While Popular Entertainers Fire at Will on Trump, Local Comics Find a Much Tougher Crowd
Humorists on the most national of levels���late-night talk show hosts, Saturday Night Live performers, and the like���have been spending months procuring audience laughs at the direct expense of (now) President-elect Donald Trump.
For the most part, it seems as though their efforts are well-received. For one thing, most of these shows are taped in New York City and Los Angeles, cities that are now well-established bastions of liberalism. Additionally, as much of the social media universe, vis-��-vis entertainment, seems to be aggressively ���managed��� by voices on the left, the feedback in the immediate aftermath of a particularly cutting joke or routine pointed at Trump is typically positive.
It may well be the case, however, that all of the love expressed for anti-Trump humorists on the national scene belies a much different local reality.
A piece over at the Boston Herald details some of the hassles that comedians are encountering when they try to take a decidedly anti-Trump posture with their material, saying that many local standups have found that jokes about Trump ���go over like a gold-plated balloon.���
Among others, the article quotes Boston comic Jody Sloane, who points out that the ���election was the most polarizing election in the history of our country,��� and goes on to say that ���to even lightly joke about Trump leads Trump supporters to assume you are a Hillary supporter and the hatred ensues.���
Comedian Jimmy Tingle agrees, saying that ���when I was performing leading up to the election, if you mentioned Hillary���s name, you alienated half your audience, if you mentioned Trump���s name, you alienated half your audience. When you mention people���s names or political party, that���s when people fall into their camps.���
In other words, what comics are apparently finding out is that when they do their thing in front of rank-and-file Americans, they find themselves in front of the same rank-and-file voters who made Donald Trump the next President of the United States.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
