PoliticalCorrectness

Quora Answer : Do you think that the increased popularity in political correctness is a threat to comedians?

Aug 31, 2019

Britain had a great wave of political correctness affecting comedy in the 1980s.

And out of it we got a generation of fantastic comedy and great comedians, from The Young Ones, to Black Adder, to Absolutely Fabulous. That's given rise to even more amazing, diverse, edgy British humour. Everything from Green Wing to Peep Show to This Country to Fleabag.

And it's a tradition that's never needed to "punch down" and stereotype minorities or the powerless in order to be funny. Or do what so many American standups feel the need to do, make racial or tribal "observational comedy" the backbone of the humour.

Even the previously generations like The Goon Show and Monty Python and Hancock didn't need to punch down. If they punched at all, they punched upwards or inwards in self-depreciation. But of course, people could slide into stereotypes.

In the 80s, the extra discipline of not allowing that actually made comedians MORE creative and more funny.

So ... no political correctness doesn't threaten comedians. It turbo-charges them, taking them to a new level of funny that lazy "stereotype" comedy can't reach.