I personally find the claim of 'comedy is in decline' to be highly subjective, and makes me question what the claim is exactly addressing in order for me to properly fact-check the claim being raised.
The claim of 'comedy is in decline' makes me question whether the claim is suggesting the popularity of comedy itself, the amount of those going into the field of comedy, or even how high in demand the field is at this time. To claim that 'comedy is in decline' makes me question the specifics of this claim, and how exactly this can be measured with data.
Nevertheless, to supply my own assumptions and perspective, I understand how the rise of cancel culture could lead people, especially in this modern-day society, may take statements and traditional comedy too seriously nowadays. In other words, what used to be claimed as humorous in years past, is no longer to be addressed due to people becoming more 'sensitive' to some topics, or due to there being a rise in people taking some topics more seriously than others. Therefore - again. drawing from my own conceptions, I argue that comedy may be on the decline (or rather, 'unwanted' or less tolerable) nowadays specifically due to what today's world has become with social media especially. To support my assumption of comedy being in 'decline', page 3 of the scholarly/reliable source titled "You are Cancelled: Virtual Collective Consciousness and the Emergence of Cancel Culture as Ideological Purging" by Joseph Ching Velasco provides the following information about cancel culture:
"at this point, “almost everyone worth knowing has been cancelled by someone” (Bromwich, 2018). Those who were cancelled have breached the line of social acceptability, according to unmarked and entirely ambiguous norm of today’s social media climate. “It is an act of withdrawing from someone whose expression – whether political, artistic, or otherwise – was once welcome or at least tolerated, but no longer is” (Bromwich, 2018). In addition, it is a tactic of “trying to erase someone from public discourse – either through publicly shaming, deplatforming, or demanding that they be fired” (Beiner, 2020). There is no clear-cut parameter that someone merits cancellation. With the ambiguous nature cancel culture, a person who undergoes this form of public shaming likewise has an extremely vague and unclear path to redemption".
With this evidence in mind in regard to the rise of cancel culture alongside the rise of social media - it can be assumed that with the rise of social media platforms - providing a space for those to express themselves and address/bring awareness to various topics of their own concern - traditional comedy as we know it, is in a difficult position as traditional comedy would be viewed as more so 'insulting' or 'inappropriate' today, even while that was not the case in the past prior to social media. Overall however, the questions of...
"whether comedy improves the citizen or threatens political stability, whether it insults or enacts moral standards...whether it serves God and the integrated superego or the devil and the anatchic id", are all raised in the reliable source of "The Idea of Comedy: History, Theory, Critique" by Jan Hokenson. This statement further suggests how people have been questioning comedy's role in society...however, does not prove whether it is truly in decline due to it's position.
In addition, I was able to find a source from The Atlantic by interviewer John Duling; a reporter for Quartz, which ultimately argues "the output of comedies as a proportion of total releases at the biggest Hollywood studios is in structural decline. Blame it on (or thank, if you prefer) the globalization of box office returns...at another time of geopolitical uncertainty if the world doesn’t think America is funny anymore, could it actually be a problem"?
With all considered - my conclusions and research suggest that while it makes sense why comedy may not be as popular as it once was, comedy and what people find to be humorous, is a highly subjective topic and is therefore difficult to measure - especially when the claim is as broad as 'comedy is in decline'. If the claim was much more specifically tailored to a realm of comedy or approach to perceiving comedy, perhaps it could be further proven correct or incorrect, however, due to the broadness of this claim and the subjective nature of the term 'comedy' being used in this statement, I propose this claim be unable to be true or false.
Works Cited/Sources
Hokenson, Jan. The idea of comedy: history, theory, critique. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2006.
Quartz, John McDuling. “Why Hollywood Has Mostly Stopped Making Comedies.” The Atlantic, 3 July 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/07/the-completely-serious-decline-of-the-hollywood-comedy/373914/.
Velasco, Joseph Ching. "You are cancelled: Virtual collective consciousness and the emergence of cancel culture as ideological purging." Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities 12.5 (2020): 48-68.
