Killing Comedy

Political correctness “is the death of comedy,” Mel Brooks told the BBC last week — echoing the warnings of Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and other comedians.

The genius behind “The Producers,” “Blazing Saddles” and countless other transgressive hilarity explained: “Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. Comedy is the lecherous little elf whispering in the king’s ear, always telling the truth about human behavior.”

It’s not that he doesn’t get that some topics are sensitive, admitting he wouldn’t try to get jokes out of Nazis killing kids. But public life is now so “stupidly politically correct” that he doesn’t think he could do “Blazing Saddles,” with so many characters using racist slurs, today.

Rock has complained that campuses are now “too conservative” — meaning, “not in their political views,” but rather “in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody. You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.”

Seinfeld says, “A lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges, they’re so PC.’ ”

And the great John Cleese, commiserating with Bill Maher, sighed that PC “starts off as a halfway decent idea and then it goes completely wrong. It is taken ad absurdum.”

Muhammad Ali was never a professional comedian, but nailed it: “Truth is the funniest joke of all.” And comedy, done right, hits hardest when it expresses a truth so deep that only laughter can let it out safely. Which is why the rush to crush “offensive” speech is also death for truth.