until right before 9/11), this is SO accurate. The feeling in the pit of my stomach every time people made Borat jokes etc never went away.

How hard is it to not make racist jokes?

One thing I hate about this sort of comedy, modern Family Guy in particular, is they bring back old stereotypes that no one under 40 cares about anymore just to "subvert" them. EDIT: added a word

Funny about the whole antisemitism "don't meet your heroes" thing is that Superman was created by two Jewish men. 😅

There is no left in American politics. The faster you recognise this, the faster you’ll understand politics.

Really hate it when stand-up comedians turn into preachers, and the most bigoted kind of preachers. The only comedians I can stand these days are the ones that laugh at themselves, like Chris Fleming, making a show of the absurdity of his own upbringing.

I'm a white middle class brazilian and I was very uncritical of the status quo and just believed liberals had the the right heart and if it wasn't for dumb right-wingers and CRAZY extreme leftists everything would be a meritocratic paradise in no time! So I trusted these comedians, I trusted that everything had a deeper meaning. Around 2016 I even leaned farther right and anti-sjw, I just trusted authority so deeply. I was recently radicalized (Bolsonaro, the pandemic and Lula being proved innocent did it) and now I watch with horror how so much of the media I consumed and thought was so SMART and sofisticated was just bigoted islamophobia, racism, patriarchy and bullshit. It's really weird to habe your worldview pivot so much because everything around you kind of comes tumbling down.

i can't get over the fact that borat was supposed to be mocking us culture bc i remember everyone in middle school talking about the movie and using it to be antisemitic, racist, xenophobic, and homophobic. borat reified these ideals to teens while sacha baron cohen made tons of money off of it and propelled his career. i didn't know he was jewish until i was an adult and borat 2 was in the works so i saw a bunch of promo stuff talking about his activism in congress. still don't vibe with his work bc i always just see my middle school peers repeating the bigoted shit in his work.

My problem with Borat is this: some American conservatives are asked to tell a foreigner how good the USA is. They do their best to show how hospitable Americans are, even when the foreigner sprouts some very offensive, antisemitic opinions. Then they are "unmasked for tolerating antisemites in their house." As if the opposite, being "unmasked for being xenophobic and hateful towards a journalist from Kazakhstan" would be a winning option.

That the double edged sword of “satire”, you never know how people will take it. All in the family was a satire and Archie Bunker was supposed to show people how awful they look being bigoted. Unfortunately people took that the wrong way and use it as an flag to be openly bigoted

I've been having the exact same thoughts about the current state of the two-party system and the "choices" that we allegedly have. Someone on KZfaq said that Dems should have 100% started pushing another candidate for president seeing the outcome of Biden's presidency and I agree, but know that no one wants to disrupt the status quo. And I think that's the problem. Lawmakers are so set on needing to keep the system intact that they're not realizing (or refuse to acknowledge) the system has been broken for decades and needs complete reform.

I think that a good example of liberal comedian is James Acaster. He manages to be funny without offending anyone and he even called out some of other comedians on their blatant transphobia (I know the bar is low but its comforting to see successful comedian standing up to those bullies) edit: also he doesn't exploit any of the misrepresented groups or minorities and his comedy is mostly based on absurdism and weird stories he gets himself into

I am one of those millennials who has never seen the full borat movie, lol. At the time, I think the reason I didn't see Borat as mocking Kazats was because it seemed obvious to me that he was speaking Polish words and Yiddish, so was nothing like a Kazat. It was only till I got older that I realized Americans seriously thought that was all legit representation...

Liking and commenting so this video doesn't get shadow-banned

it’s so funny that matt rife alienated his (mostly white) female audience the same way he did his first audience: Black people. he started on wildin out and wasn’t like pete davidson or mikey day, he was the “swaggy” white boy (think 2013 justin bieber). his whole friend group and audience was that, he even had the blaccent to match. over time he realized he wanted to “expand his horizons” (make more money) so he disappeared for a bit and popped up seeming a lot more acceptable to majority white audiences. but those are his roots

Not to defend Louie, far from it but he makes jokes about Jewish people because he identifies as one, based on his grandfather being Hungarian Jewish. He was always right wing he was an Antony and Opie regular for years. Tina Fey has degraded black women in her comedy for years using all the tropes. But liberals overall are essentially centrists so it’s not a massive leap to go right wing.

There are so many people willing to run hard and fast towards money and attention. The combination trips them up every time.

Amy Schumer is America's homegrown James Corden.

