Firing Samantha Bee would be pointless, because liberal comedy has already collapsed

Samantha Bee's sleepy little show is nowhere near on the level of cultural influence or entertainment of ABC's "Roseanne," which is why conservative calls to have Bee's show canceled are a waste of time— the impact would be negligible.

But Bee's remark during her show Wednesday calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless c--t" is a perfect case study in the ongoing collapse of liberal entertainment culture.

Bee is supposed to be a comedian, but there is no joke or wit in her insult. It's like yelling the f-word in a Las Vegas lounge and looking around for applause.

Bee didn't even say it in a funny way. At Comedy Central's roast of Justin Bieber in 2015, comedian Hannibal Buress started his bit telling Bieber, "I don't like your music, man. I'm not a big fan of it. I listened to some of it, I'm not a fan. I don't like your music. I think it's bad. I think it's bad, man. I don't like it. I hate your music, man."

It's funny because even though there was no twist, Buress said it while Bieber, with his reputation of being a brat, was sitting right there having his work dragged.

By contrast, Bee yelled her "c--t" comment in front of her sympathetic audience at the end of a rant about President Trump's immigration policies.

That's not a punchline. It's an angry monologue that makes you want to ask Bee to calm down.

Name the last time liberals in Hollywood made a clever political joke (aside from Bill Maher, who might be the last funny liberal comedian).

NBC's "Saturday Night Live" trots out Alec Baldwin to do his weak impersonation of Trump almost every week, and you cringe as if it was your dad trying to win over your friends in high school.

Rob Schneider, a former "Saturday Night Live" cast member, put it exquisitely in an interview with the New York Daily News. "I know the way his politics lean and it spoils any surprise," Schneider said in late April. "There's no possible surprise. He so clearly hates the man he's playing."

By the way, Schneider has some actually good movies. "Deuce Bigalow" (1999) is still hilarious. The funniest thing Baldwin did was call his daughter a "thoughtless little pig." And that wasn't even meant to be funny.

Chelsea Handler was once one of the few genuinely funny female comedians to make a national name for herself, even without being on network TV.

But then Trump was elected and she used her new Netflix show as therapy, literally crying on set.

The show went from daily editions to weekly to canceled after two seasons.

Outrage over Michelle Wolf's performance at the White House Correspondents' dinner was thoroughly misplaced. Her material was above average for that dinner, and her roasting of White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was tame but even her best line — "It turns out the president of the United States is the one pussy you're not allowed to grab" — relied on a reference more than a year old. (Are people still talking about that?!)

Firing Samantha Bee would be pointless. Unlike "Roseanne," she and the rest of the liberal entertainment industry aren't making a difference.

Let's block ads! (Why?)