Joe Rogan and Derek from More Plates More Dates touched on the state of modern comedy during their conversation on the Joe Rogan Experience. In the episode, Rogan declared that Tropic Thunder represented the last great comedy before cultural sensitivities changed Hollywood forever.
The two were discussing Tom Cruise’s performance in the 2008 film. Derek started by saying: “You remember Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder?”
Rogan emphasized the significance of the movie’s timing. “He was f**king great in that movie. What a movie. That was the last b*ng before woke,” Rogan said.
He continued, “That was the last movie that you could ever do like that before Woke kicked in and essentially ruined great comedies because you couldn’t go too far. You can’t do that anymore. You just get in trouble.”
Derek agreed with Rogan’s assessment, noting how the comedy landscape has shifted. “It’s like back then if you were to ask, okay, you know, have a hit list of just like ready to laugh your behind off movies that are just like low effort. You don’t have to think too much. You can just sit down and enjoy. There’s a bunch of b*ngers from back then, but it’s like nowadays I don’t even know what to go to.”
Rogan pointed to the Farrelly Brothers films as examples of the kind of outrageous comedy that thrived before this cultural shift. “There’s Something About Mary. There’s so many of those like outrageous, hysterical movies that it was funny.”
The conversation turned to Robert Downey Jr.’s controversial blackface performance in Tropic Thunder. Rogan recalled asking the actor directly about it: “I was like, I go, ‘You couldn’t do blackface in a movie today.’ He goes,’Oh you could do it. But what would happen afterwards is the big deal.'”
Rogan compared Downey Jr.’s situation to narrowly escaping danger. “He got it in like just like it’s like the scene in a movie where the elevator door closes right before the monster gets you. He got there just in time and like it was perfect timing where he didn’t suffer from it.”
When asked about current comedy options, Rogan was blunt about the difficulty of making truly funny films today. “With comedies, it’s really f**king hard. It’s really hard. The only thing that’s really wild and free is standup comedy. Like to do a comedy movie and just go full Tropic Thunder is almost impossible today.”
However, Rogan believes there’s still an audience hungry for boundary-pushing comedy. “But if somebody did it, if somebody just self-financed it, oh my goodness, it would be amazing. It would make so much money and then would open up the floodgates because people still want that, you know.”
He emphasized that the issue isn’t about agreeing with everything in a comedy. “It’s not that you agree with everything these people are saying and doing. It’s comedy. Like I don’t agree with John Wick ending everybody. You know what I mean? Like but he’s not really k**ling everybody. Like it’s a f**king movie.”
Rogan lamented how the change in cultural attitudes has affected audience perception. “And it used to be that you knew that when you went into these movies before everybody was like looking for everything to potentially be offended by. It’s just like ruined everything.”
The podcast host noted that while there’s plenty of quality content available for streaming entertainment, the specific genre of outrageous comedy has largely disappeared from mainstream production.
That concern isn’t limited to Rogan’s circle. Veteran sitcom star Patricia Heaton recently echoed similar frustrations, arguing that “woke-ism” has fundamentally altered how comedy is written.
On a recent podcast, the Everybody Loves Raymond actress talked about the issue. She said, “There’s a certain wokeness, I think, in some young people” that derails storytelling before it can even begin. She added that in modern writers’ rooms, identity often takes precedence over ability.
Additionally, veteran comedian Marc Maron recently took aim at what he called the “anti-woke comedy” movement centered around Rogan and the Austin scene. He argues that it reduces the art form to a narrow set of recycled talking points.
In an interview with Consequence, Maron accused that scene of trying to define comedy on their own terms, describing it as “fairly unnuanced and very hackneed in terms of its repetition of two or three ideas that were primarily right-wing talking points.”
Drawing a line between genuine edge and empty provocation, he added, “The power of a real joke that does have an edge to it is different than just repeating crass tropes and picking on certain marginalized cultures because that’s supposed to imply some sort of great risk-taking.”
And when asked about Rogan directly, Maron delivered a final barb: “Is Joe Rogan still a comic or is he some sort of lifestyle show that deals with information barter?”