I'm on board with most of this, except that Democrats are not "the left." At most they're center right. Apologies if there's a zillion other comments saying the same thing

I've been watching your videos for years and I can't believe you don't have like at least 200k subs. Your videos are always so well researched and you articulate your points perfectly. Anw, thanks for another great one!

It's ironic how The Dictator is portrayed as wanting to destroy Israel when Wadiya is situated in Eritrea, a country that has good relations with Israel despite being generally isolationist.

As a Golden Age Millennial I grew up on so many of these comedians, I enjoyed the first Borat movie and would quote it with my friends and watched a ton of SNL, but recently I noticed a lot of the comedians I admired have been toxic from Dave Chappelle, and Louis CK to Amy Schumer and Michael Che. Definitely has me questioning why we thought certain things were funny/allowed.

There is an American military meme which is a photo of a fighter jet in flight with a caption something like, our enemies are about to find out why we don't have free health care

The HBO 2019 Watchmen series woke me up to this line of thinking

I hate how the only popular movies about my country are about how terrible it looks and is shit (the shots weren't even shot in my country) and the other about how you're gonna get murdered and tortured as soon as you come here. Once again the shots weren't even filmed here. The movie f-ed up the way plpl saw our country. They even invited the guy that made the movie on an all inclusive visit and he just refused.

Great video, and thank you. I'm a Mexican who criticized Amy Schumer for her racist remarks who got backlash by white women saying I'm a chauvinist or tell me off. I usually call white liberals, get out white people. With my experience with comedians, they usually go with whoever gets them the most attention. I'm not sure if it's a mental or something else, but I've seen that repeated.

Hearing that someone as progressive and thoughtful as you was at one point a fan of Schumer, Cohen, C.K. is validating because I ha always thought of myself as a person on the morally correct side of politics. I identified as a liberal from elementary school until the mid 2010's. I removed myself from those spaces when I realized the injustice that liberals support and justify. The past few years have really opened my eyes to the misinformation as well as my own lack of effort in making the change I want to see. I look back on past choices or indulgences (South Park comes to mind) and I cringe at my younger self, but this is a good reminder that everyone can change and we are all *so* easily manipulated. It's not just a matter of intelligence or ethics. Anyway, mostly commenting to help with the algorithm and I'm struggling to articulate my thoughts, but your videos always make me think and I really appreciate the effort you put into them.

Cheyenne: Who do you think said those words of wisdom? Me, someone who paid attention to the last 10 seconds: Sasha Baron Cohen ✨ Cheyenne: If you said Lewis CK, you'd be right. Me, someone that doesn't pay attention to comedians: oh...

I've never got Sascha Baron Cohen humor since Ali G which was explained as a character that was Asian who was imitating Black Jamaican and hip hop culture

Hi there! Very interesting essay. I am not an American, I am Polish, living in Poland. I find interesting how differently we see Borat and Sasha Baron Cohen in general. When I watched his shows, I never see him making fun of minorities, brown people, non-Americans. I have always clearly saw his humor as mockery of American culture and society. I also think that author intention is one thing, and the impact of his work is another - death of the author and so. Satire is hard, and it seems to me it fails a lot. When he played that Israeli soldier and made fun of American politicians, I have seen him making fun of America, its gun madness, its unquestioning support of everything Israel does, its homophobia and so on. I have not seen it as making anything of Israelis. It wasn't about them. It was detached from Israel reality, because it was about Americans and their worldview. But then, what if you have different perspective than me? Can it be seen as demonizing Israelis, again? In very specific conditions, yes, it can, I guess. When I watched Borat touring a camera crew around his "home village" I have not seen it as making fun of Eastern Europe, everyone should know that it was an unreal image, right? It was making fun of those who would believe it was a real case. The conclusion of the joke require you to watch the entire movie tho. It is very easy to just cut those scenes and use them separately. What if you are one of those who do not see the absurdity of it in the first place, and you skip the rest of the movie? How would it work on you? If you miss the irony there, it will reinforce your racist point of view, right? It is a mainstream movie, and they openly laugh at those stupid foreigners, so it must be ok to do so. Similar effect can be seen with movie Space Troopers (loved by all sorts of fascist), Dune books (loved by religious fanatics and authoritarians), or game Helldivers 2 (again, snake pit full of neo-nazi). All of this was supposed to be satire. Each one of those works became loved by the satired. Is there a way to use satire in an intelligent, responsible way? The only example I can point to, as a satire done right in recent memory, is Jojo Rabbit - I have never seen a fascist liking the movie, or misinterpreting it in any way.

