Conan O’Brien Says Donald Trump Has Been Bad for Comedy

Conan O’Brien is concerned that the anger over Donald Trump has caused comedians to lose their humor. O’Brien spoke at the Oxford Union earlier this week and reflected on how the ire around the current administration has resulted in less laughs and too much fury.

“Comedy needs a straight line to go off of,” he said. “And we don’t have a straight line right now. We have a very bendy, rubbery line. We have a Slinky. We have a fire hose that’s whipping around, spewing water at 100 miles an hour or something else. So, comedically, it’s been very challenging.”

O’Brien continued, “I think some comics go the route of ‘I’m going to just say F Trump all the time,’ or that’s their comedy. And I think, well, now a little bit you’re being co-opted because you’re so angry. You’ve been lulled. It’s like a siren leading you into the rocks. You’ve been lulled into just saying, ‘F Trump. F Trump. F Trump. Screw this guy.’ And I think you’ve now put down your best weapon, which is being funny, and you’ve exchanged it for anger.”

The comedian explained that he doesn’t buy the argument that things are too serious to be funny right now.

“I think, well, if you’re a comedian, you always need to be funny,” he said. “You just have to find a way. And you you just have to find a way to channel that anger. Because good art will always be a great weapon, will always be a perfect weapon against power, but if you’re just screaming and you’re just angry, you’ve lost your best tool in the toolbox.”

During his talk, O’Brien recounted a memory from his time working on The Harvard Lampoon. “There was one magazine we could never do a parody of, which is the National Enquirer,” he said. He explained the magazine is “the one that says ‘Elvis found in Titanic lifeboat 105 years after sinking. He is now a woman, and he’s married a giant peanut butter sandwich.’”

He noted, “How do you parody that? You can’t. With Trump, we have a similar situation in comedy, which is people saying, ‘We’ve got a great Trump sketch for you. In this one, he’s kind of talking crazy… and he tears down half the White House to build a giant ballroom, and he says it’s going to be the new Mar-a-Lago.’ ‘Yeah, no, that happened yesterday.’”

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Despite O’Brien’s comments, the comedian has been vocal about the Trump administration’s actions. He stood up in support of Jimmy Kimmel last year when Jimmy Kimmel Live was temporarily suspended.

“The suspension of @jimmykimmel and the promise to silence other Late Night hosts for criticizing the administration should disturb everyone on the Right, Left, and Center,” he wrote on social media. “It’s wrong and anyone with a conscience knows it’s wrong.”