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This, Collins believes, is not only a testament to The Onion’s quality, but a referendum on Trump himself. “People do not like what’s going on, and people vote with their dollars,” he says. “It’s not purely capitalistic. We are making art for the sake of art, absolutely, but there is sort of a protest-vote element in showing up to this thing.”
Even beyond Kimmel, comedy has become increasingly politicized in Trump’s second term. In recent days, the internet erupted after comedy A-listers like Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson, and Whitney Cummings agreed to headline the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia. “I’m going to say something really brave: I think Jeffrey Epstein is bad, and I also think 9/11 was bad,” says Collins, alluding to the Saudi government’s alleged ties to the terror attacks. “I think both those things were bad, and I wouldn’t hang out with either of those people—the 9/11 people or the Jeffrey Epstein. Somebody’s going to make a statue of me with that as the placard: ‘I think 9/11 was bad, and I think Jeffrey Epstein was bad.’”
On a more serious note, Collins thinks the Riyadh lineup reflects something dire about both American politics and the bifurcated woke-versus-anti-woke comedy scene. Collins says there’s “a lot of money” behind enticing anti-woke comics to shill for the political project on the right. “I also like money, but I think getting hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell jokes for 10 minutes about ‘airline food is bad’ is actually illustrative of a much larger thing: The stuff that’s getting greenlit is not necessarily popular with the populace. It’s popular with rich people who are sick of being yelled at in the media. They are using some of these people as vehicles for whatever the comedy equivalent of greenwashing is.”
There’s a parallel to be drawn between the Riyadh Comedy Festival and Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile—the ultra-wealthy getting whatever they want. “George Carlin said it best: ‘It’s a big club and you ain’t in it,’” quotes Collins. “That is just the truth. Now more than ever, the club has stopped pretending they’re a club; it’s a bunch of rich guys who want to maintain this. I would ask people gently to not fall for it.”
And he’s doing so by asking people to watch Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile. What’s more, Collins says he’s submitting Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile to the best-live-action-short category at the Oscars this year. And while Collins admits that this is a shot in the dark, he has already come up with a pretty compelling Oscar campaign. “The Academy: Do you like pedophiles? I don’t think you do.” He smiles. “You know what you could do to prove it?”
Jeffrey Epstein: Bad Pedophile premieres in select theaters on October 2nd.
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Chris Murphy
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