A legendary Hollywood producer who is known for such hilariously goofy films like “Airplane!” “The Naked Gun” franchise and the “Scary Movie” films is ripping “woke” studios in Hollywood for bending to far-left extremists who he says are ruining comedic movies.
David Zucker now joins comedians Bill Maher, Joe Rogan, Dave Chapelle, and Monty Python’s John Cleese, who have all taken issue with woke culture’s destructive and ruinous influence on entertainment and artists.
“We could be as offensive as we liked, we went where the laughs were. We never worried about any of this stuff with the ‘Naked Guns’ or even the ‘Scary Movies,'” he said during a sit-down interview to tell his life’s story for Prager U.
“They’re destroying comedy because of nine percent of the people who don’t have a sense of humor. Comedy is in trouble, of course, but I think it’s going to come back. There’s a pendulum, and the pendulum will swing back. I’d like to see comedy filmmakers do comedies without fear,” he said.
At one point, Zucker said one of his biggest early films, Airplane, starring the late Leslie Nielson, could only be made today “without the jokes.” He then told a story about pitching satirical James Bond and Mission: Impossible films to studios and was stunned by the responses he got. He said that studio execs were offended by jokes that were not at all intended to be offensive.
“It was pure oatmeal, so mild,” he said of one joke. “I thought, ‘if this was the criteria for it, we’re in big trouble.’”
He went on to say that he switched parties — to the GOP — after the 9/11 attacks.
“President Bill Clinton said, ‘what have we done to deserve this?’ but the Republicans were saying, ‘this is evil,’” he said. “Why am I still voting for Democrats if they don’t really share my values?”
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In June, Maher, on his HBO program “Real Time,” also riffed on Hollywood’s wokeness.
For instance, Maher ripped Tinsel Town for hating on Kenosha teen Kyle Rittenhouse “but then they endlessly produce movies with that exact plot” of a good guy saving the day against incredible odds with the use of firearms.
“Now that we live in an age of uber-corporate responsibility where every large company in America bends over backwards to get on the politically correct side of every issue, Hollywood has to tell us. Why does that not include gun violence?” he began,
“When liberals scream, ‘Do something!’ after a mass shooting, why aren’t we also dealing with the fact that the average American kid sees 200,000 acts of violence on screens before the age of 18 and that according to the FBI, one of the warning signs of a potential school shooter is ‘a fascination with violence-filled entertainment?” he added.
“It’s funny. Hollywood is the wokest place on Earth, and every other area of social responsibility. They have intimacy coordinators on set to chaperone sex scenes. They hire sensitivity readers to go through and read scripts,” Maher, who describes himself as a ‘classic liberal,’ continued. “Disney stood up to the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. Another studio spent $10 million to digitally remove Kevin Spacey from a movie.
“But when it comes to the unbridled romanticization of gun violence, crickets. The only thing we don’t call a trigger is the one that actually has a trigger,” he quipped. “We don’t show movie characters smoking anymore because it might look cool and influence children, but you’re telling me these cool dudes don’t influence them?”
