If ever there was a time ripe for angry progressive standup, with liberals feeling furious, disillusioned or even helpless watching the latest moves by the Trump administration, it would seem to be now.
And yet, the most surprising thing about the current state of political comedy is the relatively moderate tone of the dissent.
Enter Nish Kumar, a 39-year-old British comic who hosted a “Daily Show”-like program, emerging as one of the sharpest political comedians in England. At the Bell House in Brooklyn last weekend, while on his first North American tour, he lit up the crowd with the kind of combative comic rant that clarified what has been missing.
Kumar, dressed in black, began by saying he was happy to be here because, well, the plane landed. “Why do planes keep crashing?” he said, one of the many times he leaned into a series of increasingly enraged rhetorical questions. His delivery didn’t adopt the stop and start pace of setup and punchline comedy, so much as the momentum of a sermon gaining momentum, one bristling and insistent paragraph of disgust and insult after another.
Kumar, born in London and raised by Indian parents, described Elon Musk as a “man so congenitally unpleasant he is fighting a daily battle to be named history’s worst white South African.” He then added that looking at him, a thought occurs: “When will there be one good looking white supremacist? Will there be one white supremacist that is visible evidence for the genetic superiority of the white race?”
Pausing his emphatically enunciated motormouth delivery, Kumar pivoted: “If Brad Pitt came out for white supremacy, we’d say: Hear him out.”
Earlier in the day, President Trump had lashed out at President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in the Oval Office and as soon as Kumar brought it up, you could hear palpable revulsion. He said no one should be surprised. “That’s him sticking up for his real friend: Putin. We can’t be upset with Scooby for sticking up for Shaggy.”
This is not comedy that is trying to change minds. It’s pointedly dyspeptic, the opposite of ingratiating. Over the pandemic, he released a special called “Your Power, Your Control,” which said there are no reasonable conservatives left to influence.
Here he attacks manosphere podcasters like Jordan Peterson, the Canadian professor turned popular anti-woke guru, as a radicalizing influence and comedians like Jimmy Carr who enable them for going on their shows. He also criticizes the left for fixating on the wrong questions, like whether people can enjoy good art by bad people. We all do, he says, with a refreshing conclusiveness, which is why, he adds, we should thank Russell Brand for never producing anything worthwhile. “No one heard those allegations of sexual assault and thought, but how will I enjoy ‘Get Him to the Greek?’”
Since the election in the United States, performers at big-tent events like the Academy Awards and the 50th anniversary celebration of “Saturday Night Live” have steered clear of President Trump, with a few exceptions. And sharp comedians that regularly don’t pass up a chance to criticize him, like the late night host Seth Meyers or the prolific comic Josh Johnson, tend to do so in a more surgical and cold-eyed manner. The day before seeing Kumar, I saw five comics at the Comedy Cellar tell a wide array of topical jokes, but the few ones about the current administration had little passion behind them. It’s revealing that the most famous joke of the Trump era (John Mulaney’s bit about a horse loose in a hospital) rests on a reasonable, even conservative, wish for stability and predictability.
Some righteous leftist comics (Cliff Cash, Adam Conover) have built steam online with topical political humor, but they aren’t being hosted by major streamers like Netflix and Hulu. It can feel like the industry is so worried about putting on cringey “orange man bad” resistance comedy that it’s overcorrected and is now missing an obvious opportunity.
Expecting a liberal Joe Rogan to suddenly emerge is futile, but a fiery, mad-as hell-polemicist that resonates with comedy fans the way David Cross did during the first term of George W. Bush? That’s an unoccupied lane waiting to be filled. Cross could do it (he just announced a national tour). Or Marc Maron, Wanda Sykes or Chelsea Handler (whose Netflix special comes out March 25).
Kumar is a newer voice to many in this country, but he’s been paying close attention to us.
Over the last decade, comics have become adept at playing the victim of cancel culture. Some responded by saying there is no such thing. Kumar avoids this debate by mocking the phoniness of those who cry cancel culture but indulges in something similar. With a rubbery face put to good use, he periodically adopts the pose of a mischievous child when he says something provocative. His last special was about being taken off the air after a storm of right-wing critiques. Say what you want about cancel culture, but it’s clearly good marketing.
What makes Kumar stand out and meet the moment is his lack of caution. His funniest material can be appealingly reckless. His most virtuoso bit is an elaborate consideration of the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. There’s no doing it justice on the page, but its rigorous justification of violent thoughts carried the spirit of the ferocious comic Bill Hicks in a way that I haven’t seen in many years.
Most people look to comedy to escape from their troubles, something Kumar points out. He describes someone asking him why he can’t just do jokes about what’s in his refrigerator, which he ends up doing: Imagine Seinfeld meets Noam Chomsky.
But comedy has another smaller but still fertile tradition, as a vehicle for the unarticulated rage and anxiety in the air, especially from the powerless. Hannah Gadsby’s “Nanette” spoke to the #MeToo moment with ideas, but also through emotion.
Much of the best left-leaning Trump-era comedy right now, from comics like Ronny Chieng and Roy Wood Jr., is empathetic and cerebral. (Chieng tries to find common ground with Trump voters.) This might reflect a broader trend with democratic politics that has gotten more technocratic. But I suspect it also is a result of an increasing pessimism that comedy can lead to change. Jon Stewart channeled the anger of the moment on “The Daily Show” in the aughts. And the media imagined him as the new Walter Cronkite. Comedians have since become more realistic about their role.
Stewart himself says do not mistake political with cultural power, a sentiment Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live,” recently echoed. It’s true that there is only so much that jokes can do, but sometimes knowing your limitations can be a limitation too. Kumar isn’t trying to replace the news. His act is more art than politics, a window into his thoughts that is vulnerable enough to dig into mental health issues and poke fun at his own self-regard. His work has a blend of self-deprecation and ego.
There’s a wild ambition at its core. (He has confessed that there’s a part of him that believes he’s so important that he will be assassinated.) In a quieter tangent, he describes being a fearful child who found solace in comedy about dark things. At another point, he tells the audience his set list, revealing that his last bit is labeled “Rage.” He describes himself as an expert in that emotion, feeling and causing it, but mostly channeling it. You sense this in everything he says, including envy of the career of John Oliver.
Kumar, who has described himself as “the pied piper of leftist malcontents,” has made a coherent hour that not only expresses anger but is a defense of it as well. “I’m furious when I see what’s happening in the world,” he says, “and I am only saying that because I know you’re furious as well.”
Then he paused as people nodded. “And I’m trying to let you know, You’re not alone.”
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