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English 101

Mr. -------

November 18th, 2018

How Not to Build Bridges

The University of California at Berkeley had their 2014 winter commencement align with

the 50th anniversary of their school’s free speech movement. A political comedian, Bill Maher,

arrived to give the commencement speech to these liberal students and had has an important

message: “In my house, the only thing we did not have tolerance for was intolerance… if you

call yourself a liberal, you have to fight oppression, from wherever oppression comes from,

especially [oppression] of... free thinkers. That’s what makes you a liberal! And that’s the last

thing I’m going to suggest to you, be a free thinker” (Commencement 10:43). His message is

particularly relevant to the graduates, the college, and himself being he was almost censored and

not allowed to give that speech. There has been a growing trend of censorship in the name of

political correctness on college campuses. This loss of free speech not only affects politics and

dialog, but also the messages and abilities of comedy. comedy’s ability to entertain and make

people think about controversial topics.

Although Maher did give the commencement speech about the future of the students, the

environment, and the free thinkers among them, there was conflict surrounding whether or not he

would be allowed to. UC Berkeley is a liberal arts college, one with a historically politically

liberal student body, and was celebrating the anniversary of their Free Speech Movement, a
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peaceful protest by the students in the mid-sixties for the right to express political views and

partake in political activities on campus (Free Speech). A council of students did appropriately

invite Maher, a liberal comedian with controversial liberal opinions, to come speak for the

commencement. Unfortunately the climate on this college campus, and on many other ones, is

one of over-sensitivity. A group of students strongly dislike Maher for being an open atheist that

regularly makes making jokes at the expense of Islam. They went as far as to start a petition to

stop him from speaking at the school, and held up signs in protest during his speech.

Despite a council of students originally inviting him to come speak, the reaction from this

minority of the student body, only about 4,000 signatures, caused them to retract their invitation

(Ahmed).With some of the media reporting on the conflict, Maher publicly responded on his

show, Real Time with Bill Maher, by saying he is coming to the graduation whether or not they

let him speak, and expressed concern for the future reputation of those who identify with liberals

and liberal college campuses (Responds to UC Berkeley). Soon after, the university

administration stepped in and said Maher is coming and speaking, they will not censor a

commencement speech because of his beliefs on religion and what he might say

(Commencement). The speech he did give was about the graduates and for the graduates, but

with only an off hand joke about being allowed to speak freely and the undertones of speaking

up as a free thinker. Unfortunately the message was not heard by the university. This situation of

Maher trying to give a simple speech with some mild comedy on a college campus and the

reaction, conflict, and controversy that surrounded it is only one prime example of growing

political correctness and sensitivity on college campuses nationwide. These events happened in

the fall of 2014, and since then these attitudes from students have only worsened the state of free

speech on campuses.
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Even with the media coverage and speech given by Maher, UC Berkeley never learned its

lesson from those series of events. Even greater conflict developed on a larger scale with more

censorship, stopping speeches, and disrupting rallies on campus. Starting in spring of 2017 at the

same university, Milo Yiannopoulos was to give a conservative political speech to the students

on campus but was unable to. A series of students started a petition to not allow him to speak and

a protest outside the building was growing. Soon before it could begin, the speech was cancelled

due to the crowd starting to riot, burn things, destroy property, and attack people in support of

Milo (Berkeley protests). The very next month, one of many groups participating in peaceful

pro-Trump rallies across the country formed at the university. This was the only group of these

rallies that sparked violent conflict and rioting when in contact with anti-Trump supporters

(Berkeley protests). The university and its students show what trend is to be expected on this

‘liberal’ college campus. This clearly displayed the growing trend of the students’ reactions and

treatment of future rallies. Again the next month, in reaction to what happened to the originally

previous month’s peaceful rallies, a free speech rally with various political speakers was to be

held. Again, riots, violence, and the assault of many innocent people involved took place

(Berkeley protests). Later that same month, the university took action, citing real safety

concerns, by trying to cancel all speakers that would try attempting to give speeches at the school

citing real safety concerns. Now speakers and rallies were closely monitored by multiple police

officers, reducing the violence down to only a couple arrests each time (Berkeley protests).

Although the university began asking people to not speak at all, and continued to increase its

security budget, the same increase in violence and protest continued. This obvious pattern only

becomes worse and worse, even continuing well into the fall. Each time it escalates in cost of

security, turn out of people trying to speak, and students protesting politicians from both sides of
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politics (Berkeley protests). This is only a brief history of some of the conflict at UC Berkeley

over speakers attempting to give their opinions openly. UC Berkeley this college is a poster child

for the attitudes and actions against free speech that have been developing at many college

campuses across the US.

