"I'll admit it, I like Donald Trump's speeches. I've made my fortune out of playing delusional, middle-aged men who say stupid things, and people love them. But he's beaten me. Trump is better than David Brent.
It's funny, comedians tell a joke and they get in trouble; Donald Trump says a terrible thing and means it, and he gets elected. I get it, though, Trump hit a vein. He hit the peak of political correctness, and he's an antidote to all that. People are tired of being told they can't say things, so he's suddenly this poster boy for saying what's on your mind, however terrible it is. And it's going to go the other way. Trump's going to get in, and suddenly there's going to be 32 Jon Stewarts. It's cyclical; people build their different armies.
It was only recently that I realized that Trump actually could become president. I should have realized sooner. Think about it: We live a world where there are warnings on bottles of bleach — we have to tell people not to drink bleach. In that world, Trump can be president. And in a sense, you get what you deserve. That's democracy, baby! It's just a really odd thing to have this man who's meant to be the most powerful man in the world act like a Twitter troll.
I say this as a guy whose tweets make headlines because I'm this famous person who people think should know better. But I'm not the person who says, "Now I'm famous, I shouldn't say anything." I'm the person who says, "Now I'm famous, I'll say what I always did, and more people will hear me." And I really believe you can and should tell jokes about anything. No harm comes from exposing taboos. You can tell jokes about race, about disability, about sex, without them being racist, disablist or sexist. Some people don't get that. "Ooh, you can't joke about that." That's ridiculous. It's almost like joking about a terrible thing is worse than seriously believing a terrible thing.
The problem with offense, particularly in comedy, is that it usually comes from people who mistake the target of the joke with the subject of the joke, and they're rarely the same. Personally, I don't want to make jokes about things people can't help — the color of their skin, their sex, when they were born — but everything else is pretty much up for grabs. And when I do stand-up, I often tell anecdotes, and the joke comes at the end. Usually with a joke, you know it's a joke, and you're waiting for the surprise. With my material, often you don't know it's a joke until the surprise. I used to do this Nelson Mandela joke. "What a guy," I'd say, "incarcerated for 25 years, and he's been out now for 10 years, and he hasn't re-offended." And then I drop it: "which shows you prison does work." They think I'm going one way, it gets a round of applause, and then I'm actually an idiot. Or I say: "Stephen Hawking, they say he's a genius. He's not, though. He's born in Kent, and he talks with an American accent." So I'm an idiot because I think that voice box is pretentious. Most people know what I'm doing, but there's a small percentage of people who don't who complain."
Read the full piece at The Hollywood Reporter.
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