Bruce Dowbiggin
Gervais, Chappelle: Laughing In The Face Of Cancel Culture
The passing of comedian Tommy Smothers over the holidays almost went unreported. But in 1968, the prime-time TV show featuring Smothers and his brother Dick was considered the essence of counter-culture resistance against Viet Nam, racial intolerance and the drug scene. Folk singer Joan Baez used the show to pay tribute to her husband David who was going to jail for avoiding the draft.
Its creative staff featured (among others) David Steinberg, Steve Martin, Bob Einstein, Rob Reiner and Lorenzo Music in sketches that defined the insubordination of the younger generation. One of its producers was a Canadian, Alan Blye. In one cheeky running gag Pat Paulsen ended up running for president. So when CBS cancelled the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1969 to placate sponsors and the White House it produced a furor. Cries of “censorship” reverberated from the hip Left. “Never again would censors attack free speech” they wailed.
Fast forward to the dawn of 2024. Two controversial comedians launched new podcasts on Netflix in the teeth of a howling mob of Woke critics who want them banned for heresy or apostasy. But Ricky Gervais and Dave Chapelle are not being threatened with cancellation by Trumpian reactionaries. No, it’s the current generation of smug progressives who want them silenced. Permanently. For breaking the code.
This is typical pushback from the scolds: “Gervais’s jokes, which mock illegal immigrants, homeless people, trans people and more, are the sort of opinions that, far from getting you cancelled, are likely to be vote winners at the ballot box,” Nervous Nick Hilton wrote in the leftwing UK The Independent. Says humourless trade paper Variety: “Ricky Gervais’ New Netflix Special Tries So Hard to Be Edgy and Offensive — but It’s Just a Total Bore.” Take that.
Chappelle has been raked for “punching down” on the Left’s pet causes. For all the threats Gervais and Chappelle have received over alleged LGBTQ-2 slurs in the past, they have never backed down from the comedic art of in-your-face political commentary. And their new products Armageddon (Gervais) and The Dreamer (Chappelle) are no exception.
Sample: Chappelle tells an extended story about meeting his idol Jim Carrey on the set of Andy Kaufman biopic Man On The Moon. The problem was that Carrey stayed in character as Kaufman even between scenes. Chappelle is advised to call him Andy, not Jim. But an exuberant Chapelle forgets and still calls him Jim.
The crew is mortified. Chappelle is puzzled, talking to what is clearly Jim Carrey but calling him Andy. It was a strange experience says Chappelle. Dramatic pause. “Sort of like how I feel talking to a trans person.” The crowd explodes in guilty laughter, knowing that it would kill their own careers to ever voice such “sedition” in everyday conversation.
Gervais is equally aggressive. In one bit he talks about the mob who want to pull down statues of people who might have been involved in the slave trade 200 years ago. “But they built that beautiful hospital over there,” says Gervais. “Okay, you can leave that. But pull down the statue and throw it in the canal.” Pause. “But he built that canal.” Ricky-as-rioter: “Okay, you can leave that. But pull down the statue.” Etc.
Both men reflect on their bête noir reputations. Chappelle pokes fun at his tour with Chris Rock in the months after Rock was slapped by Will Smith at the Oscars. Then Chappelle himself is assaulted onstage in L.A. by a homeless man allegedly incensed over Chappelle’s jokes about gays. He references his security man now perched just offstage. And describes Puffy coming to his rescue.
Gervais does a symposium about words-as-weapons in the radical left and its effect on audiences. He pleads for divorcing the comedian from the comedy, urging his audience to laugh freely again. Hearing the uproarious laughter for forbidden words and concepts in London (Gervais) and Washington D.C. (Chappelle) was like attending a secret society, a Resistance to the tyranny of radical scolds. And a glimmer that the worst could be over.
For those with memories that go back even further than The Smothers Brothers, these extemporaneous challenges over free speech recall 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, who was hounded till his death for controversial material on sex and politics. In his later years Bruce, who was an unrepentant liberal, would forgo jokes and routines just to read trial transcripts from his cases to a stunned crowd.
Like Gervais and Chappelle, he was obsessed about free speech and liberty. Unlike them, he was not rescued by Netflix.
Gervais and Chappelle stand in stark contrast to the podcast/ TV series Smartless, featuring comedians Will Arnott, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes. This is the Scientology of comedy. Drumming consensus. Started during Covid, Smartless features the trio talking glibly about their lives in the culture bubble and introducing a surprise guest to the other two. Needless to say Smartless stays on the approved side of Woke culture in its lengthy list of guests.
While the roster is choked by “safe” entertainment and news figures (Rachel Maddow, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmell, Jen Psaki, Bill Maher) you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone bending even slightly Right on the roster. Wayne Gretzky? Certainly no one is going to do a comic dissertation on why the people who lionized the Smothers Brothers now endorse swatting the homes of their enemies. Or palling it up with Hamas.
The episode with black comic Kevin Hart is especially revealing for the three progressive hosts. (The roster of Smartless guests is paler than a Vatican synod.) Using the Woke Ranking of Grievance, Hart is untouchable for this Hollywood crowd. Exotic and uncontrollable, he owns the set as Arnett, Bateman and Hayes try not to get caught off the reservation as he savages them for talking about peeing sitting down.
As the gay man on set Hayes is similarly protected from most cancellation sins. But Canadian Arnett and especially Bateman are like long tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. As the conversation heads to the DMZ of comedy Bateman keeps saying, Oh, not you’re not going to get me canceled. His palpable fear of falling afoul of his censorship colleagues is as far from Chappelle and Gervais inviting censure as you can get and still call it comedy.
Speaking of which. Ricky has come up with a fabulous idea for the moribund Oscars broadcast. He thinks he and Chappelle should co-host. Make our day. As long as there’s a camera on the Smartness guys as their world is torn apart.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Hat Trick: Nick Bosa’s Photo Bomb Re-Ignites The Colin Kaepernick Fury
For many this U.S. election can’t be over soon enough. The epidemic of the stupids still rages. (Anyone expecting resolution on Tuesday night better be in for a wait.)
Example: On last week’s Sunday Night football, San Francisco star Nick Bosa photo-bombed a postgame interview wearing a MAGA hat. (For some reason it was not the telltale red). He then quickly departed leaving his teammates and NBC reporter Melissa Stark to continue the usual bromides about team and character.
Predictably in this insane election season, Bosa’s drive-by political statement sent social media into an Elon Musk orbit. First were the demands that Bosa be fined by the NFL for political activity. Indeed the NFL can impose a $11,255 fine for “wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages… which relate to political activities or causes.” (As of this writing, the NFL has yet to impose any sanctions against Bosa.)
Then there were butt-hurt Democrats. “I hope (49ers CEO) @JedYork trades Nick Bosa to Mar-A-Lago,” wrote Robert Rivas, Democratic speaker of the 29th District of the California State Assembly. “As a lifelong @49ers fan, I can say I’ve seen enough of Bosa in California.” And so on.
More telling were the Colin Kaepernick flashbacks to when he sat in 2016 during the national anthem to highlight his conversion to #BLM orthodoxy. “I better hear all the angry white people who told Colin Kaepernick to “shut up and play ball” or go “keep politics out of the NFL” outraged by this too. Like come on keep your energy or does it only count when you’re able to be racist?
“Two 49er NFL players. Two political statements. Black Lives Matter v. MAGA. Only one is allowed by the NFL.”
“Anyone remember when Nick Bosa called Kaepernick a clown for taking a political stance? Imagine being this much of a hypocrite,” another fan added.
Well now… we could make the point that photo bombing a political preference during an election is somewhat different from a high-profile convert to radical racial reparations disrespecting the national anthem in a non-election season. Here’s how we covered it in August of 2018.
For those who don’t remember the grievance, Kaepernick (who was raised by white parents) suddenly had a fit of conscience over the alleged slaughter of unarmed blacks by police. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Which is his right, except unarmed black men in 2016, unarmed black men in 2024, are not being killed by police in the hundreds. (Most years it’s in single digits to 20 range in a population of 41 million blacks.) While tut-tutting about the gesture made on his employer’s time, the NFL declined to sanction Kaepernick. Which sparked copy-cat kneel downs and protests around sports, accompanied by the racial divisiveness typical of the Obama years.
His protest also coincided with his decline as a starting QB in the NFL (the 49ers won just two games in 2016). By 2018 Kaepernick was out of work in the NFL (after opting out of a contract from San Fran) and a full-blown BLM martyr. Nike gave him $ 3 million a year to spearhead their Woke campaigns. Netflix did a series on the ex-QB. Newly minted president Donald Trump decried the whole situation. Then Cowboys owner Jerry Jones— who’d knelt with players in Week One of the anthem controversy— threatened to bench any players who upstaged the anthem.
The NFL then passed a rule saying any players who wanted to protest the national anthem could do so in the locker room. That limp policy lasted just a few weeks. Protests during the anthem petered out as they lost their ability to shock. For the next years Kaepernick would claim he was blackballed (he reached a settlement with the NFL in 2019) and express his desire to play.
The 2020 George Floyd riots— after he died of a drug-induced heart attack while in police custody— pushed Kaepernick’s story to the side. He’s now done as a possible QB and the financial problems of BLM have made them a lesser player in the grievance cause. But it is fair to say Kaepernick made a choice to be a symbol for all multi-million dollar oppressed athletes and the radical Left has moved on without him.
So Bosa acting like a college sophomore to express a voting preference after a game compared to Kaepernick wanting a race-based social revolution in America? Mmm. These things are not like the other. It’s like accusing Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce of political interference for appearing with his girlfriend Taylor Swift, a vocal Kamala Harris supporter.
What is inarguable is the toxic Trump effect in pro sports such as football or basketball which have over seventy percent black players. It’s not just black players. Prominent white coaches such as Golden State’s Steve Kerr and San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich go off about Donald Trump. Here’s Pop during a press conference: “He’s pathetic. He’s small. He’s a whiner… He’s a damaged man.”
As we’ve said many times, the left-leaning sports media piled on Trump as well. Former ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski F-bombed Trump, TNT analyst and HoF player Charles Barkley said anyone voting for Trump was an “idiot” and award-winning host Bob Costas called him the “most disgraceful figure in modern presidential history” and his voters “a toxic cult”. So the messaging on Bosa vs. Kaepernick is supect at best.
We will update this column after we learn the results of the election (likely later this week). But for now let’s all be grateful that candidate Trump as political football is at an end. And the hysteria from Kamala Harris’ crowd can be re-directed to the border.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Why Canada’s Elites Are Captives To The Kamala Narrative
“As he closes the election with rank racism, relentless unreality and authoritarian threats, Trump’s popularity among Canadian Conservatives is higher than ever. This seems like it could be a problem”.— Bruce Arthur, Toronto Star
A problem for whom, Bruce? It’s telling that while 50 percent of Americans see through Kamala Harris and the DEMs coup narrative as complete bushwah, probably 90 percent of Canadians– led by Arthur and the corporate media– lap up this condescending narrative. Their biggest fear remains that the populist revolt against authority in the U.S. might threaten Canada’s elite class. Like Toronto Star squishy columnists.
In the hermetically sealed media world of Canada, natives take their cues from CNN and MSNBC talking points both of which employ Canadians in highly visible roles. (Here’s expat Ali Velshi famously describing on NBC that the 2020 George Floyd riots that burned for weeks— destroying billions in damages while resulting in multipole deaths— as “generally peaceful”
The narratives of Russiagate, drinking bleach, “fine people” to Hunter Biden’s laptop— long ago debunked down south— are still approved wisdom in Canada’s chattering class. Especially if America’s conflagration election can be used to demonstrate the good sense and judgment of Canada’s managerial and media class.
The northern pecksniffs have loads of insanity to work with as Trump seemingly edges ahead in polls. There’s the brouhaha over a shock comedian at a Trump rally calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage”. Unhinged outgoing POTUS Biden then called GOP voters “garbage”. So Trump made an appearance as a garbage man, to the shrieking disapproval of CBS News chief anchor Nora O’Donnell.
Then there’s Whoopi Goldberg on The View predicting Trump will “break up interracial marriages and redistribute the white spouses: “He’s going to deport and you, put the white guy with someone else… The man is out there!” Forget that Trump did nothing of the sort when he was president from 2016-2020. It’s every hysteric for himself as Nov. 5 looms. Their biggest fear? Those who vilified Trump the past decade will be out of the power loop for at least four years— or longer if VP candidate J.D. Vance extends the Trump revolution. It’s panic time.
