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Wow. Trump Derangement Syndrome has killed Tenacious D. On stage in Australia yesterday, when asked to make a birthday wish, Kyle said "Don't miss trump next time."
Today, Jack Black cancelled their tour and appears to have killed the band.
I've found the reactions of intense disappointment that Trump wasn't murdered to be really disappointing but unsurprising. My parents (who I was with when it happened and I broke the news to them) immediately expressed disappointment that he was still alive. Watching people post these sentiments publicly online as if they are completely unaware that advocating for the assassination of your political opponents is really bad and completely unacceptable has left me amazed. How can people not realize that it's a bridge too far? They're literally saying that to preserve democracy, they need to assassinate the leading candidate, a level of cognitive dissonance beyond anything I've seen.
That said, I also find the current cancelations hilarious. The very people who are calling Trump "literally hitler" are now pearl clutching that it's not okay to try kill Hitler. The catastrophizing wasn't acceptable before either - maybe this snapped people out of their delusions?
I was surprised by my own reaction, too. I was a lot happier that he survived, and a lot more impressed with his immediate response than I expected to be. Trump grew in my esteem a lot.
I think it should have been taken in the spirit of a dark joke. Which sort of matches their aesthetic. But Jack Black is a big star and can't afford to have that kind of baggage.
It is interesting to see cancel culture changing valences once again.
What's the joke? What's the setup? What's the punchline? Explain the humor behind it.
It's a "joke" in the same way someone might be "joking" about your body odor, and then backing off when you take offense. It's plausible deniability for a thing they really believe.
The setup was Jack Black singing Kyle Happy Birthday, and asking him to make a wish. "Don't miss Trump next time" was the punchline.
It's an example of shock humour. Similar to the average Jimmy Carr quip. "People always talk about how Hitler murdered 6 million Jews. They never mention how he also killed 2 million Gypsies. No one likes to focus on the positives."
A) Jimmy Carr has a brand. He's up there with Anthony Jeselnik for dark humor. Dark humor is not even remotely in Tenacious D's wheelhouse.
B) It's nakedly obvious Jimmy Carr doesn't believe 3 million gypsies being killed was a positive. The punchline is the shock value sure, but also playing a character that appears to possess almost every terrible belief you can imagine, void of all morality or social shame.
Tenacious D saying they wish the president had been assassinated as a birthday wish possesses neither of these points in their favor. It's not their brand, and it's not immediately obvious they don't actually believe it. Because lots of people believe it. Especially in their business. They haven't been shy about it for the last 8 years, and no part of it has been joking. All that's changed is that now people aren't tolerating it now that an attempt has actually been made.
It's like being a nazi, being flippant and jovial about the holocaust in 1942, and claiming it was just a joke. Or a KKK member in the 50's being really encouraging about lynching the local black kid who was seen with a white girl, and then backing off and claiming it was just a joke.
I don't buy it.
"I can't wait to take Kage back to Hell
I'm gonna fill him with my hot demon gel"
Their second most popular song jokes about a protagonist potentially being raped for eternity by Satan.
But your point (B) is much more persuasive.
I'm gonna fill him with my hot demon gel"
Their second most popular song jokes about a protagonist potentially being raped for eternity by Satan.
This isn’t a “dark joke” in the mold of Jimmy Carr or Anthony Jeselnik, because approximately zero of Tenacious D’s listeners actually believe in Satan or hell, and therefore this joke isn’t rubbing up against any of their actual moral sensibilities. Yeah, it’s puerile, homoerotic, and makes light of Satan, so it would certainly be a “dark joke” if said by, for example, a Catholic priest in the course of a church service, but in the context of a Tenacious D song it’s a very “light joke”.
What made the Trump joke different is that political humor, especially of the violent nature, is absolutely not part of their act (even if, as others have pointed out, the members have made political comments outside of their capacity as Tenacious D) and therefore it actually is shocking to the political sensibilities of some listeners.
The rape element is as shocking in a modern polite society context as the Satan element is in a Christian one.
I don’t think that’s true. I hear people make prison rape “don’t drop the soap” jokes all the time. Men raping women is something it’s taboo to joke about. A man (or, in this case, a male deity) raping another man - especially when the context is this over-the-top and obviously tongue-in-cheek - is far, far less taboo to joke about, especially to this particular audience.
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