Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham Has a Refreshing Take on Comedy

If I had to make a list of things that give me the ick, it’d probably go as follows:

• Monkeys
• Dudes in fedoras
• Girls in fedoras
• Birds up close (never ask me to hold anything that flaps)
• Andddddd ventriloquists

That being said, I enjoy Jeff Dunham. He’s pretty funny, relatively wholesome and he doesn’t get political—a winning combination.

Dunham recently went on Fox and Friends to promote his new special, “Me the People,” and he provided a lovely explanation as to why he keeps it light politically while he’s on stage. It’s a long quote, but I loved his answer.

“Well, you know it is tough to be a comedian right now—because you say one thing—not just a comedian, anybody in show business. You say one thing and you’re done, you’re cancelled, whatever that is,” Dunham said. “… I think the problem is that comedians are picking sides, and I don’t know why they have to do that. They pick one side, then they trash the other side. They call everybody morons, and both sides does it and then you’re eliminating half your audience, or half the people that could be your audience. So, I don’t do that. I go back to the days of maybe Will Rogers, Bob Hope, Carson, Leno—you never knew what their politics were. And so, you pick on both sides just a little bit. Don’t be nasty and don’t be name-calling.”

Americans need ways we can put our differences aside and enjoy something together. We used to be united by sports, music, movies, TV shows and comedy. But gradually, politics seeped into everything, and our favorite pastimes became politically charged. And as a result, we don’t really have anything we can all enjoy together anymore.

If more comedians and artists took Dunham’s stance, I think we’d be in a much more united place.

Watch his full interview below: