Laughter from the left
Six years after 9/11, Greg Proops says it’s finally OK for comics to attack the right wing again
Sharilyn Johnson



Much has changed in the world since Greg Proops last performed standup in Winnipeg.

While the comic has swung through Western Canada to perform improv with his former Whose Line Is It Anyway? castmates, his hosting gig as part of the Just for Laughs Comedy Tour marks his first chunk of solo stage time here since the summer of 2000, back when much political comedy still involved references to a Washington intern’s stained blue dress.

“We’ve all moved on. Six years ago we had different presidents and different PMs, and the world’s turned a bunch of times,” Proops says.

Nevertheless, the American comedian’s politics haven’t taken a turn to the right, even though his country has. Proops says he’s as much of an outspoken lefty as he’s ever been, if not more so.

“Except that I hate liberals more as I get older, too,” says Proops, 47, who did cast his mid-term election vote prior to joining the tour.

“I’m from California, and we have a lot of very annoying liberals,” he says, characterizing them as white middle-class Volvo drivers who adopt leftist politics to feel good about themselves.

Over the years, it’s become a comedic maxim that political satire tends to flourish when conservative governments are in control. With the current American administration, though, Proops says it took a while for the jokes to make their way through the clutter of terrorism fears and the possibility of war.

“I think the importance of satirical comedy has increased in the last few years,” he says. “The first couple of years after 9/11, it was not a popular thing to make fun of anything, because somehow that made you seditious. And now everyone realizes that the world is the way it is. Fortunately we have some really good practitioners, like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher.”

Political comedy has always been a field dominated by the left-leaning. It’s rarely successful otherwise — just look at the comedic decline of Dennis Miller, who abandoned his liberal views for a less entertaining conservative stance.

“He became very frightened after 9/11,” Proops says of Miller. “He decided the president was right about everything, and that really doesn’t make good comedy.

“Conservative comedy, by its very nature, tends to support the status quo,” he continues. “Our job is not to support the dominant paradigm. Our job is to be shit disturbers. Should you wish to disturb shit, that’s funny. Should you wish to say, ‘Everything’s great,’ that’s not funny.”

Proops also notes that right-wing pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh have become popular for attacking the left and mocking the disenfranchised. For the comedian, society’s inevitable progress — from gay marriage to stem-cell research to the legalization of pot — means a loss of control for a demographic that’s always held power in society.

“White men have seen it slipping away for the last 30 years, and rather than it making them accept that there’s going to be a table that everyone’s going to sit at, it’s made them hysterical,” he says.

Proops tries to keep the zealotry of pundits in perspective.

“You have to remember, it’s all show business. If you’re on TV or the radio, that’s not real politics. Politics is about what’s happening in your neighbourhood, not what some knucklehead says on TV, (someone) who gets paid to yell.”

Proops prefers to leave the ranting and raving to others so he can stay focused on his job.

“I don’t proselytize. I’m not there to convert you,” he promises. “I’m there to make jokes.”