In my previous life as a film journalist, I went to Glod, the Romanian village where the beginning of Borat was shot and let me tell you, there is still trauma there, and people were still quite upset and very understandably reticent to talk to me in front of the camera - was doing a segment on racism in films, but they had no reason to trust me. Really, fuck Sascha Baron Cohen for his ways

I feel like part of the problem is that liberalism doesn't meaningfully challenge conservatism's (specifically American conservatism's) principles of capitalism, colonialism, traditional gender roles, cis-heteronormativity, racism, or patriarchy. While many liberals are fine with immigration, they don't challenge the American colonialism that exploits foreign nations. Neoliberal capitalism still requires a lower-class, because capitalism requires a lower-class. So many 'liberal' shows I've seen acknowledge some form of bigotry but don't meaningfully challenge the reasons it exists, they can address white Christian cis-heteronormative patriarchy, and how it harms people, however so many refuse to question how some forms of bigotry are going to be baked into a religion if they're not properly addressed. I like the show 'The Great North', and it has several 'liberal' elements. Beef is a very accepting father to his children who are queer, neuro-divergent, and in inter-racial relationships, Wolf the oldest son is engaged to a black woman, Honeybee and the two are a sweet couple, Ham is gay and ends up in an interracial relationship with his boyfriend Crispin Cienfuegos, Judy is a proud feminist, and Moon is revealed to have OCD. The show repeatedly makes jokes about white colonizers being buffoons, but it feels very 'racism bad' and not meaningfully saying anything beyond a quick joke about it. One episode features Kima, Judy's First Nations friend and they do kinda acknowledge some Native struggles but they don't meaningfully call out Alaska and Canada's long history of colonizing and stealing Native land, there's a Land Back poster in the background of one episode in a brief scene where Judy visits Kima's family. There's an episode 'The High Expectations Adventure' where Kima is expected to give a speech about Native history, and she uses it to call out an anti-Native politician but that's about it. There's this one episode from Season 4, 'The Aunt Misbehavin' Adventure' in which the family meets their long-lost great aunt Dirtrude Tobin, a lesbian who hid in a bunker since the 1960s believing that America had been conquered by Communists. The show points out how things have gotten better for queer people, however while it engages in Red Scare stories, it forgets to acknowledge all the horrors Americans caused each other in their fear of Communism, especially how queer people were impacted. One part of the Red Scare that gets left out of the history books, is the Lavender Scare, a culture war that said that queer people were more sympathetic to Communism because of how poorly Americans were treating them, and this panic was used to ruin the lives of many queer people.

Ok, wow. This is the first I've learned Borat is Muslim and Middle Eastern, I genuinely thought he was supposed to be Eastern European and Christian. (My only experience learning about Kazakhstan is meeting a guy from there, once, and he referred to himself as Eastern European and culturally Christian--so I thought Borat was part of that cultural group, I guess--especially since he so wholeheartedly agrees with many of the conservative Christians he interviews.)

great video! 👍👍👍👍 7:11 Amazon has ethical values??

You missed a good opportunity when you put up the picture of Schumer with Michael Cera to point out that she pulled a Sia by casting Cera to play her Autistic husband (despite Cera not being Autistic himself). It’s also worth pointing out that, since her IRL husband was diagnosed in 2017, she’s spread an incalculable amount of misinformation about the autistic neurotype and Autistic culture (including falsely stating the minimum age for diagnosis was 6 when it’s actually 18 months and promoting the defunct and toxic Asperger’s label).

I actually liked Borat back in the day. It was always clear to me that he was poking fun at how Americans perceive countries in that part of the world rather than claiming that Kazakhstan was anything like that. It is a shame that some people misunderstood him though and thought he was accurately representing Kazakhstan.

I've yet to hear a conservative comedian with funny jokes. They all just rework the same 3 trans/pronoun jokes. Conservative audiences don't care if the jokes are funny, they just want to hear people reinforcing their favorite talking points. No matter which side a comedian tries to pander to, it's offputting. That being said, I feel like comedians who do "left wing" comedy can at least do it in a way that is somewhat entertaining. When conservatives do partisan ideological comedy it always comes across as a far too preachy string of highly predictable talking points without really any understanding of what actually makes a joke funny to the general public. One notable flaw that really stands out is conservative comedy's apparent inability to self-depricate with jokes about the silly things that Republicans engage in. Nobody wants to hear a comedy set that is 100% at the expense of a single group of people. It leaves a bad taste in everyone else's mouths EXCEPT for the sort of people who enjoy (or pretend to enjoy) listening to the same three tired culture war jokes being drug back out of the space conservative joke archive as an excuse for a homogenous group of culture war partisans to all get together to celebrate their shared hatred of a single group of people as evidenced by their collective willingness to pay good money for jokes they've already heard just for the cheap partisan thrill of hearing someone legitimize their worldview by spouting their favorite talking points (but with a silly voice?).

