The long whimpering finish of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week confirmed a sad truth. Hollywood killed comedy. A century of laughter provoked by comic geniuses — Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Fields, Hope, Brooks, Martin, Carrey, and Saturday Night Live alumni (Belushi, Aykroyd, Murray, Murphy, Sandler, Ferrell, Myers, Stiller) ended in the first decade of this one. Mirth has either been missing from the screen since 2010 or reduced to conservative man-bashing, as on every late-night show. The latter is questionably rewarded by “clapter,” the former depends on mocking the now unmockable — to Hollywoke if not the audience.
The Laugh’s on Hollywood
The disappearance of comic risk has left American entertainment joyless, preachy, and unintentionally absurd.