It goes without saying that politics in the US have been trending over time towards

becoming very charged and dividing. Although much of the visible conflict is over political

candidates and supporters taking a stand for trying to speak their views what they try to say,

there are unseen consequences on a closely related form of expression and speech: comedy. The

Atlantic released an article titled That’s Not Funny! In in 2015 detailing the process by which

committees of students select entertainment, including comedians, to perform on their college

campuses (Flanagan). Very similar to the same committee that selected Maher to speak at UC

Berkeley, the students themselves are vetting and carefully selecting their own form and flavor

of entertainment on campus. Unlike political speakers that are sometimes invited by students, the

administration, or themselves, these comedians are carefully screened and interrogated until all

their content is vaccinated against any form of offence possible. Even if the comedian chooses to

go goes off script and presents their own unauthorized bit or perspective on a topic deemed too

insensitive for the student body, their paycheck is no longer waiting for them at the end of the

performance (Flanagan 54). This selection process that goes on for all college campuses across

the US is brutal on the freedom of comedy and the topics it can touch on. Much of comedy is

based on irony and absurdity in controversial concepts. Comedians often work people around to

new or unique perspectives that they would not normally ever consider. When comedy is trapped

into a box of political correctness and not laughed at, people’s perspectives become trapped in

that same box, and controversial subjects are never spoken about. This is not just simple
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censorship of individual words, but a restriction on what can be talked about, what can be openly

thought about, and on the perspectives of people.

Provided these committees and the shifting atmosphere of college campuses, many

professional comedians that are being affected have spoken out against these changes. The Wrap,

among many other news publishers during 2015, interviewed and reported on professional

comedians speaking out against these growing trends on college campuses (Donnelly). In

particular, Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock’s interviews warning other comedians to stay away

from this college ‘circuit’ that had been built. One of Seinfeld’s previous writers turned

comedian, Peter Mehlman, also mentioned he could see Maher running into conflict because he

was sometimes more extreme, and then expressed concern that not even Seinfeld was able to

satisfy these committees. Carlos Mencia, along with some comedians, are willing to change and

shift around their ideas to appease colleges, but still complain about the decrease in the quantity

of colleges willing to hire them decreasing over time. A long time writer of SNL, Horatio Sanz,

comments on why jokes are intentionally offensive: “I want you to think about that,” not simply

refuse to listen entirely (Donnelly).

Provided these trends of censorship on college campuses and these reactions from

affected comedians, one may question why are college students doing this? What can be done to

reverse these trends? While professional comedians have their own understanding of the world

and similar personal tendencies, college students are also a specific separate group with many a

shared viewpoint characteristics and distinguishing characteristics from other groups of people.

Aside from these individual differences, this conflict is also a result of differing perspective of

and a growing discussion about the performativity of this kind of language.

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In the year 2015, there was a study done by the University of New Mexico comparing

The Big Five personality traits between four groups of people: college students, professional

comedians, amature stand-up comedians, and humor writers. The results and discussion focused

will focus on performing professional comedians compared to the college students. Professional

comedians were a unique and outlying group from the others. When compared to the students,

they have a significantly higher openness, and relatively low conscientiousness, extraversion,

and agreeableness (Greengross). Each trait used for this psychological study, and many other

academic sources, contain many interrelated concepts. For example, it would be obvious that all

comedian groups have a higher ‘openness’ because this pertains to creative ability. At the same

time, it also contains one’s acceptance of new experiences, ability to take on challenges, and

thinking about abstract concepts. With the trends of political correctness and censoring other’s

opinions on campus, it does not come as a surprise that there is the greatest difference in between

the groups with this trait. The second most important trait would be the comedians’ low

‘agreeableness’. They do not have nearly as much empathy and emotional investment in the

problems of others, especially when writing comedic bits that often are at the expense of another

group of people. Another trait that contrasts between groups would be ‘conscientiousness’, often

about a lack of structure, details, and order in the comedian’s thoughts. This disregard can be

easily seen in different comedians struggling to adapt to the changing politically-correct

identities for groups of people, or audiences asking them to tone down their haphazardous

language in shows.

Even with these personality differences between groups, perspective and understanding

of comedic language’s performativity is the greatest factor in these growing trends of conflict. In

2013, Daniel Tosh found himself in controversy about a particularly offensive joke about rape in
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response to an audience member confronting him about the seriousness of rape the topic. After

the dust had settled in 2016, the University of Denver did a study and discussion on how college

students viewed the conflict over Tosh’s rape jokes. P , p articularly between the people who

defended the ability to joke about rape and those who condemned the subject as never

acceptable. All interviewed comedians, media outlets that reported on it, and college students in

discussion fell into the framework and arguments for one perspective or the other: One that

maintains the show, Tosh, and society’s default point of view is from men, and holds the

generalization that men have some form of privilege and power women do not. The less popular

perspective is fundamentally feminist and views the show’s intended audience as gender neutral

and makes connections between men joking about their position as a means of reinforcing the

stereotype they hold some privilege. The study continues referencing these two generalized view

points as a A dominant-patriarchal frame or an oppositional-feminist frame (Pérez). As the less

popular interpretation and understanding of offensive humor grows, so does the direct negative

reaction to offensive or supposedly offensive jokes. The three major avenues of argument are as

follows: Authorial intent, comedic language’s performativity, and society’s reaction as a free-

market.

