The Jester’s Privilege (?) ~ Jim Jefferies: High N’ Dry
I’m not sure there’s a point to reviewing a Jim Jefferies special anymore. It’s his ninth special, and if you like him, you’re going to like this. If you don’t like him, I’d advise to stay away, since he doesn’t become less of an asshole over time, as per the usual progression of time. So I’d like to take the opportunity to ask a question that many Jefferies haters have asked for a while now: what does it take for a comic to get cancelled?
In a vacuum, there’s plenty in here to warrant it. He says the f-slur a few times, he toes the line of rape jokes, he makes light of all sorts of topics that probably qualify for content warnings. Is that going to matter? Probably not, for many reasons we are all too familiar with. Jefferies himself sits on a level of comedic celebrity where he’s well-known enough for people to know what to expect going into the special, but on the fringe enough where if he does truly cross a line, not enough people care for it to matter.
This, of course, is not exclusive to Jefferies, and comics much more famous and much more heinous have done and gotten away with more. Dave Chappelle just won a Grammy for his impeccable work in the field of transphobia with “The Closer”. Our old and decrepit friend Louis C.K. didn’t win his nomination, but maybe after his stint at Madison Square Garden, he just might get back on his feet in no time. Chris D’Elia, Roseanne Barr, Aziz Ansari, the list doesn’t seem to end, all with varying degrees of disgusting, all still more or less thriving in the public eye.
Do I think Jefferies should be cancelled? Probably not. Other than a fairly tasteless series of Greta Thunberg jokes and a weird bulimia tangent, nothing he said really set off any alarms in my head. Are there other jokes that could get someone to lose their minds and start a #JimJefferiesIsOver movement that means nothing? Of course. The question I’m asking however is: does it matter?
The machine seems to move along no matter what we do. At this point, I won’t be surprised if we see an At Folsom Prison type of comedy album from Bill Cosby. Because no matter what they do, these comedians seem to get away with it. Why? Maybe it indeed has to do with the Jester’s Privilege, where their actions, in any context, is never taken with any sincerity to the public, and therefore it’s easily brushed off. Maybe it’s a symptom of a celebrity issue, where a large group of motivated people are moved by these orators so much that they refuse to let silly allegations get in the way of them loving their comedy king or queen.
I wish I had some sort of statistics or studies on it, but I don’t. That is because of what I think causes all of this neutrality towards this behavior, and that is no one cares enough about comedy. It is such a potent way of speech, and it clearly attracts a strong following among certain players, and yet it is treated like a silly side act of society, when it directly affects our way of perceiving society. Jim Jefferies himself should know this: his rant on gun control got so popular, American poly-sci classes started showing it in class to start a serious debate on the Second Amendment.
Comedy holds power, and we should be critical of who wields this power. The more we continue to ignore that, the more we are going to see the same terrible people using that power to inflict real harm on others. Is Jefferies one of the harmful ones? I don’t think so, but he’s certainly not a hero. I could’ve kept to myself and just written a half-assed review of a special I still overall liked, but sometimes you have to feel like you’re doing something. So if you have to, cancel Jim Jefferies. Cancel me, while you’re at it. Feel like you’re doing right by the world, because clearly, not enough people are.
???/10
