Following his recent controversy, it appears Joe Rogan has set his sights on a new target: 'wokeness'.
Yes, on the latest episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the 54-year-old sat down with his guest, comedian Tom Papa, where he proceeded to accuse political correctness of ruining comedy.
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As part of this conversation, the pair debated the 'last great comedy movie’'before 'wokeness killed the genre', eventually settling on 2009’s The Hangover.
"What was the last good comedy movie that was released?" UFC commentator Rogan asks Papa. "It used to be you would be able to – There’s Something About Mary, Kingpin. You just snap ’em off. You knew what they were.
"It’s like wokeness killed the comedy movie in a lot of ways."
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Papa agrees, adding: "They’re just not making them."
“Is there a woke comedy movie? Is there even an attempt?” Rogan asks. “Is there even an attempt at a politically correct comedy movie? They just stopped making comedy movies.”
As they continue their debate, a number of films get a favourable mention, including the Seth Rogan-starring This Is The End and Get Hard featuring Kevin Hart and Will Farrell.
Eventually they agree on The Hangover, the 2009 movie about three friends (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis) who drive to Las Vegas for a wild and memorable stag party.
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To be fair, it did become a cult-classic, with Papa explaining that ‘it exploded, because it was an R-rated’ comedy flick, arguing there’s ‘not a lot’ of good comedies since around 2015 aside from family-friendly titles.
Rogan concludes the segment by saying: "Bro, they murdered the comedy movie."
Big words indeed, ones that the online community were more than willing to clap back on.
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That includes this person who listed a number of good comedies since then, writing: "In the last few years off the top of my head – Booksmart, Blockers, The Nice Guys, Gamenight, JoJo Rabbit, What we do in the Shadows, Neighbors."
Another highlighted Borat 2, while a third said: "'We can't be funny unless we're marginalizing someone else to make ourselves feel better!"
"God forbid you just make fun of yourself…"
Rogan’s podcast has been mired in controversy lately, with artists pulling their music from Spotify for allowing him to 'spread misinformation' about Covid-19.
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The pressure on him increased after a compilation of clips showed him using the N-word 24 times.
Despite a number of music artists asking to have their music removed from the platform in protest of his podcast, it appears Spotify is keen to keep hold of Rogan, with CEO Daniel Ek making it clear he doesn't want to part ways.
In a message to employees, he said: "While I strongly condemn what Joe has said and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes from our platform, I realise some will want more.
"And I want to make one point very clear – I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer."
He added that he was 'deeply sorry' for the impact the controversy was having on Spotify's workforce.
He continued: "We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but cancelling voices is a slippery slope. Looking at the issue more broadly, it’s critical thinking and open debate that powers real and necessary progress."
Topics: Joe Rogan
Daisy Phillipson