Comedy has been a target of cancel culture since long before the left’s current woke crusade. This makes a lot of sense. After all, stand-...
Comedy has been a target of cancel culture since long before the left’s current woke crusade. This makes a lot of sense. After all, stand-up is all about getting laughs, and often that involves attacking the establishment, which tends to make some enemies.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, going after the sponsors and advertisers of comedians was actually a more common tactic of the religious right (although, not to nearly the same degree as today’s woke crusaders). Most often this would come in the form of Christian mothers’ advocacy groups looking to cancel comedians for telling obscene jokes.
At times, those efforts were successful, but more often they failed. After all, at that time, the left-wing establishment had comedians’ backs, especially as they broke against the right-wing establishment’s norms.
In the last 20 to 30 years, however, things changed. The progressive left asserted dominance over the country’s cultural institutions — media, entertainment and so on — and, all of a sudden, challenging the establishment became unacceptable. That’s why, when Adam Carolla attempted to pitch his new series of comedy specials — “Truth Yeller” — to places like Netflix and HBO, none of the traditional networks were having it.
This certainly wasn’t because those networks believed such a series wouldn’t be profitable — as a comedian, podcaster and radio personality, Carolla has built up an enormous following. The reason networks wanted to distance themselves is because Carolla isn’t afraid to share his conservative point of view.
“They don’t like guys like me on their network,” Carolla told The Western Journal.
“In a town known as Hollywood, where they never stop talking about the evils of McCarthyism, they’ve decided to attempt to stifle everyone’s voice who disagrees with them.”
So, Carolla went to the one place that wouldn’t cancel him — The Daily Wire. In the months since the conservative company announced its new initiative to produce entertainment content, The Daily Wire has seen many great successes. From the studio’s debut action-thriller “Run Hide Fight” to its Candace Owens-hosted conservative take on the Oprah-style talk show format, “Candace,” The Daily Wire keeps seeing success after success.
Through its partnership with Carolla, the company now hopes to delve into the world of comedy.
“They want to do comedy. I want to do comedy. There’s no play under the traditional media, let’s say, in Hollywood. So, why not go over to The Daily Wire and do it there?” Carolla said.
“God bless The Daily Wire for having a platform and a place where people that are basically being blackballed in Hollywood can go.”
Carolla isn’t the first Hollywood celebrity to benefit from The Daily Wire’s riposte to Hollywood’s woke cancel culture. After popular actress Gina Carano was fired from working on Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” The Daily Wire hired her to work on several new projects, including the upcoming western feature-film “Terror on the Prarie.”
More recently, The Daily Wire announced a new partnership with former ESPN sideline reporter Allison Williams, who had been ousted from the company for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
When it came to his own venture with the conservative studio, it didn’t take much convincing for Carolla to get popular comedians like Jay Leno and Rob Riggle to join him. This was for a number of reasons, chief among them being the fact that, in Carolla’s own words, “The Daily Wire pays.”
It wasn’t all about the financials, however. Carolla believes many of his guests hope to perform in front of a more diverse audience and, in general, most comedians today would “prefer not to perform in front of a progressive audience.”
“I look at conservative, ‘conservative audiences,’ as sort of regular folk, and I think everyone would rather perform in front of regular folks than regular woke,” Carolla told The Western Journal.
Carolla’s new series isn’t a “political stand-up show.” Unlike the Hannah Gadsbys of the world (and there are many of those nowadays), The Daily Wire’s content isn’t aiming to produce political propaganda.
In the first episode of Carolla’s new series, which debuted on Thursday, the comedian takes aim at Joe Biden — and Donald Trump. Both he and his guests aren’t trying to push politics — they’re trying to make people laugh.
That’s why “Truth Yeller” stands out from the other comedy series and specials one might find at places like Netflix or HBO. A unique format keeps things fresh, high-powered guests keep the audience laughing and a lack of political correctness breaths some fresh air into a genre that’s sorely needed some.
More importantly, unlike most mainstream comedy specials one might see in 2021, conservatives can watch “Truth Yeller” knowing that the people who made it don’t hate them for everything they believe.
Head over to The Daily Wire to watch Adam Carolla’s “Truth Yeller.” The first two episodes, featuring comedians Jay Leno and Rob Riggle, are now streaming.
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