John Oliver is No Chris Rock

How “smart” comedy can be dumber than dumb

If someone asks you what your most treasured possession is and you say it’s a cross made out of human bones, you deserve to be made fun of. 

The fact that you mention that on an NRA TV show makes it all the sweeter for John Oliver.

“Gun nuts” are a prime target for Oliver, as are homeschool parents (especially the redneck and Nazi varieties), pro-lifers, the state of Texas and, of course, Donald Trump. Stay tuned for more Trump-tastic episodes of Last Week Tonight in 2024!

Oliver is a talented guy, but how impressive is his comedy?

Consider the degree of difficulty.

On the one hand, it may seem impressive because he and his staff engage in “smart” comedy. They tackle complex current events, and that might require more thought than riffing on, say, the sad state of the dating scene. 

But if the sample size I’ve watched is a fair representation of his body of work, he’s unimpressive on other measures of difficulty. Yes, he tackles complex issues, but he does so in a simplistic way. He “wins” arguments by avoiding arguments, and then presents his viewers with a redacted view of reality. 

Take his recent dive into homeschooling.

He depicts it as providing some unique threat to children, but he does so by cherry picking anecdotes and studies. Then he stays mum on the probably greater threats posed by the status quo. 

These threats are hiding in plain sight. Various outlets chronicle ongoing incidents, and the Education Department found that public school teachers engaged in sexual abuse of minors at a higher rate than Catholic clergy. 

South Park has lampooned predator teachers, and maybe Oliver has done the same at some point. But even if he has, he remained silent during his homeschooling episode. He was too consumed with whipping up fears about homeschooling to show his audience the whole picture. 

Even when it’s delivered with a British accent, the phony sophistication of “smart” comedy devolves into little more than an exercise in confirmation bias. And sometimes “smart” comedy can be dumber than dumb comedy.

Watch Nick Kroll’s bit on his messy battles with lactose intolerance, and you won’t come away with an inflated sense of self. But Oliver flatters his audience.

Come along, he beckons. Let’s tour the human zoo and gawk at the scary creatures from a safe distance. You’re better than those people, he coos. 

By fueling smugnorance, Oliver might be making his audience dumber. He’s probably making them less self aware. After all, at the human zoo, sometimes we’re gawkers and other times we’re gawkees.

All of us are those people. 

Chris Rock and the Triple Lindy

While John Oliver jumps into the pool feet first, Chris Rock rock nails the Triple Lindy. 

Consider his recent Netflix Special Selective Outrage. During the show, Rock accomplishes this high-flying trifecta:

1. He makes strangers laugh

2. He makes politically diverse strangers laugh

3. He makes politically diverse strangers think

Most of us can’t accomplish feat #1, at least not on stage and not on a consistent basis. 

Oliver rises above the crowd because he can accomplish feat #1. But Rock rises far above Oliver. When it comes to degree of difficulty, his performance is three times as impressive as Oliver’s. 

Rock doesn’t flatter one side and rip the other. He recognizes that all of us can be ridiculous. 

He skewers monoculture-approved targets like white people and the January 6 Crew, but also makes his sometimes-reluctant audience face the absurdity of outrage culture and phony victims like Meghan Markle. 

Here’s how I put it earlier this year:

An especially poignant moment comes when Rock compares his daughter’s charmed life to his mother’s childhood. He explains how the law prevented his mother, born in South Carolina in 1945, from visiting a white dentist. 

With no black dentists nearby, his mother had no choice but to get her tooth pulled by a veterinarian. 

“I'm not talking about Harriet Tubman! (laughter) I'm talking about my mother! […] Think about this—the same woman that had to go through the indignity of getting her teeth taken out by a fucking vet—the same woman now, twice a year, gets on a plane flies to Paris, and has coffee with her granddaughter who is going to culinary school.”

With one anecdote, Rock speaks to two different groups of Americans: those who pooh pooh post-slavery discrimination and those slow to celebrate progress. 

Team Clapter vs. Team Laughter

It’s true that Chris Rock is a standup comedian and John Oliver is a funnyman with a television show. I think my main point still stands, but if you’re looking for something closer to an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of format, check out other shows that nail the Triple Lindy:

Real Time with Bill Maher, Norm MacDonald Has a Show, The Chappelle Show, and Colin Quinn’s criminally underappreciated Tough Crowd. 

Tough Crowd is a prime example of how viewpoint diversity makes comedy better.

It should be in the Smithsonian. Seriously, let’s replace the “Dresses of the First Ladies” exhibit with Judy Gold’s blazer, a wax statue of Patrice O’Neal, and Greg Giraldo’s hilarious, thoughtful, and highly-rated biography. (Conflict of interest alert! That book is co-authored by my comedian brother!)

Place Last Week Tonight, The Daily Show, SNL and the late night jokers on one side and Real Time, Norm MacDonald Has a Show, The Chappelle Show, and Tough Crowd on the other, and you’ll see that the divide isn’t between left and right. It’s between narrow minded and open minded, between clapter and laughter. 

The monoculture loves level-1 comedy—Oliver’s show has scored 26 Emmy Awards. And if you want to watch level-1 comedy, be my guest. We all enjoy indulging in some down-and-dirty confirmation bias, and that’s fine. 

Just don’t tell yourself it’s making you smarter. 

Ted Balaker is a filmmaker, and former network newser and think tanker. His recent work includes Little Pink House starring Catherine Keener and Jeanne Tripplehorn, Can We Take a Joke? featuring Gilbert Gottfried and Penn Jillette, and a soon-to-be-released feature documentary based on the bestselling book, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.