“It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” Risk E. Rat, and the Woke Era’s Comedy Quandary

“Oh, hell no,” Jamari proclaimed with affected disgust. He was hovering in the doorway of the small on-campus performance space that my sketch comedy troupe was readying. I had founded the group with my friend Keith, and our debut performance was an hour away. Jamari clearly meant for the entire venue to hear him. He lingered in the entrance until all eyes were on him. His eyes remained fixed on the 5 x 8 Confederate replica flag adorning the back of the stage. Confident he had our attention, he and his three companions stormed off in a blaze of righteous indignation. The flag was a prop for our opening sketch, “Y Not 2K?”, a satire of the paranoid and often bigoted conspiracy theories running rampant at the turn of the millennium and the rising tide of backwoods militia movements that often trafficked in them. Jamari and his friends would have known as much had they taken a moment to ask. Such a tempered approach, however, would have denied them their performative outrage. “Wait! Wait!”, cast member Katie yelled running after the cohort. “We’re MAKING FUN of it.” Katie’s response was far more productive than my knee jerk declaration of “eh, f*** ‘em.” After a short debriefing from Katie, Jamari and friends stayed for the show. By intermission, they were laughing as hard as anybody in the crowd. “We could not do that that today,” I lamented as Keith and I caught up over beers recently. <a href="https://fanfare.pub/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-risk-e-rat-and-the-woke-era-s-comedy-quandary-14e466fc62f8">Website</a>