dana-carvey1It’s not news that Hollywood and the entertainment community in general have a strong progressive-left political bias, but whenever a celebrity with strong credentials as an entertainer talks about it, that is news. As Christian Toto notes in his Big Hollywood story about an interview with comedian Dana Carvey, those who don’t toe the political line in the entertainment industry face a firestorm of hate.

Toto reports on an interview Carvey did for Carl Kozlowski’s Radio Titans podcast Kozversations, in which Carvey notes that the reluctance of comedians to criticize the president has been particularly notable:

“It took a while to find a way to satirize our president,” Carvey told Kozlowski. That doesn’t mean comedians should stay away from Obama jokes. It’s certainly not his method.

“I always grew up with ‘question authority,'” he says, adding that approach applies to any president regardless of race, creed or color.

“I’m from the old school–you go where the power is and you try to make fun of it,” he says. “When it becomes off limits to say or do certain things without being brutalized or censored or whatever, it’s unfortunate.”

As to the consequences of any deviation from the entertainment industry’s radical political orthodoxy, Carvey cites the case of fellow comedian Dennis Miller, who was lauded in his Saturday Night Days his political  humor, then was subjected to continual attacks for his humor criticizing progressive-leftism:

“If you live in New York or L.A. and you’re liberal and you’re playing to a liberal crowd it’s almost like a rally … it’s not edgy,” he says. “The true edge is what Dennis Miller did, and he’s been brutalized for it.”

Carvey said that now people are “afraid to make fun” of the president in the major comedy hubs of NYC and Los Angeles because they’ll be “labeled.”

Carvey notes that good satire targets the pompous and the hypocrites, but entertainment industry politics have forced comedians to a free ride to progressive-left power-wielders.

That appears to be beginning to change, as manifested by this Saturday Night Live sketch from last weekend, skewering President Obama for his unconstitutional approach to governance:

Such humor has been a long, long time coming, and the entertainment industry is still clearly in the tank for the progressive left, but even a little progress in this regard is welcome in this case.

As a side note, does anyone agree with me that Carvey would have made the best cohost with Kelly Ripa on her morning show, a position that eventually went to former NFL player Michael Strahan? Strahan is likeable and inoffensive, but Carvey, in his televised audition for the position, was both personable and very funny, projecting a personality that updated Regis Philbin’s goofy likeability. It seemed to me that Carvey had the best fit with the show’s personality and was by far the best of those who publicly auditioned for the role.

Listen to the Carvey interview here: http://archives.radiotitans.com/Kozversations/141106_DanaCarvey.mp3.