Thursday, July 21, 2005

the mind of carlos mencia

Recently Comedy Central decided to give Carlos Mencia a show called Mind of Mencia and put it in timeslot which used to belong to Dave Chapelle's Show. To be honest, I haven't seen a whole lot of the show, but I've seen him in the past. At first I was just excited to see a Latino stannd-up comedian but the more I heard him, the more I ended up not liking his politics. His CD Take a Joke America seemed to almost take an apolegetic attitude towards white racism. And his right-wing tendancies seem to get in the way of me really getting into his comedy.

It's weird to me. At what point did comedy become so political? I mean, there has always been poltical humor, but in the post-Daily Show era there seems to be this bizzare convergence between the opinionated political pundits and the stand-up comedians.

For example take a look at a recent interview with Tucker Carlson and Carlos Mencia:

Carlson: So you're clearly a conservative.

Mencia: You know what? I think I am. But I can't say that I'm a conservative because of course I grew up Hispanic and you know, there's Jesus Christ and Kennedy in my mom's house. And - you know what I mean? I could never actually say it.

Carlson: Even as a comedian, even though you have license to tell the truth you can't admit you're a right-wing -

Mencia: No, all my views are totally that. They pretty much are. But I can't actually say it because my mom would kill me and she's still my mom.

Carlson: She doesn't have a sense of humor about that?

Mencia: No if my mom heard me tell you, listen, I would - immediately the phone would ring. I can't believe you told the man with the bow tie I saw him on CNN how you were like him. How could you do that? But between you and me you don't have read between the lines.


videoclips from another Carlos Mencia interview

An older LA Times piece: Culture Clash on "South Park" Republicans, Tough Crowd (a comedy show hosted by Colin Quinn where I believe Mencia was an occasional guest) and other ways in which the culture has been slowly shifting to the right.

1 comment:

Abdul-Halim V. said...

Yes, that would be great. I've seen some of his stand-up on tv and he is definitely more likeable than Carlos Mencia.