The Rise of Right-Wing Comedy w/ Nick Marx

On this edition of Parallax Views, the late night Fox News talk show Gutfeld! w/ right-wing comedian Greg Gutfeld recently managed to beat out its liberal competitor The Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert in ratings. For liberals and leftists, Gutfeld's "Owning the Libs" brand of humor may not be funny. But it has found an audience. He's not alone either, as similarly-styled comics like Steven Crowder have likewise gained an audience through offending liberal sensibilities. And then there's big name comedians like Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan, who, although not necessarily explicitly right wing, have in recent years garnered by fierce critics and devoted fans by offending those aforementioned sensibilities.

Such developments are a far-cry from a decade or so ago when many were touting psychological studies indicating that liberals liked to laugh whereas conservatives preferred to be outraged as a reason for why the political right hadn't produced its own version of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, or John Oliver. As the growing popularity of Gutfeld! shows, however, that seems to have changed.

Joining us to discuss the rise of right-wing comedy is Nick Marx, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Colorado State University, and co-author (w/ Matt Sienkiewicz) of the upcoming book That's Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them and the recent article "How conservative comic Greg Gutfeld overtook Stephen Colbert in ratings to become the most popular late-night TV host". In this conversation we delve into what Nick calls the right-wing comedy complex, how comedians like Tim Allen and Dennis Miller fit into it, the role audience fragmentation has played in the rise of explicitly right-wing comedy in the 21st century, why trying to argue that what comics like Greg Gutfeld are doing is "not comedy" does not stop the right-wing comedy complex, how the right-wing comedy complex papers over over factional divisions within the American conservative movement and unifies unifies them, right-wing comedy as a recruitment tool, troll and trolling culture, addressing psychological studies about liberalism and laughter, the changing nature of the media landscape and triumph of specialized niche entertainment, what has changed about the political comedy format in the past 20 years and the size of the audiences shows within that format could capture?, demographics (age, race, income levels, etc.) and the audience of right-wing comedy, "paleo-comedy", the figures within deeper recesses of the right-wing comedy complex like Gavin McInnes and Michael Malice, and more.