In Medieval times, the court jester was said to be the only one that could place over the king and queen. The jester was able to tell the king and queen what they were doing wrong or what they did that was wrong in a humorous form.

To sentence the jester to death was a sign that dark times were to fall upon the kingdom.

Dave Chappelle released a comedy special on Netflix titled “Sticks and Stones” that has been deemed to be full of hate speech by the mass media. He talked negatively about the LGBTQ+ community and spoke out about abortion that some people thought was just too far.

This being said, I agree that, occasionally, comedy can be taken too seriously. More and more things have become too sensitive in today’s world.

There have been a few comedians that cross the line but they stretched their topic at hand into a gray area instead of jumping off the deep end as Dave Chappelle has done.

Being able to laugh at the weird or taboo things makes the world around us a little less foreboding. If we were to take away our comedy and become too sensitive about what is said than we might as well be the king sentencing our jesters to death.

I watched this comedy special and it does tiptoe past the grey area here and there. I don’t agree we should ban comedians as they allow us to laugh at things that make us uncomfortable today and help us process how we feel about it.

As a society, I believe we should attempt to define what comedy is and isn’t. This will be a challenge given everyone is different with different boundaries.

We might never have a clear line when it comes to what is allowed and not allowed. There will always be a gray area. We should at least define what will never be okay to joke about at all costs moving forward.