Michelle Wolf is back on Netflix.
But even when things get heavy, Wolf keeps everything very funny.
Read the interview below, and catchMichelle Wolf: Joke Showstreaming on Netflix now.
Jeff Neira/Netflix
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I wanted to start by asking you about the opening bit in the special.
Especially because its social media, it gives them a sense of power.
I did it, I get that people like that, I get that satisfactory feeling.
But also, weve been dealing with this for centuries.
Theyd leave their farms, travel into town, and watch someone die.
Thats what gladiators do.
People would go to a stadium to watch a man get eaten by a lion.
Theres so many different versions of this.
People have always taken entertainment in peoples destruction.
I think it rings true today.
You get to go to a place and boo someone.
It gives you this sense of slight satisfaction and power.
But today it is a thing where people arent looking for the truth, necessarily.
And they werent back then either, when they were saying shes a witch!
And youre like no, she never actually ate a baby!
In the big scheme of things, 10,000 is a pretty small number.
Some of us comics have performed for 10,000 people at a time.
And its like, this wasnt a problem!
You made it a problem!
Its all a monster of its own making.
And then youre able to end it with this amazing punchline and redirect the energy.
Now youve changed this from a comedy special into a TED Talk.
The whole point of comedy is to find what the funny part of that is.
If youre not ready to do that, youre not ready to tell that joke.
This was all a ruse to get you to laugh again!
I worked on that joke for a long time.
At one point it got too preachy and I was like, this is bad!
Its a really fun joke to perform.
I think its easy to make a point, its much harder to make a joke.
I hear people say oh this person said this thing, it was really funny.
Im like, did it make you laugh?
Theyre like, no.
So was it funny or did you just like the point they made?
Those are two different things.
One reason I dont tell any Trump jokes is I dont want that clapping of I agree with you.
I think Trump jokes are too easy and honestly not even really jokes at this point.
What does it mean to have political material?
Are political jokes only those that reference Trump and his administration?
So much of what we deal with in life, yes, there is politics behind it.
I talk about health care, immigrants, abortion, and feminism.
Im not talking about it like, vote for this.
You mention it towards the end ofJoke Show.
I dont like to do anything unless theres good punchlines behind it.
Thats one where I thought,heres a good way to talk about it.
I was like, Yeah, I know thats why youre here.
But hopefully people who became fans of mine through the Correspondents Dinner just become fans of my comedy.
You want me to do a political dinner, I can do jokes for that.
You want me to host a charity for something specific, I can do jokes for that.
I can write jokes for anything, that doesnt mean those are the only jokes I tell.
Youre hired for a job, you do that job.
That doesnt mean its all I am.
A lot of times comics are more like family medicine.
We can specialize in anything if we want to, but we can also do whole body.
Give me a topic, I can give you 10 jokes on it.
I wrote for Seth [Meyers], Trevor [Noah], Chris Rock.
That doesnt mean all my jokes are Chris Rock jokes, that just means Ive written for them before.
