Karith Foster is the kind of diversity trainer you’d love to see at your college or company, and she’s a featured comedian in “Can We Take a Joke?” Here she performs at the film’s premiere party in New York. Stay tuned for a Shiny Herd interview with Foster, where she reveals the hidden side of groupthink in the DEI world.
Comedians Take a Beating
It didn’t start with Will Smith’s Oscar Slap and it didn’t end there either.
From a Variety interview with WME comedy agent Mike Berkowitz:
Berkowitz acknowledges the rise of verbal and physical assaults on comics — from Dave Chappelle getting tackled onstage at the Hollywood Bowl to the unknown Ariel Elias having a pint glass chucked at her head during a set at the Jersey Shore (Berkowitz signed her after the incident). “Kevin Hart carries a baseball bat onstage now as a joke,” the agent says. “But, yes, security budgets have risen over the past few years — as they should.”
Sometimes more extreme versions of cancel culture become popular overseas and then get imported to the U.S.
Deplatforming is one example. Violence might be another.
It sure seems like violent responses to speech are on the rise in the U.S., and—although I haven’t investigated it deeply—it’s my impression that such responses have long been more common in other nations. (I hope to return to this topic later.)
Jailed for a Joke He Didn’t Tell
In India, Muslim comedian Munawar Faruqi was jailed for over a month for “insulting Hindu Gods and Goddesses.” But he never had the chance to insult anyone because authorities arrested him before his show.
“Putting me in jail for the joke I never did to cancelling my shows, which has nothing problematic in it. This is unfair … We called off 12 shows in the last two months because of threats to venue and audience," the comedian said in [a] long Instagram post.
Viewers of my film “Can We Take a Joke?” know that the NYPD extended Lenny Bruce the courtesy of waiting for him to speak before arresting him on obscenity charges.
On Nov 4, 1964 Lenny Bruce was found guilty of obscenity. He was sentenced to four months behind bars, but before being taken into custody he fled to Los Angeles where he died of a drug overdose less than two years later.
In “Can We Take a Joke?,” Ron Collins, attorney and lead author of The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon, reflects on the aftermath of Bruce’s death:
After Lenny Bruce died something remarkable happened. Was it a landmark Supreme Court opinion? No. Was it a major act passed by the Congress? No. The American culture basically came to the conclusion that never again will this or should this happen. After Lenny Bruce died, no comedian, not a single comedian in any of the states was ever again prosecuted for obscenity in a comedy club.
So far the U.S. has resisted the kinds of hate speech laws that imprisoned Faruqi in 2021 and is still making mischief. Suhit K. Sen writes that Indian law “can turn practically any act of speech, gesture, creation into a culpable offence.”
Imagine what your least favorite presidential candidate might do with that kind of power.
Ted Balaker talks Shiny Herd on The Ed Morrissey Show
Lorraine Ali is a clear thinker who resists herd thinking
In a piece called, “‘Jihad Rehab’ started a furor at Sundance, but the problem is bigger than one film,” the Los Angeles Times critic writes:
The question now is how to move forward promoting authenticity in authorship without siloing diverse filmmakers, petrifying conflict-avoidant gatekeepers and eating each other alive. There are no rules or guidelines in place for the rabbit hole of possibilities broader representation opens. Can a South Asian man tell a South Asian woman’s story? Should a Shia spin a Sunni narrative? If a white filmmaker teams up with Indigenous creatives, is it progress or tokenism? The answer: It’s complicated.
We saw how Sundance and other festival gatekeepers reacted to “Jihad Rehab.”
They sided with the faction that wanted to suppress the film. Other filmmakers will take note of the fallout, and we shall see how their responses affect artistic expression and viewpoint diversity.
Ali continues:
But ultimately there’s a difference between vociferously criticizing a film — a key part of culture-making — and stifling its exhibition, as some opponents of “Jihad Rehab” have sought to do.
In addition to being an influential figure in the entertainment industry, Ali is Muslim. But instead of joining with others in her cohort who would stifle its exhibition, Ali has praised “Jihad Rehab.”
And is she really an outlier?
We should never automatically assume that the loudest voices in a given group represent that group.
It might seem like America is a nation of extremists on the left and right. But most Americans are in the middle.
It might seem like college students are progressive activists, but most of them are in the middle as well.
In other words, we really don’t know if Lorraine Ali is an outlier.
A Brilliant “Mob” Movie
“The Hunt” isn’t that kind of mob movie, but it does explore the deeply personal consequences of herd thinking.
Here’s a synopsis via A Good Movie to Watch (an indie film substack I subscribe to):
A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.
“The Hunt” is one of my favorites, and stars the always-excellent Mads Mikkelsen who won Best Actor at Cannes for his depiction of a once-loved teacher who becomes the most hated man in town.