Stewart Lee - Where Are All The Right Wing Stand Ups?

[Kromovaracun]

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/04/where-are-all-right-wing-stand-ups

Lee essentially answers this question by arguing that the "Right" has already won - a situation which isn't consistent with what a stand-up comedian does (as he puts it, the clown's act relies on not being able to get what he wants).

"Ultimately, the left will lose. Big business will pollute the planet, capitalist culture will kill off the arts and humanities, schools will all be privatised, libraries will all close, social mobility will cease, the gulf between rich and poor will grow and everything beautiful will die. The left may note little human rights victories – gay marriage and the odd bit of better pay – but the machine is rolling inexorably forwards to crush it."

Do you agree? Do you think that modern comedy is indeed prevailingly left-leaning as Lee does? If so, do you think this explains it?

[anotheoldgit]

All comedians are 'Left-Wing?

Tell us something we don't already know.

[FredPuli43]

Really, aog ? Does Michael McIntyre strike you as left wing? For some comedians, comedy is a form of protest. Those comedians will be of the left because our politics (even under Blair) were and are to the right.

[Kromovaracun]

I was going to say, while SL is only talking about stand-up, I'm really not sure the oft-heard charge of left-wing 'political correctness' could really be justifiably applied to any part of modern British comedy. It's a myth.

[Kevink]

"All comedians are 'Left-Wing?

Tell us something we don't already know."

Jim Davidson is left wing?

Maybe you mean "All funny comedians are left wing"?

[Gromit]

Most comecy is subversive. Whether it is Jim Davidson (right wing I would say) or Ben Elton (left wing, and allegedly a comedian) it is usually also anti establishment.

So I do not believe the argument. The left wing also belong to the establishment in this country.

Right wingers tend not to be subversive or anti establishment. They are conservative by nature. Art (in which I include comedy) usually has a message and a point to make. Which is why comedians, musicians, painters, writers etc are predominently not conservative.

[Titehead]

Yes I think there is some truth in it, some commedians do seem to be left wing. Though quite a few of them just avoid the subjects that can polarise opinions so It's hard to say, Michael McIntyre for example, I've seen him several times and I'd not make any predictions on how he votes.

[ichkeria]

I love the humour and the irony in this article. The subtlest hatchet job I've seen on the artistic poverty of the right. The patient explanation of the real credentials of the Al Murray figure especially (!)
I assume - I would hope - that the paragraph quoted above is - like most of the rest of it - tongue-in-cheek.
I'm not sure he's saying that most comedy need be "left-leaning" just that, for the reasons convincingly expounded, it can never be genuinely "right-leaning"

[Kevink]

"Ben Elton (left wing, and allegedly a comedian)"

The amazing (to me) thing about Ben Elton, was that he could write some truly funny stuff for the likes of Black Adder, but his own "comedy" seemed to consist entirely of repeating the name of a certain politician in a sneering voice, followed by "little bit o' politics there".

[ichkeria]

There was a lot more to Ben Elton than his "Mrs Thatch/Normo Tebbs" routine (which was admittedly easy meat for even a semi-competent comic back in the dark days of the 80s)

[emmie]

many sold out to mainstream gigs, tv, left wing comedians like Stewart Lee are really in the minority, i can't say i like him much either, and i have watched some of his late night shows. However i do like Eddie Izzard and his politics are more left i suspect. However he doesn't seem to politicise his act, only when you see him in interviews.
Michael McIntyre fits into no category because from what i have seen he doesn't do politics.

[ludwig]

// Right wingers tend not to be subversive or anti establishment. They are conservative by nature. Art (in which I include comedy) usually has a message and a point to make. Which is why comedians, musicians, painters, writers etc are predominently not conservative. //

I think gromit has it about right.

[anotheoldgit]

Kevink

/// Maybe you mean "All funny comedians are left wing"? ////

Yet another one that can't take up the real meaning to my statement.

What is obviously unclear to some was the fact that I was meaning "All Left-Wing persons are comedians.

[emmie]

no i totally disagree. For example musicians come in all shapes, sizes, colours, nationalities, and types of music, so i really don't see how you can lump people together that way.

[emmie]

not to mention artists, after all many needed the patronage of the establishment to make a name. More modern artists perhaps, but why should politics come into it all. Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst, Lucien Freud, Henry Moore, have they practiced their art by making political statements, i don't think so. After all what political statement does half a dead cow in formaldehyde make... or an unmade bed come to think of it.

[anotheoldgit]

Right-Wingers are also not easily led, do not follow the flock, have minds of their own, will readily criticise their own, do not always toe the Party line, and are 'free thinkers'.

[Ellipsis]

> Do you agree? Do you think that modern comedy is indeed prevailingly left-leaning as Lee does? If so, do you think this explains it?

I think Lee has it right - where stand-up comedy has a political bias, then that bias is likely to be to the left. Note he is talking specifically about stand-up AND where that stand-up has a political bias.

The OP quotes the penultimate paragraph of Lee's article, but I think the real reasons are in the final paragraph (which is why it's the final paragraph):

[i]You can’t be a right-wing clown without some character caveat, some vulnerability, some obvious flaw. You’re on the right. You’ve already won. You have no tragedy. You’re punching down. You can be a right-wing comedy columnist, away from the public eye, a disembodied, authoritarian presence that doesn’t need to show doubt. Who could be on a stage, crowing about their victory and ridiculing those less fortunate than them without any sense of irony, shame or self-knowledge? That’s not a stand-up comedian. That’s just a ****.[i]

[emmie]

thing is we should stop this left and right of politics, people are individuals and can make up their own minds what they like, be in music, art, comedy, so not really sure why politics comes into the mix. Ben Elton used to politicise his act, but does he still do it, he seems to have become part of the thing he supposedly despised.. telling jokes about MT, Cameron, Ed Miliband is what they do, whether they have any party affiliations or not.

[Kevink]

"What is obviously unclear to some was the fact that I was meaning "All Left-Wing persons are comedians."

In that case you clearly need lessons in logic and semantics.

[sp1814]

Right-Wingers are also not easily led, do not follow the flock, have minds of their own, will readily criticise their own, do not always toe the Party line, and are 'free thinkers'.

....ha ha ha...and they buy the Daily Mail.

[emmie]

and read the telegraph, the guardian, and watch the news, sky, bbc, and so forth. it is funny that some don't also see how their little digs at the DM show them up as much as being narrow minded, as they believe the readers of the DM to be.