Laughter From the Ninth Circle of Hell

Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx, That's Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work For Them

It’s become a doctrine among American progressives that conservatives just aren’t funny. The Left has SNL, Jon Stewart, and the whole late-night crew. What does the Right have? [Insert list of failed right-wing comedy franchises here.] This conviction, though, crumbles on one important fact: Greg Gutfeld, Fox News’ late-night anchor star, regularly outscores leftist network programming in ratings. Leftists don’t find conservative comedy funny, but it definitely exists.

Media studies professors Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx admit they aren’t funny. Their purpose isn’t to entertain, but to lead a Left-minded audience through the frequently labyrinthine conservative entertainment industry. They describe it as “the Right-Wing Comedy Complex,” and compare it to a shopping mall. There’s the big-box store for mainstream buyers, the cigar shop for men looking for hetero chest-thumping, and a basement full of terrifying, violent wares.

Leftists frequently describe Fox News stalwarts Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters as unfunny, and Watters particularly as often racist. But they’re secure ratings winners; by 2021, Gutfeld had more viewers than Stephen Colbert. In our authors’ telling, their comedy appears to be an out-and-out satire of TV comedy itself. (I seldom watch the idiot box anymore, so I trust the authors’ narrative.) This satire invites viewers to consider themselves “in on” the joke.

Where Gutfeld makes an explicit point, even if Leftists don’t get it, more conventional right-wing comics just exist. Dennis Miller and Tim Allen appeal to conservative audiences, our authors claim, because they basically haven’t changed much in twenty-five years. These comics create a familiar atmosphere that consumers can snuggle under like a weighted blanket. Allen does this explicitly, structuring his current TV persona around nostalgia for bygone social roles.

From this mainstream, highly visible perch, Sienkiewicz and Marx descend into a more self-contained, and sometimes ugly, lower depth. One can question Ben Shapiro’s or Stephen Crowder’s comedy bona fides, for instance, but they use humor to convey messages— although those messages are sometimes freighted with old-school racism. And while not everyone likes The Babylon Bee, its writers have mastered social media manipulation for vast, lucrative clicks.

Matt Sienkiewicz (left) and Nick Marx

Unfortunately, it gets worse. Conservative and right-libertarian podcasters corral young, mostly White audiences into networks where they can disguise sometimes repellent opinions as “just a joke.” As our authors write, analysis and nuance aren’t very profitable at this level; inflammatory or hateful sayings sell. Professional trolls like Michael Malice and Gavin McInnes don’t even pretend to express convictions; they only want to make po-faced progressives lose their composure in public.

Spectators like me wouldn’t find this “comedy” funny. But they come together, Voltron-like, to create a media landscape which holds its audience, provides its content creators with a successful living, and gives the conservative political movement an identity. After all, Evangelical Christians, conventional libertarians, and White nationalists don’t have much in common; but they can laugh at similar jokes, and that’s almost like being unified.

Much as I appreciated our authors’ analysis, I found something missing: the audience. Who consumes conservative comedy? Only fleetingly, in one anecdote in the conclusion, do they describe an audience. Gutfeld and Tim Allen are supported by advertisers, but many of these subjects rely on direct subscribers and Patreon backers, especially the podcasters they exhaustively dissect. What’s their relationship with the product? I still couldn’t quite say.

They also briefly, in the introduction, touch on something they never quite return to: the American media landscape has changed rapidly. Twenty years ago, someone like Jon Stewart could command massive audiences nightly just by showing up, because there were considerably fewer media outlets. The rise of à la carte media changed not only how audiences consume, but also how creators make, their platforms. This seems relevant.

Our authors’ willingness to subject themselves to media products that their chosen audience would find repellent matters. Most readers couldn’t spare the time necessary to consume this many TV episodes, streaming videos, and podcasts. They consider a broad cross-section of conservative comedy, and analyze it for a mainly progressive audience. This lets us understand the right-wing comedic viewpoint, without having to get lost in it. Thanks.

Perhaps my greatest takeaway from this book is that comedy isn’t unitary. My dad doesn’t appreciate Monty Python, and never will. Likewise, I’ll never find Ryan Long or the Legion of Skanks podcast, two conservative “comedy” sources detailed herein, funny. But that doesn’t mean, as long-faced progressive scolds claim, that their content isn’t funny. It means we need to take opposing positions seriously, even when we don’t enjoy them.