Julia Louis-Dreyfus doubles down on political correctness in comedy: ‘People are continuing to make jokes’
"Seinfeld" actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus said that she is in favor of comedy "evolving" and suggested political correctness is not hamstringing comedy acts.
"Seinfeld" and "Veep" star Julia Louis-Dreyfus doubled down on her belief that political correctness is not impacting comedy on Thursday, proclaiming that people in the industry are not being restricted from making jokes.
"People are continuing to make jokes. It’s continuing. Nobody’s being—we’re not being hamstrung and I am in big favor of being, of evolving," she told Trevor Noah on his "What Now?" podcast.
Noah concurred with her comments and suggested that accepting evolution does not necessarily mean the past was "bad."
"There are things that society deemed very acceptable it doesn’t anymore. Like right now, we could be doing things in comedy or in conversations that people think are cool today and then in 20 years, they’ll be like, ‘Oh.’ We might even go like, ‘Huh, I spoke like that," he said.
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"Yeah, like, I can’t believe I said that. I hadn’t realized. I hadn’t realized. I wasn’t looking at it through that lens. There’s more to understand. There’s a lot we don’t understand," Louis-Dreyfus replied.
During the discussion, Noah also praised Louis-Dreyfus’ past comments in which she disagreed with her former co-star, Jerry Seinfeld, about the state of comedy.
"If you look back on comedy and drama both, let’s say 30 years ago, through the lens of today, you might find bits and pieces that don’t age well. And I think to have an antenna about sensitivities is not a bad thing," Louis-Dreyfus said in a June interview with The New York Times.
She continued, "It doesn’t mean that all comedy goes out the window as a result. When I hear people starting to complain about political correctness – and I understand why people might push back on it – but to me that’s a red flag because it sometimes means something else. I believe being aware of certain sensitivities is not a bad thing."
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Seinfeld made headlines in May during an appearance on the New Yorker’s Radio Hour by lambasting the "extreme left" for making comedy too politically correct and driving it off television.
"It used to be that you'd go home at the end of the day, most people would go, ‘Oh, ’Cheers' is on. Oh, ‘M.A.S.H.’ is on. Oh, ‘[The] Mary Tyler Moore [Show]’ is on, ‘All in the Family’ is on.' You just expected [there will] be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight," he said.
"Well, guess what? Where is it? Where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and PC c--- and people worrying so much about offending other people."
Fox News’ Elizabeth Stanton contributed to this report.