CLOSE TO THE WIND: THREE COMEDIANS WHO DEFY POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Amy Schumer

Before she was making cuddly, feel-good movies abut female empowerment and positive body image, Amy Schumer was making jokes like “Looks like someone’s getting evicted” about abortion and telling Mike Tyson — to his face — “Guys don’t know whether to run from your face tattoo — or finish on it.”

The pressures of megastardom have made her tone down her act, but she still occasionally runs roughshod over cosy consensus.

Chris Rock

Be it men and women, race relations or family, Rock never shies away from making an offensive point. In an interview with Vulture magazine, he said he stopped doing shows at colleges because they were “too conservative”.

“Not in their political views,” he clarified, “but in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody. You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.”

John Cleese

The former Monty Python star has dismissed political correctness as “condescending,” and explained how he stopped making race-related jokes after audiences were angered by jokes about Mexicans in his routine.

As he put it: “We make jokes about Swedes and Germans and French and English and Canadians and Americans. Why can’t we make jokes about Mexicans? Is it because they are so feeble that they can’t look after themselves? It’s very, very condescending there.”