Standup star loves making comedy that mocks people too obsessed with politics
Veteran standup comic Ari Shaffir wants his comedy to snap people out of their social media and partisan news bubbles so they can smell the roses for once.
The comic says the message behind his latest Netflix special, “America’s Sweetheart,” is that life is much better than the news headlines make it out to be.
“The world is way better than people are giving it credit for. Almost everybody is not racist. Almost everybody is not a dimwit. People are generally kind to each other and hold the door open for each other,” Shaffir said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
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Famous standup comic Ari Shaffir speaks to Fox News Digital about his new Netflix special, “American’s Sweetheart,” as well as his frustration with people too concerned with U.S. politics. (Gabriel Hays/Fox News Digital )
The comedian, who has been a standup comedy fixture since the 2000s, told Fox he filmed “America’s Sweetheart” in Washington, D.C., last year ahead of a contentious presidential election, just so he could skewer the country’s obsession with politics and partisan news headlines in the town that thrives on them the most.
“And I decided D.C. because I wanted to take this, like, get-away-from-politics view – there’s good about everything,” he said. “My message was like – back when it was Biden, when he was whatever – and I’m like, ‘Biden made you realize that your father’s in pretty good mental shape and Trump made women come together.’”
“Like, these are good things,” Shaffir quipped.
The comic’s latest special is built on finding the bright side of issues that many Americans find to be highly contentious or downright offensive. “Let me show you how to find some joy in every one of these subjects,” he told Fox News.
In one long stretch of his set, the comedian practically berated the crowd, and America at large, for canceling famous artists and their cultural contributions, all because they said things that were deemed offensive at one point in their careers.
He brought up the outrage over rapper Kanye West’s antisemitic statements, taking the position that his insensitive remarks should not obscure the rapper’s music from the public’s view.
“So, I had this bit about Kanye West and how everybody said he was antisemitic, and I’m like, ‘Are we mentioning music? Are we just ignoring his music?’ That’s crazy because he’s one of the best ever at that, and we’re ignoring an amazing part of the world to focus on some lunatic artist’s tweets. We shouldn’t have even read them.’”
Shaffir, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, added, “That’s crazy. That’s crazy.”
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Shaffir’s latest special dropped on Netflix last month. (Ari Shaffir)
He made the same point about “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Johnny Depp, whose dirty laundry was aired in a very public defamation trial in 2022 against ex-wife Amber Heard, who accused him of abusing her.
“It’s like watching Johnny Depp’s love life. We did that for that too,” Shaffir remarked. “What the f— do I care about his love life? Become a pirate. That’s all I want to see. Be a pirate and make me believe it. You’re great at that.”
Shaffir told Fox that his whole approach with “America’s Sweetheart” is to say that “the world is way better than your industry gives us, gives it credit for,” referring to the media.
“It’s actually amazing and all you see when you see the news is how terrible and how the sky is falling, and then you actually go outside and everyone’s actually kind of nice to each other and friendly.”
Of course, Shaffir, who happily admits that his special is “degenerate, dirty” and “filthy,” also takes this bright side shtick to an absurd level just to see how far he can go to get a laugh, even joking about tragedies.
The 50-year-old comic is no stranger to pushing the envelope with his standup routines, telling Fox it’s a crucial part of his style.
“It’s like, OK, I mean, I could do easier bits that wouldn’t like, make people leave angry,” he said, adding, “But I really want a hard-fought laugh. Those are my favorite laughs, where there really is a risk of making somebody go, ‘F— you. My dad died in that.’”
The comic clarified that the point of the highly offensive jokes “is always to get [people] to laugh.” Still, he said getting “two or three walking out angry – that’s really what you want.”
“If no one’s walking out, you haven’t found the line yet,” he continued. “For me, the stuff I like is right on that line where a few people are leaving angry, and I’m like, good riddance.”
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Ari Shaffir performs at The Bomhard Theater on November 10, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky. (Stephen J. Cohen / Contributor)
Shaffir added that he loves joking about issues that “people care too much about,” and lately, that’s been politics.
“I was like, what do people care about and care too much about? To me, it’s politics for sure. I saw everybody get super deep in politics. All my friends do. I don’t give a f—.”
A Maryland native, the comic mentioned how he developed his standup style after moving out to Los Angeles after college. He started off as a screenwriter in Hollywood, but that career slowly gave way to his love for standup.