Picked up on by those fearing their place in the Canadian power grid might fall next. The disdainful cheers from Arthur and Andrew Coyne and the CBC bien pensants at each thrust of Trump-as-Nazi echo through a press corps which now fawns over Mark Carney, the bespoke banker/ heir apparent to Trudeau. They grasp at each anti-Trump narrative like starving men in the desert.
It’s 1990s redux in Ottawa as think-tank Aristotles work to reinforce their status quo. While a public that has CPC ahead by 20 points in the polls demands change, the Liberal/ NDP cabal want that old-time political religion of insider baseball Ottawa-style. Here’s NDP attack bot Kathleen Monk insisting that PM-in-waiting Pierre Poilievre get security clearance on the Chinese election interference case so that he might better be skewered for not telling Canadians the truth included in them about how their elections are being subverted by the Chinese.
No one drawing a Liberal support cheque worries aloud that Trudeau knows the truth contained in this files, that it’s injurious to him and the NDPs, that Canadians need to know the names of MPs and senators taking bribes, why a police request sat on a minister’s desk for 54 days unopened. It’s Poilievre/ Trump who’s untrustworthy. It’s a strategy that the Libs and NDP pray Poilievre will fall for. Pierre’s sin is he doesn’t believe the public should depend on government for everything. That’s heresy in Canada’s Family Compact, and so the Trump comparisons.
The anti-Trump vendetta also means that Canadians have decided that Elon Musk, the pre-eminent genius of the 21st century— is now Josef Goebbels to Trump’s Hitler. As we wrote recently “on his way to immortality Elon Musk made one critical mistake: purchasing the website Twitter, now re-branded as X. In doing so he fired 90 percent of the previous staff and instituted a policy of open speech for the Right on the site— starting with restoring Donald Trump’s account. Which put Musk on the Hit List for leftist plutocrats.”
So now the sneering scribes are going after him, too, in spite of his Canadian citizenship. This is no small thing as Canadians reflexively grab at any shred of CanCon elsewhere. Canadian politics under the Liberals has become a vedette exercise since Pierre Trudeau started dating Funny Girl Barbra Streisand. In the U.S. outsiders to the political system are rare. Much of the pearl clutching about Trump results from his not being manipulated by the byzantine American political universe.
In cases such as Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, the nominees were moulded by the machine to highlight their acceptability. Ronald Reagan excepted, the insider track is the preferred route to a nomination in either party. Biden personified lifelong membership in the insiders club. As did John Kerry, Mitt Romney, Al Gore, John McCain, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, Gerald Ford, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and so on.
But in Canada, the Liberal party in particular now disdains the tried-and-true. After decades of zero-charisma PMs such as Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent and Mike Pearson, the Grits went ga-ga for the international flair of PET. His irreverence and impertinence on the world stage was catnip to Liberals as the 1960s cultural revolution shook up staid Canada. Since then the blue print has listed more toward “star” candidates from outside the party, such as Michael Ignatieff, Stephane Dion, Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney.
Trudeau II is the epitome of the vedette candidate, bathed by the glow of U.S. magazines and slathering leftists in Europe. Liberals felt vital as long as the trust-fund PM got props from outside, such as when WEF honcho Klaus Schwab outed Skippy as one of his lieutenants. Trump, the antithesis of the Dauphin, is a blustery carny riding the wings of populist outrage. His crass, bumptious style personally offends the sensibilities of Toronto Star scribblers and CBC wind therapists.
The clincher for Canadians is the overwhelming Kamala love from the Hollywood crowd. Virtually every high-profile actor/ singer/ writer has embraced the woman who was parachuted into the nomination in a coup— even as the glitterati raved about anti-democratic Trump. From Beyoncé to Bilie Eilish to Bruce Springsteen, their support has been a winner in Canada’s fangirl/ fanboy culture.
So as we head to next Tuesday’s end to the election marathon in America, the finger-wagging will increase as Canadians try to elevate themselves above a nation that, for all its faults, has actually staged a policy choice. Meanwhile in Canada, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh once again embraces his coalition with a drowning Trudeau for another year.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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