Recommended Reading

Joshua Green reviews a book that attempts to answer the question of why there aren't any good right-wing comedians? There are, of course, good comedians who are right-wing but that's not the same thing.

Me, I think it flows from something basic: Comedy is about taking on the rich and powerful, not siding with them. The first great American comedy movie star was a tramp, not a banker. To the extent it's funny watching a person slip on a banana peel, it's funny to have it be a fat, pompous tycoon as opposed to, say, a homeless person. A lot of comedy is about bringing the powerful and inflated down to "our" level so it's done from a lower POV. You couldn't make a Marx Brothers movie and have Margaret Dumont be the funny one.