Todd Phillips has largely been a filmmaker that has had his career deeply embedded in comedy. He came onto the scene with Road Trip and followed that up with Old School. He exploded even larger with The Hangover and while he dabbled in some serious material with War Dogs, it still had some comedic aspects fall back on.

Joker was a whole different game for filmmaker Todd Phillips, and as we reported last week, one reason for moving on had to do with “woke culture” and how it’s ruining comedy to the point where it’s impossible to be funny without offending someone.

I knew there were plenty of comedians and creatives out there who would push back against this, but Marc Maron — who had a small role in Joker — was not one I expected. Speaking on his own WTF Podcast, he spoke out against Phillips’ comments (via The Playlist).

“There’s plenty of people being funny right now. Not only being funny but being really fucking funny,” said Maron. “There are still lines to be rode. If you like to ride a line, you can still ride a line. If you want to take chances, you can still take chances. Really, the only thing that’s off the table, culturally, at this juncture –and not even entirely– is shamelessly punching down for the sheer joy of hurting people. For the sheer excitement and laughter that some people get from causing people pain, from making people uncomfortable, from making people feel excluded. Y’know, that excitement.”

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“As I’ve said before,” Maron added, “it’s no excuse. If you’re too intimidated to try to do comedy that is deep or provocative, or even a little controversial, without hurting people, then you’re not good at what you do. Or maybe you’re just insensitive.”

Maron does go on to say that there are people who are genuinely just trying to see how far they can push the envelope and aren’t really trying to hurt people before concluding:

“Bottom line is no one is saying you can’t say things or do things. It’s just that it’s going to be received a certain way by certain people and you’re gonna have to shoulder that. And if you’re isolated or marginalized or pushed into a corner because of your point of view or what you have to say, yet you still have a crew of people that enjoy it, there you go! Those are your people. Enjoy your people.”

In case you forgot the quote from Phillips, here’s what he said to Vanity Fair.

“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture. There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the f**king funny guys are like, ‘F**k this shit, because I don’t want to offend you.’ It’s hard to argue with 30 million people on Twitter. You just can’t do it, right? So you just go, ‘I’m out.’ I’m out, and you know what? With all my comedies—I think that what comedies in general all have in common—is they’re irreverent. So I go, ‘How do I do something irreverent, but f**k comedy? Oh I know, let’s take the comic book movie universe and turn it on its head with this.’ And so that’s really where that came from.”

So, what do you think of Maron’s response? Let us know down below!

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SOURCE: WTF Podcast (via The Playlist)