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Mr. Bean Accidentally Torches Woke Amy Schumer

Rowan Atkinson's Cancel Culture critique shreds newly woke Hulu star

The Amy Schumer we see on screens today isn’t the same comic who entertained us in “Trainwreck.”

That 2015 comedy made the New York native a movie star by playing off her bad girl brand.

That was then. Now, the ex-“Barbie” movie lead has seen the error of her comedic ways. Or that’s how she frames her evolution in a Hollywood Reporter roundtable chat.

“I love playing a monster, just like the worst white woman, but I’m getting further and further away from that [in my act],” she told the far-Left magazine.

Schumer previously apologized for past jokes, including gags aimed at Hispanics and specific individuals. She has less sympathy, apparently, for sharing Fake News at the recent Academy Awards telecast.

Next, Schumer played the feminist card (of course) and suggested the “wrong” comedy can do real-world harm without evidence.

“It’s happened gradually, just educating myself and seeing the harm in joking around about things that are harmful and taking more responsibility and having it not just be about trying to sneak into this boys’ club.”

Schumer famously got arrested protesting Brett Kavanaugh’s ascension to the Supreme Court. The comic claimed Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when they were both in their late teens despite a monstrous lack of evidence to prove it.

That seems an irresponsible use of her celebrity cachet.

RELATED: Incurious Media Ignore Amy Schumer’s Toxic Brand 

Her claim that the “wrong” jokes can harm someone is Cancel Culture’s cause du jour, but it doesn’t apply to targets on the Right. Comedians can fat shame Republicans, dubbed them white supremacists and worse without fear the woke mob will come for them.

It also doesn’t square with Comedy 101 as explained by veteran comic Rowan Atkinson.

The man known to millions as Mr. Bean is a staunch free speech defender. Now, he’s laying out exactly why Cancel Culture’s hold on humor betrays the craft in a new interview with The Irish Times.

“It does seem to me that the job of comedy is to offend, or have the potential to offend, and it cannot be drained of that potential. Every joke has a victim. That’s the definition of a joke. Someone or something or an idea is made to look ridiculous.”

He’s right. 

Man Vs Bee | Official Trailer | Netflix

Atkinson, star of the new Netflix series “Man vs. Bee,” also deflated the concept of “punching up,” not down, with humor. It’s a farcical notion given how progressives discard it to savage their ideological foes.

Atkinson shredded it on different grounds.

“You’ve always got to kick up? Really? What if there’s someone extremely smug, arrogant, aggressive, self-satisfied, who happens to be below in society? They’re not all in houses of parliament or in monarchies. There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”

Schumer should consider Atkinson’s words. She might dub it “mansplaining,” but it could give her new persona its old bite.

7 Comments

  1. “cachet”, not “cache”. Although one could certainly say that her celebrity, as well as her talent for comedy have been cached for some years now.

  2. I am so old, I remember when actors were considered among the lower strata of society. Victor Mature was denied membership in a club, and in his defense, sent them several reels of his movies, hoping to prove “I am no actor.”.

  3. Also from Mr. Atkinson:

    “The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness – and the other represents oppression”

    1. Thank you for that quote. Unfortunately, while Mr. Atkinson’s ‘sentiment’ is correct here,t his presentation of it is DEADLY and SELF-defeating.

      He doesn’t argue there is NO such thing as the “right not to be offended”. He doesn’t argue that the right of Free Speech *means* the right to say things people do NOT *like* aka IS the “right to offend”. Instead, he *explicitly* accepts the Collectivist/Statist premise that there are COMPETING rights here – and thus that one must appeal to something OTHER than rights as the means of determining what is and is not *valid* human interaction. And to what does Mr. Atkinson appeal? The ‘good of society’ (ie what “society” considers “important”). In other words, he EXPLICITLY declares the Collective’s DESIRES, rather than the individual’s RIGHTS, are his standard for human interaction.

      That means he is NOT talking about his RIGHTS whatsoever. Mr. Atkinson is talking about PERMISSIONS – permissions which are supposedly granted or denied to him by his supposedly granted *by* his Master (aka “society”).

      Put simply, what Mr. Atkinson is doing here is BEGGING that Master to *permit* him act on HIS desire to “offend” and to *prohibit* others from acting on THEIR desire *not* to be “offended’.

      Put simply, Mr. Atkinson has abandoned the principle of RIGHTS completely. He has SURRENDERED to the Collectivist/Statists aka to those whom claim *his* life and *his* effort are THEIR property, to be disposed as THEY see fit, to satisfy THEIR ends.

      SELF-defeating indeed!

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