Jemaine Clement laments the idea that some comedians think it is “edgy” to be racist and transphobic with their material.
While guesting on Vulture’s “Good One” podcast, the “Flight of the Conchords” comic was critical of colleagues who choose to disparage certain groups of people during their stand-up sets in an almost retaliation to politically correct comedy. Clement argued that such material just makes performers seem dated.
“New Zealand political correctness came quite early,” Clement said. “We still like to try and not insult whole groups of people. And we’ve stuck with that. We go, ‘Oh, it’s cool to make fun of trans people now. We should do that.’ We’ve not done that.”
He added: “But there was a reaction to political correctness of going, ‘OK, it’s edgy.’ You know, ‘make a racist joke.’ But it wasn’t edgy. It was just old. It was just old-fashioned. And it’s like that again. It’s like, this just looks like it’s from 1970.”
Clement is making the podcast rounds to promote Disney’s live-action “Moana,” in theaters Friday. The actor reprises his voice role as the fearsome giant crab Tamatoa in the film.
In his review for TheWrap, film critic William Bibbiani argued “there’s no reason to recommend” the remake, which arrives less than 10 years after the original animated “Moana” premiered in 2016.
“’Moana’ is far from the worst Disney live-action remake, but it’s arguably the most redundant,” Bibbiani wrote. “I’m sure there are people who will enjoy paying extra, again, to watch a recent movie they already liked, again, but longer and not as good, again. If Disney insists on wasting the audience’s time, there are worse ways they could do it. Heck, they’ve already done worse. They’ll probably do worse again.”
The post Jemaine Clement Laments Comedians Who Think It’s ‘Edgy’ to Be Racist, Transphobic: ‘Like It’s From 1970’ appeared first on TheWrap.