I'm a subscriber since the eyeball zone shout out and it has been so great to watch your channel grow, and this is perhaps your best video yet

Gotta say I live the illustrations in this video great work 👏

Ran to this video! Keep up the great work! ✨💞🙌🏾

The simplest liberal to conservative pipeline to me is the old “always needs something to be counter culture to”

love the added feature of your cute little sketches!

I’m someone that never understood the humor of these comedians 10 years ago when they were so popular, same as snl my whole life. I felt so alone. Not anymore! And then there was jp sears. The guy all over social media that people were crazy about. Then he turned into a hardcore conspiracy theorist in 2020.

Thank you for adding to the conversation in an insightful way

Hiiii!!! ❤ I love your watching videos and feeling smarter

I loved this video i really wanted someone to talk about this because it just keeps happening, liberal comedians turning conservative at the slightest provocation. also, it's so cool to see how far your channel has come! I remember a few years ago I read The Circle by Dave Eggers and I hated it so much I looked up reviews of the book on youtube and found yours, and I've been subscribed ever since! I'll never forget that godawful book and your review of it lol

im confused. is the bible not about Jewish people?

Meanwhile, conservative comedy: 'HURHUR, LIBS DO BE WOKIN', AMIRITE??'

One thing I had noticed about standup comics in particular, is that despite being competitors, they tend to stick up for each other more than most I have seen, regardless of if they actually like each other, regardless of if they politically agree with each other, they will form strong bonds with each other over their career and defend it quite strongly. Like the number of comics who stick by Chapelle despite disagreeing with him or the defense of Chris Rock when he got hit on stage (fair enough imo). Or the fact that most comics across the political spectrum will still generally hold a negative opinion of cancel culture. To be honest, I kind of admire this about them in some ways though. I wish more people could do this... though depending on the context.

I believe the black Mirror episode "Fifteen Million Merits" really captures why well intentioned celebrities eventually become corrupted by celebrity and fame. It's also important to realize that the older generation that grew up throwing bricks at the system finally got their hard won seat a the table, and wish to keep it. Then they can no long relate to the brick throwers of tomorrow. So their inevitble comedy special called "Stop Complaining" doesn't go over well with the shift in demographics, and so the writing is on the wall. In order to keep their 2nd mansion, they decide to sell out to conservatives who, just like them, only now care about keeping their own power, and not sharing it with others they deem "inferior" to themselves

Superb video, it is sad that we lose a lot of liberal comedians who just don't want to not do accents any longer.

I would need to write and produce a video essay to describe how great this video essay was.

Bill Maher wants to know how did you predict his future like that 😂😂

Thank you for the video! I really liked the art you used to illustrate the points made in your video a lot!

Being neoliberal, as most of these center right comedian examples are, is a still a conservative position. It isn't leftist, and creating corporate inclusive spaces isn't left or egalitarian either (it's window dressing to put a smile on the status quo). Using an accent, a generic stereotypic impersonation, isn't something only white people can do and isn't racist or bigoted in absence of racist context. Some good points in the video, but definitely some areas where further study and contemplation will help.

I agree with everything you said, very good analysis. This much was most clear during the Dave Chapel debacle, where he got criticized for Transphobia so he made it his entire identity. And it isn't just comedians either, it's purported feminists like J.K. Rowling, politicians, commentators like Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks. I don't know if it's a testament to the inherent weakness of human character, that having to cope with criticism will always push ourselves deeper into a safe bubble or if it's just that people of privilege naturally lose touch with the idea that anything on Earth actually matters and have no real political principles.

Excellent analysis of a trend in entertainment I have noticed. Thanks Cheyenne

this video is so good thank you I loved your art ❤️

I'm from the country Borat was _filmed_ in, and I thought it was pretty damn funny...been a while since I rewatched, but I found the sequel funny too...

name a conservative who is selfless understanding empathetic and moral

Really appreciate these takes. First video of yours I’m seeing and I’m definitely subbing

This is so well thought out and beautifully written! I love it ❤

I had to substitute "the left" with "liberals" or "Democrats" and after that this was actually excellent. Great work!

