Name: Norm Macdonald on Comedians Being Cancelled
Uploaded: 2023-08-02T19:45:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on Comedians Being Cancelled' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-08-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald on Comedians Being Cancelled' from I'm not Norm on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-08-02. Transcript available.

You know, this kind of backlash happens so fast now because of social media.
And, you know, Adam, I know you've been involved with the comedy store for a
long time.
But when Louie jumped up at the comedy cellar the other night, a couple of
weeks ago,
the cellar has taken a lot of heat from people who are not necessarily
customers.
Right.
You know, people on the other side of the country or whatever.
And we didn't, you know, we never had that kind of thing happen before.
No.
Well, I'll tell you this, and I did not know this, and maybe you do.
Comedians have gone up against Louie.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I was talking to some...
Comedians have said this guy should not be able to ever perform again.
Yeah, I mean, I thought, you know, they all come...
You know, if you're a murderer...
I'm sorry.
No, no, no, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
But if you're a murderer, you go to jail, and they let you off, whatever, 20
years later.
And you try to get a job as a busboy.
And if the guy says, I'm not hiring that guy, he murdered, you know.
And you go, but he did his penance, you know, and now you give him a job.
That's the humane thing to do.
And people go, well, what about the murdered person?
And you go, well, of course, he got worse.
The guy that lost his life, he's doing worse.
But it doesn't mean you can't forgive or it's impossible to forgive.
I also don't feel anyone owes me an apology in public, you know.
I think, personally, that you owe an apology to anybody that you did ill to.
You owe an apology to people that your actions hurt in a financial way or in an
emotional way.
But nobody owes me an apology, you know.
So that's where your shock about comedians comes from.
Yeah, yeah, because I don't understand why they're so, you know.
I guess I just don't understand how there can be no rules, you know.
If rules are drawn out and set down, then that's one thing.
But, you know, I always thought the audience would decide whether you're an
objectionable comic or even a good comic, you know.
And so Louie went up here at the Comedy Cellar and the audience let him know.
I don't know what happened.
I wasn't there.
But if the audience don't like him, then the club won't book him.
I mean, that's how things work.
And, you know, just because your heart can break for more than one person at
the same time, you know.
And a person can do a bad thing and you can feel sorry for that person while
feeling worse for the person that had the bad thing done to them.
This is all so self-evident.
It's hard for me to unpack, but I wanted to use the word unpack.
Well, you know, we also always think of comedians being 100% free speech and
stuff like that.
And I don't know whether you follow this at the New Yorker Festival, but they
had Steve Bannon booked to come in and do an interview.
And all the big comedians said, I'm not going to be there if somebody
interviews Steve Bannon.
And, you know, and it wasn't a thing of, hey, we're giving an award to Steve Bannon.
But it was a chance for somebody from the New Yorker to interview him.
I mean, who knows what direction that would have went into, but people like Judd
Apatow and I'm trying to think of who Pat Niswold I know was in it.
And even Jimmy Fallon, they all said, well, we won't perform.
We won't come in and do the panel.
And I'm always surprised by that angle.
Yeah, I think a lot of people feel, my brother's a foreign correspondent, and
he did a four-year documentary on neo-Nazis.
And he interviewed all the neo-Nazis in the world, from Ernst Zundel all the
way up to David Irving.
And he didn't become a Nazi, you know, at all.
And so I think people go, you know, I certainly wouldn't be a Nazi by hearing
this, but Americans, you know, other than me, Americans are just people that
will believe whatever they hear.
And I think that's nonsense, you know.
I think that if there was a Nazi, a person could go watch him because it seems
like an entertaining thing, you know, just the same way you listen to a guy
screaming on the corner of the street.
You stop and listen to him.
Yeah, right.
You know what I mean?
Well, I mean, I would agree with you, except for I learned from your show that
Adam was in a cult for three years.
So I guess some people are easily molded.
I just want to stress it was not a Nazi cult.
You know, these cult leaders, they could, they could, they have a good gig
going.
Yeah, yeah.
And they all fall for the same trap, which is they start fucking everybody.
Yeah.
And if you just, you know, you have a good life.
People show up, they give you all your worldly goods, you got all the money,
and then you start having sex with the ladies.
Then, drunk with power, you're not even gay.
You start having sex with a man as well.
And, you know, and then people go, hey, I was watching Fred fuck your wife the
other day.
And I was thinking, any chance he's not Jesus?