Per the Daily Telegraph, “US cinema box office figures show only eight per cent of revenue last year came from comedy movies, down from 25 per cent a decade ago. Major comedic successes at the box office are now few and far between, with studio chiefs struggling to attract big names to film projects.”
Well, now that we live in a New Victorian Age where every word must be parsed for possible violation it’s hard to be funny, and it’s financially risky for studios.Take a look at what happened to the new independent comedy film Loqueesha, about a white man pretending to be a black woman on talk radio: it got slammed in the press and, though it hasn’t even been released, already has a one-star rating on IMDB. The film has lots of African-American acting talent who don’t think the film is racist at all, but it seems they just aren’t woke enough; no one ever is.
So humor, such as it now is, is migrating to lower-risk streaming projects, and will probably be of a very a safe pablum variety. Netflix isn’t going to risk its brand.
Comedians discussed the demise of comedy in the documentary Can We Take a Joke?, which won the Anthem Film Festival Grand Prize.