I've heard many stories about the toxic world of comedy. People are expected to have thick skin, suck it up, and deal with it if they want to keep playing. And so many of them are much more desperate for attention than for being a kind person. Because being kind is not valued at all in their little subculture. The type of person that thrives in that environment, is not the type of person who risks their own wellbeing for the sake of kindness. Is not the type of person that wants to keep investing in creativity and growing as a person. Because their wit and comedy were just a vehicle to what they actually wanted: adoration, influence, money, chicks. Once those things turned out to become more attainable the less effort they put into anything but kissing the right azzes, their choice was an easy one.

I love your videos and the topics you choose!

Another great video! Thank you so much for ALL of your work!

Thank you so much for this video. I raised the topic of Baron Cohen's movies and his politics/past tenure with the Labour youth movement Habonim Dror and all the red flags that kicked up but was shut up. When i pointed out that the offensive stereotypical caricatures he creates and portrays were usually characters from marginalised groups Borat, The Dictator, Bruno, Ali G. But was ganged up and shot down. Thank you. People need to be more media aware and literate.Thank you. It's time that folks got eyes open. Wake up people.

It’s interesting to see this on the smaller scale as well. The exact same rise and fall and rise again happened with the KZfaq channel supermega

I like the new approach on this video. I don't know if I'm just confabulating but I felt like you sounded more confident in this one compared to the videos where you're talking to a camera. I also liked the doodles that help illustrate your point. It encourages me to sit and properly watch the video instead of wandering off to do other things. It definitely makes the narrative easier to follow when I'm actually giving my full attention 😅

Well done! It appears that many of these comics have a blind spot to intersectionality (and frankly, many people outside of comedy fall into similar traps because of this blindspot and wonder “why the left has been moving further left while I haven’t changed at all”)

Liberals are definitely not leftist

It's like they'd do anything before just admitting they were wrong about something. Like they'd rather go hard in the other direction than even consider the possibility that they could've been wrong about something.

Thank you, this video is really good and informative!

Always enjoy your uploads, and this is especially well made. Appreciate your thoughts, and how you articulated them. You're a greater writer Cheyenne :)

i'm 20 so sacha baron cohen's heyday was long over by the time i found out who he was, but i always vaguely knew that his whole shtick was imitating central asian people, and i assumed that he was doing the 2010s asian comedian thing of mocking thejr parents' accents to get a laugh out of white people. but then i found out he's a WHITE BRITISH MAN and i was like ???? ok so this is just racism

incredible video again!

i honestly had no idea who is cohen guy was until he started speaking and hearing his accent just makes so much more sense

Thank you for your informative commentary. 💜

Not sure Borat was really a "liberal to conservative arc" with all the Muslim/Arab jokes like there was a real "shock comic" element there where he was seemingly trying to incite something. Yup I laughed at the time.

Love your content

Awesome video! Subbed and shared

Stewart lee is my favorite comic, he plays the smug liberal comedian satire so well.

Great video. You ate this one

Everybody progressive till its inconvenient

Great video! I subbed.

ur videos always connect so many dots for me

thank you for this video. most of the students I work with are from different places in the middle east and the way they get treated in the american school system makes my blood boil. the jokes aren't funny, never were, never will be!

So,how do we create any comedy? Comedy is a way of broaching uncomfortable subjects,so that we can midigate toxic levels of conflict. It is like putting lead rods into a nuclear reactor to prevent it from melting down. I have heard that hard leftists actually welcome the onset of social colapse as a way to create revolution,but the terrible toll of such tectonic shifts are usually most heavily born by the ordinary person in whose name such revolutions are started. Problems which can't be solved need to be laughed at,so they don't reach a hypercritical stage. Laughter helps people to get over themselves, and this includes people who are in marginalized groups. It's only narcissistic people who can't laugh at themselves occasionally. Maybe non-binary people should tell jokes instead of screeching when somebody else tells a joke? This would allow them to control how people laugh.......

didn't have the stomach to watch this when it came out great work as usual

really good breakdown, I enjoyed hearing your thoughts!

Don’t have the bandwidth for this type of content today, but commenting for the algorithm cause your videos are usually engaging and well thought out

oh man this'll be good. I didn't even know some of these people went down the pipeline

Very enlightening, as someone who has enjoyed Borat and liberal comedy in the past.

This was great. Thank you!