It is the case that when a comedian is trying to tell a joke, he may intentionally be

offensive and break social expectations with controversy. This is not his direct goal, but this is

only a tool that is used for the purposes of the comedy like entertaining the audience, conveying

a message, revealing irony, or displaying a new perspective. When one ignores the comedian’s

intent in telling jokes and interprets comedy without the aspect of humor, there is nothing left but

purposeless offense and aggression. This is becoming the case with some students claiming

comedians are merely “popular bullies” that an uninvolved crowd can laugh along side alongside
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without feeling responsible. This is also sometimes described as “hipster racism” or “hipster

sexism”, or the use of derogatory jokes against these groups under the false vale of satire or irony

(Pérez). When a comedian on stage makes jokes at the expense of another group, they are

intentionally being ironic or displaying satire. That is fundamental to what comedy is. When

people forget or attempt to deny this irony, all comedians quickly become horrible crazy people

that are supported by a large group of partially immoral bystanders for mear entertainment.

Along with the comedian’s intents with entertaining an audience, there is the more

challenging understanding of comedic language’s performativity. Despite some claiming there is

no significant or reaching real life effect of comedic language, there are intended and unintended

effects that form a very real counterpoint to offensive content. In the particular study looking at

reactions to Tosh’s offensive content, they cite the very real connection between sexist jokes and

the increase with actual sexist violence (Pérez). Although this reflects the negative effects of

desensitizing an audience to particularly controversial topics, it is not often that people enjoy

these types of jokes alone or all the time. The positive effects and abilities of comedy to

comment on power structures and display cultural irony far outweighs the situations in which

people’s actions are slightly changed.

When comedy brings a change in perspective, there is outstanding and amazing change in

the world between people. When comedy’s perspectives and abilities are removed, people loose

loses these insights and closes themselves off more and more. The problems of censorship at UC

Berkeley are not only isolated to that campus alone, and these problems are not harmless

removal of unpopular opinions. The lesson that the university never learned is most clearly stated

by an interview between Maher and Milo years after their individual experiences being

personally attacked at UC Berkeley. Maher is a controversial liberal political comedian and Milo
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is a controversial conservative politician. They vehemently disagree on many topics and share

the extreme opposites on many views, but they were able to come together to discuss what had

happened at UC Berkeley, “These sort of [people] policing humor for racism and sexism is

utterly wrongheaded, not just because normally it isn’t there, but because that’s how we build

bridges not how we break them” (Interview 6:41). Comedy is one of the many key parts of free

speech, and the trends and actions of college campuses are hurting comedy. All the laughter,

perspective, and benefits of comedy are threatened by the growth of censorship and political

correctness that works against comedy.

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Works Cited

Ahmed, Khwaja. “Stop Bill Maher from speaking at UC Berkeley's December graduation.”

October 2014. www.change.org/p/university-of-california-berkeley-stop-bill-maher-

from-speaking-at-uc-berkeley-s-december-graduation.

“2017 Berkeley protests.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Web.

Accessed 13 November 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Berkeley_protests.

“Bill Maher @ Berkeley 2014 Winter Commencement.” YouTube, uploaded by UC Berkeley,

22 December 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP1wJvuA-Dk.

“Bill Maher Responds to UC Berkeley Petition.” YouTube, uploaded by Real Time with Bill

Maher, 31 October 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=216&v=wcB-

zvsRslY.

Donnelly, Matt and Zerbib, Kathy. “Comedians Dump Campus Gigs: When Did Colleges Lose

Their Sense of Humor?” The Wrap, 24 August 2015, www.thewrap.com/comedians-

avoiding-campus-when-did-universities-lose-their-sense-of-humor/.

Flanagan, Caitlin. “That’s Not Funny!” Atlantic, vol. 316, no. 2, Sept. 2015, pp. 54–58.

EBSCOhost,

login.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/login?url=search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h

&AN=108673527&site=ehost-live.

”Free Speech Movement” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Web.

Accessed 13 November 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#Today.

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Greengross, Gil, and Geoffrey F. Miller. “The Big Five Personality Traits of Professional

Comedians Compared to Amateur Comedians, Comedy Writers, and College Students.”

Personality & Individual Differences, vol. 47, no. 2, July 2009, pp. 79–83. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.01.045.

“Milo Yiannopoulos Interview | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)”. YouTube, uploaded by

Real Time with Bill Maher, 17 February 2017,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lImHh7fqrQo.

Pérez, Raúl, and Viveca S. Greene. “Debating Rape Jokes vs. Rape Culture: Framing and

Counter-Framing Misogynistic Comedy.” Social Semiotics, vol. 26, no. 3, June 2016, pp.

265–282. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10350330.2015.1134823.