The Death of Comedy
The world is rapidly becoming overrun with evil. It has also become a place devoid of humor. I think Bible prophecy is the only explanation for why one of the basic human attributes is fading away.
When it was announced last week that Mad Magazine was coming to an end, it took several hours for news outlets to confirm the news. After 67 years, hundreds of issues, a spinoff sketch-comedy series and countless imitators, MAD Magazine as it has been known since 1952 is coming to an end, according to the magazine’s former editor, Allie Goertz.
“There’s been an outpour of kindness surrounding the rumor that @MADmagazine is ceasing publication, but MAD is not quite done,” Goertz tweeted late Wednesday night. “After the next TWO great new issues are released, MAD will begin publishing bi-monthly issues with vintage pieces and new covers.”
With magazines dropping like flies, the demise of one more would not come as any great surprise. What is stunning about MAD Magazine’s passing is that it’s the last major humor publication to fold. Fellow humor publications like Cracked, National Lampoon, and the Weekly World News are long gone.
Comedy and romantic comedy ticket sales have been on a steady slide for the past decade. Ten years ago, comedy was king at the movie theater, and now comedy is a money-losing topic.
The last year that comedies made more than $2 billion domestically was 2011. In 2009, they earned $2.5 billion, with six making more than $100 million domestically. But by 2015, comedy grosses were down to $1.4 billion, with four titles making more than $100 million. And last year, comedies earned only $1 billion, with a single release crossing the $100 million-mark, Crazy Rich Asians.
A key reason for the downturn in comedy is that the politically correct culture has made the job of a comedian very difficult. There is very little left to mock or make fun of these days. In recent years, two very high-profile comedians — Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock — have admitted they refused to perform at college campuses. Seinfeld said they would get mad and “don’t know what they’re talking about” because they’re “so P.C.”
Even past comedies are having to be sanitized for the new modern standard. One of the many amusing aspects of the Toy Story movies is the jokes in the blooper reel at the end, which depicts favorite animated characters flubbing various scenes. The problem is that one of them, a blooper from 1999’s Toy Story 2, isn’t so funny anymore.
A new release of the second movie in the storied franchise leaves out a scene in which a character named Stinky Pete the Prospector, voiced by Kelsey Grammer, suggestively tells twin Barbies that he could get them a part in Toy Story 3. He stops speaking when he realizes that he’s being filmed.
I didn’t know Hollywood had any moral foundations left. To discover their morals over an animated toy getting fresh with two other ones is rather strange, but that is why people call the place Hollyweird. That explains why alleged serial rapist Harvey Weinstein is still walking free.
Another reason why comedy is in failing health is its involvement in the leftist agenda. What passes today as comedy is nothing more than political propaganda.
The long-running show “Saturday Night Live” is a prime example of this practice. SNL only does about 22 shows each year, and if you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all. The show’s writers think that they have a direct connection to the voters’ decision process. In 2016 they focused on how Trump was going to lose against Hillary – Never happened. They spent two years joking about impeachment and jail time for Trump – strike two and strike three.
SNL lost its cultural connection when it said there was nothing funny about President Barack Obama. One writer concluded that he was so perfect in his ways, there was nothing to make fun of. I don’t know if there are any comedy shows in North Korea, but I’m sure they would feel the same way about their “Dear Leader.”
The Showtime cable network produced the “Loudest Voice American” drama miniseries about TV executive and media consultant Roger Ailes. It received poor ratings because it is about an unfunny and highly gross subject of a 300-pound guy sexually harassing employees.
In 2016, comedian Will Ferrell had optioned a comedy where he would play a dementia-addled Ronald Reagan. It took strong protest from Reagan’s children to get the project cancelled.
The liberal media is going to keep using comedy to attack people on the right because they are under the control of demons who are fixed on evil. The jokes will become more vile, and ratings can keep dropping like a rock. Unless it is confronted with biblical truth, depravity doesn’t have an off switch.
Comedy will continue on in one way. The radical left has become unintentional comedians with their crazy view of the world. God and hopefully the Church will soon justly laugh from heaven at their foolish end-time antics.
“But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming” (Psalm 37:13).
“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision” (Psalm 2:4).
