Billy Connolly has called the rise of politically correct comedy “vomit-inducing”.
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The comedian, who retired from performing live in 2020 due to Parkinson’s disease, has said in a new interview that he’s against the idea that comedians should be more morally sensitive than in times past.
Referencing “Black comedians” aged “generally in their 50s or 60s” who fly the flag for controversial comedy that “almost doesn’t bear watching”, he told The Guardian that he thinks it’s “fantastically good for you”.
“They just say it like it is – it’s breathtaking,” he said of the cohort of unnamed comedians. “That’s wonderful and I’m glad they exist, because the social worker-ation that has passed through comedy is vomit-inducing.”
He continued: “Comedians never used to worry about what was correct to say. You said it, and you soon found out whether it was correct or not. And then you got on with it. And that was a good enough rule for me.”
Connolly was speaking to his wife and carer, the former comedian-turned-psychotherapist Pamela Stephenson Connolly, in the interview. The pair were responding to questions submitted by the outlet.
Elsewhere in the article Connolly opened up about his Parkinson’s, the early symptoms of which he began experiencing 2013.
Answering how the disease has evolved over time, the comedian said: “It’s very difficult to see the progression exactly, because a lot of things come and go.
“Recently I’ve noticed a deterioration in my balance. That was never such a problem before, but in the last year that has come and it has stayed. For some reason, I thought it would go away, because a lot of symptoms have come and gone away…just to defy the symptom spotters. The shaking has reappeared.”
Pamela interjected with, “Not much though,” before Connolly mentioned his “inability to get out of certain types of chairs”.
“The balance issue has been most significant, hasn’t it?” Pamela asked him. “Especially since, unfortunately, it resulted in you having a couple of serious falls.”
Connolly responded: “It’s funny, that fall I had when I landed on my jaw reminded me of a thing I used to do on stage. I used to say, ‘I fell out of bed, but luckily my face broke my fall.'”
“It wasn’t so funny when you broke your hip,” Pamela added.
Connolly replied: “It’s just added to the list of things that hold me back. I feel like I want to go for a walk, but I go for 50 yards and I want to go home, because I’m tired. I’m being encroached upon by this disease. It’s creeping up behind me and stopping me doing things. It’s a cruel disease.”
He added that the disease is “really, really slow-moving, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant”.
Speaking to reporters while promoting his ABC daytime courtroom series Judge Steve Harvey, the comedian, actor and TV host said that the only way he can do “one more special” is “if it’s at the end” of his career as he knows it.
“If I had tried to continue as a stand-up, there’s no way I could maintain it,” he said. “Political correctness has killed comedy. Every joke you tell now, it hurts somebody’s feelings.
“A joke has to be about something. It has to be about somebody. We can’t write jokes about puppies all the time. The joke can’t be about bushes all the time. Some of these jokes will have to be about people because that’s the most interesting topic.”