Bill Burr is going the way of the media armchair scolds

Bill Burr has built a successful stand-up comedy and film career on being the cranky scold next door – and his acts have always been tinged with the politics of the moment. He built his reputation as an expert on reading a room and knowing exactly how uncomfortable to make the people in said room while also making them laugh.

Beginning some time last year, however, Burr’s act started to risk taking a backseat to his media armchair-political scolding, whether it’s Israel, Ben Shapiro or now Elon Musk. It’s one thing to work material about any of those topics into a stand-up routine, as Burr has done with Israel, when he spoke about “launching missiles at people using kids as human shields.” Last year, he had a spat with Bill Maher on Maher’s podcast over the Middle East and Maher’s defense of Israel. He fired volleys back at Ben Shapiro, who criticized that back-and-forth and in several promotional appearances has decided to target Elon Musk and his “shitty cars.”

This is not a defense of Elon Musk. There is a lot of material to be drawn from Musk and his childlike-bewilderment playground act – but where Burr is erring is by falling into the trap of the armchair scold, a genre of entertainment that is not only overstuffed, but has become tiresome to the masses.

Late-night comedy shows are a great case study. Hosts would often poke fun at the politics of the moment or a president, but around the time Obama entered the stage, and Trump after, late-night hosts turned into self-affirming lecturers. Jimmy Kimmel, for instance, built a career on crude, male-driven humor, only to go on and take over ABC’s late-night spot, which he transformed into a grievance vessel for Hollywood liberals. In place of comedic monologues and jokes are political diatribes that have driven away a good part of the audience to places like Greg Gutfeld and Fox News. Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and to a certain extent even Jimmy Fallon have followed suit.

On a recent appearance on The Breakfast Club, Burr lamented that Musk threw out several “Sieg Heil” salutes and was at a loss at how the Democratic Party just let him get away with it. Burr here is sourcing his material from the bowels of ActBlue Twitter/X influencers. He can do far better than ripping off Harry Sisson and JoJofromJerz.

The political right has been misguided in their attack of Burr as well, claiming his wife, who is African American, woke-ified him and turned him into a DEI defender, which is complete nonsense. Burr has always been a lefty, but has also seen value in ridiculing both political sides, taking runs at Michelle Obama (“I’m sick of Obama’s wife”) and Hillary Clinton, whom he called the devil. He’s taken his turn targeting cancel culture, too, and was one of the first comics to do so. But as of late, Burr is losing the plot – and his media persona is dangerously close to overtaking his stand-up reputation, as it has with Howard Stern and Kimmel.

The highest-grossing comedian last year was Nate Bargatze – and “every-dude” comedian Shane Gillis also grew in stature. They have rocketed to stardom by reading the moment. The country is over the political scold act, whether it’s coming from Bill Burr or Hannah Gadsby – and there has been a return to normal dude/dad comedy. Beyond Bargatze’s deadpan delivery is the idea that, sure, the country has a lot of problems – inflation, the economy, wars in the Middle East – but he can’t deal with any of that, because he doesn’t even know what day trash day is.

Burr should not have to temper his comedy for anyone, or any moment, and Donald Trump and Elon Musk are certainly fair game; however, when you turn into just another Hollywood liberal ranting into a microphone during an interview, people will simply move on. It would be a shame if that happened to a great talent such as Burr.