–Todd
Orwellians Waging War
Perhaps it is misnomer to call those principalities and powers, both human and otherworldly, “Orwellian.” Certainly, it is unfair to George Orwell, the author of the dystopian novel 1984 to link him in such a way to things taking place in these closing days of the age. He was determined, even while suffering severely debilitating illness, to forewarn of dark, evil forces capable of enslaving mankind.
“Orwellian,” however, is exactly a term that best encapsulates the technologies and their applications assaulting this generation. Citizens of the United States today are almost as closely watched as the people of Orwell’s fictional dictatorships or the people of present-day Britain. One can’t move around while shopping or for other purposes without being caught on cameras that stare down from a number of vantage points.
It is fascinating to watch documentaries featuring policing agencies as they investigate crimes. They use surveillance cameras to study the forensic evidence, putting together increments of time with various locations to retrace criminals engaged in murders or whatever.
I long ago wrote a novel about how such a society would develop, leading up to the Rapture and beyond. While Jacob’s Trouble 666 (https://www.amazon.com/Jacobs-Trouble-666-Terry-James/dp/1641194634/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) might have been considered “far out there” when I wrote it way back there, it probably would seem behind the times to today’s readers. The same with the novelistic endeavors of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), and others who have written in the dystopian genre prior to the developments we see all around us today.
As it’s said: Life imitates art. The imagination has turned into reality and has gone far beyond. We are witnessing what most surely will eventuate in the Antichrist system of control being implemented in the not-too-distant future.
Recently, a friend sent me an article he thought was the best he had read on what’s happening with regard to surveillance in these last of the last days. I agree that it is an outstanding piece, covering in depth the many aspects of an Orwellian world in the making. I recommend that you read it.
The writer says, in part, the following:
We have arrived, way ahead of schedule, into the dystopian future dreamed up by not only Orwell but also such fiction writers as Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood and Philip K. Dick.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell…
What once seemed futuristic no longer occupies the realm of science fiction.
Incredibly, as the various nascent technologies employed and shared by the government and corporations alike—facial recognition, iris scanners, massive databases, behavior prediction software, and so on—are incorporated into a complex, interwoven cyber network aimed at tracking our movements, predicting our thoughts and controlling our behavior, the dystopian visions of past writers is fast becoming our reality.
Our world is characterized by widespread surveillance, behavior prediction technologies, data mining, fusion centers, driverless cars, voice-controlled homes, facial recognition systems, cybugs and drones, and predictive policing (pre-crime) aimed at capturing would-be criminals before they can do any damage. Surveillance cameras are everywhere. Government agents listen in on our telephone calls and read our emails. Political correctness—a philosophy that discourages diversity—has become a guiding principle of modern society…
We are increasingly ruled by multi-corporations wedded to the police state.
What many fail to realize is that the government is not operating alone. It cannot. The government requires an accomplice. Thus, the increasingly complex security needs of the massive federal government, especially in the areas of defense, surveillance and data management, have been met within the corporate sector, which has shown itself to be a powerful ally that both depends on and feeds the growth of governmental overreach.
In fact, Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother, and we are now ruled by the Corporate Elite whose tentacles have spread worldwide. (“The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s 1984 Is No Longer Fiction,” John W. Whitehead, via The Rutherford Institute June 10, 2019https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_omnipresent_surveillance_state_orwells_1984_is_no_longer_fiction)
We can say “Amen” to Mr. Whitehead’s assessment, having spent the past two and a half years watching deep-state government types try to bring down a president. They have used technology and clandestine shenanigans in their high places to try to pull off a coup d’état because of election results they could not abide.
Their efforts have not abated, nor will they as we progress toward the presidential election of 2020. As pointed out a number of times, we are in the Ephesians 6:12 battle not only for the U.S. presidency and governmental control, but for the very souls of men, women, and children.
The technological march to electronically enslave all of mankind proceeds at a level forewarned by the prophet Daniel (Daniel 12:4). It will all come to culmination in the marks-and-numbering system of Revelation 13:16-18.
The Orwellians are waging war indeed! It means we are nearing the midnight hour of human history. The Lord is restraining these who are in an insane rage. They will ultimately pay the price for their rebellion.
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. (Psalms 2:2-4)
–Terry