“But then pretty much as soon as I got to LA, it was like the screenwriting just faded away. I just fell in love with being on stage, taking chances, taking risks,” Shaffir said. He described his wild early days learning the ropes in West Hollywood’s now famous “Comedy Store,” sometimes doing shows in front of nobody.
Referring to them as the “dark years,” Shaffir said, “It was evil. We were like doing crazy stuff. We had like, gambling rings in the back. People would be hooking up in the back. It was just like, crazy stuff would happen there – drug use and just like – it was awesome. But there was no crowd.”
“Every two weeks we’d have a show where just – there was no show, cause nobody showed up,” he recalled. “So, because of that, we just got used to failure.”
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Shaffir doing a standup set in 2007. (Michael S. Schwartz / Contributor)
Shaffir said that he did standup in Los Angeles for 10 to 12 years before he “just got sick of” the city, noting that he got “too familiar with the streets” and that it was “too segregated.”
He also said it was “harder to break in, in L.A,” compared to other big comedy cities in the U.S. “It’s so disheartening,” he explained. “The open mics, the low-level stuff is so s—–. It’s so s—– that almost all my funny friends, like, failed out. There’s no positive feedback ever. It’s just terrible.”
He attributed his success in the city to being “lucky.”
Shaffir ditched L.A. for New York City – where he currently lives – saying it was “great” and preferable to living and doing comedy in Los Angeles.
“The scene is the best by far – by a long shot,” he declared, though he still expressed his appreciation for his former home, stating, “L.A. is still a great comedy scene. I don’t want to like s— on it.”
The comic also spoke to Fox News Digital about his multiple podcasts and commented on how longform media has changed the comedy landscape in the modern era.
Shaffir has hosted several podcasts in recent years, including one named “Skeptic Tank” and another called, “You Be Trippin’,” where he speaks to famous guests about some of their favorite travel stories.
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Shaffir hosts several podcasts, including “Skeptic Tank” and a travel-themed one, titled, “You Be Trippin’.” (Monica Schipper / Contributor)
He mentioned how podcasting is so much freer than traditional forms of comedy media, like network late night shows. Shaffir recalled how actor Rob Lowe was in his podcast studio marveling at the freedom they had in producing the episode.
“He’s in here and he’s talking about like, ’Oh these are so much better than The Tonight Show.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘It’s like 12 minutes. You don’t’ really get to say what you want to say. Here, you really get to go into stuff.’”
Expressing his own opinion, the comic continued, “The longform is just helpful. We don’t have rules. You know?”
“But yeah, these podcasts give you such freedom. No one’s saying, ‘Don’t book that guy,'” Shaffir said, talking about new media.
He added, “So, it’s like. You can do whatever you want. That’s a nice freedom, to be like, ‘We don’t have to talk about anything, and there’s nothing we don’t – can’t talk about.’ YouTube will give you some rules about like, using certain words, but then like, you can still do it if you want. You’ll just make less money.”
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Shaffir started doing standup comedy in Los Angeles after graduating from college. (Rick Kern / Contributor)
Shaffir said that getting people out of their usual “routine” and getting them to talk freely is when “you get real gold.”
His own desire for freedom and doing things on his own terms is why the comic is currently planning to take a break from standup and travel the world for the next year or so, even if it’s against the advice of his agents.
“I’m a big freedom guy and not in like the libertarian way – but more like, let me do what I want to do. So, like, I just sold two specials to Netflix and then, like, I’m planning on traveling the world for a year,” he said. “And my agents – you know, my Jews – are like, ‘What are you doing? You’re about to launch yourself.’ And I’m like, ‘cause I already had this planned.’”
“I want my freedom and I want to go see the world,” he declared, telling Fox that he’s planning on exploring some of the globe’s most exotic locales during the upcoming trip.
“Machu Picchu might be really cool,” he said, mentioning the ancient Incan ruins in South America’s Andes mountains, though he said, “I’m not really planning everything out, I’m just going to let it happen. I feel like I’m going to find out about some stuff that I have not known about until I got there.”
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Shaffir is currently on his “The Farewell Tour” in the United States, which his site says is the “last chance” to see the comic before his trip abroad. His special “America’s Sweetheart,” as well as his 2022 special “Jew” are both streaming on Netflix now.
