1. Introduction

1Comedy is never apolitical, as even comedians with the cleanest––understood as inoffensive––sets adhere to certain viewpoints and values. Laughter also can never be truly neutral, since, as observed by Henri Lefebvre, it “denies, destroys, liberates.” When discussing leaving the cinema after a Charlie Chaplin comedy movie, Lefebvre writes that “the comic event has taken place, we feel decontaminated, returned to normality, purified somehow, and stronger” (13). The inspirational aspect applies to both sides of the political spectrum, and yet, it seems that only liberal comedy is worthy of academic attention, as the common assumption is that conservative comedy is not funny (Sienkiewicz and Marx). According to Von Burg and Heidemann, “the bulk of scholarship (and media attention) treats comedic performances as primarily a tool of the left, crafting identities through the mockery of conservative policies and politicians” (153). How then would one explain the rise of conservative, right-wing comedians like FOX News’ Greg Gutfeld or podcasters Joe Rogan and Tim Dillon? If measured by sheer numbers and influence, the right indeed took over comedy, the domain of liberals, and utilized it to their advantage, with the end-result being Donald Trump regaining the presidency in 2024 (Brinkhof). During the buildup to the election, right-wing comedians focused on immigration, gender norms and conspiracy theories in their stand-up, enforcing their political agendas.

2In the book That’s Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them, Nick Marx and Matt Sienkiewicz draw attention to the emergence of right-wing comedy and the political power of humor. Having established that the right-wing comedy is capable of both producing satire and humor, as well as––in the sense of attracting an audience––being successful in doing so, authors proceed to the examination of how the right has been using humor and satire to advance its issues. Among several layered components analyzed in separate chapters, Marx and Sienkiewicz raise the concepts of so-called “paleocomedy” as well as “libertarian comedy.” The first one, ascribed to figures such as Dennis Miller, Jay Leno or Tim Allen (to name a few), concentrates on intentional usage of the “outdated forms of comedic address” (46). Paleocomedians, relying mostly on looking back nostalgically to a (non-existent) world, implicitly advocate a vision of societal rebirth, similarly to that advocated by white suprematist movements, presented in short, catchy slogans such as “Make America Great Again.” Libertarian comedians, on the other hand, use their freedom of speech and allegedly countercultural ideology to “pursue jokes that offend minority groups, women, and LGBTQ communities” (115). Addressing names such as Joe Rogan and his The Joe Rogan Experience or the members of Legion of Skanks––"Big Jay" Oakerson, Luis J. Gomez and Dave Smith––the book focuses on podcasters who appeal primarily to young white males, a demographic that is obviously crucial to the right.

3In 2020, Tim Heidecker released his comedy special An Evening with Tim Heidecker, in which he plays the part of a stereotypical, painfully unfunny, right-wing stand-up comedian. He created the character earlier and appeared as him in YouTube shorts recorded with fellow actor Brett Gelman in 2011. In them, both comedians brag about their crafts and discuss their (intentionally unfunny) bits to highlight the flaws of bad stand-up comedy, such as unnecessary profanity, grifting, and “loud noises.” Since, as Heidecker admitted in an interview for Vulture magazine, he always admired Andy Kaufman (Lizotte), through his character he decided to create modern-day anti-comedy. Rather than simply complaining about the flaws of the anti-woke society, Heidecker produces a banal comedic special, positioning himself as one of the “anti-wokes,” which deconstructs common clichés of right-wing comedy. And that technique requires real courage––a Kaufman-level courage––which allows the performer to become so engulfed in their role that for the unacquainted they represent the very thing they are satirizing.

4This article attempts to deconstruct the right-wing comedic ecosystem by analyzing An Evening with Tim Heidecker. Through the incorporation of the satirical form, in which the argument implied by the joke is never explicitly stated, Heidecker’s special appears a perfect device to expose the hypocrisy and sheer unfunniness of both paleocomedy and libertarian comedy. By fully embodying the very type of performer he criticizes––an unfunny, conservative comedian––Heidecker does not impose a singular interpretive framework upon the audience; instead, he gives viewers the freedom to judge for themselves whether what they are seeing is funny, awkward, or merely absurd. Therefore, in what follows, we firstly discuss both paleoconservatism and libertarianism, and the brand of humor rooted in both. Then, we proceed to the analysis of Heidecker’s stand-up special and his on-stage persona through the prism of satire. All the while, as we acknowledge how powerful a propaganda tool right-wing comedy has become, we attempt to answer one additional question: can it indeed be funny?

2. Paleoconservative and Libertarian Comedy: Oxymorons?

5Alenka Zupančič claims that the structure, not the content, is the main issue faced by conservative comedy to garner sufficient interest (33). Unlike liberal comedy, which is abstract and nuanced, right-wing comedy is reactionary and formulaic:

Conservative comedies are those where the abstract-universal and the concrete do not change places and do not produce a short circuit between them; instead, the concrete (where “human weaknesses” are situated) remains external to the universal, and at the same time invites us to recognize and accept it as the indispensable companion of the universal, its necessary physical support. (Zupančič 30)

6Conservative comedy clearly follows a pattern, with the topic or event considered funny on its own and the comedian just pointing out why it is so. For example, commentary videos are an instance of conservative comedy, as the presenter’s function is to simply explain the “funniness” to the viewer. These fall into the divide between partisan lines, exploiting and further deepening the differences between the two sides, the conservatives and the liberals.

7Polish sociologist Adam Podgórecki introduces the concept of “dirty community” to describe the negative, reactionary policy of exploiting financial and social means after the transformation from socialism to capitalism of the early 1990s in Eastern Europe (90). “Dirty community” is built around the Machiavellian political thinking in which an end goal is pursued regardless of means or circumstances. Seeing “one’s side” progress justifies unethical and immoral behaviors, with interior differences becoming secondary. Sienkiewicz and Marx point out that the rise of Donald Trump “has shown that today’s American right can succeed in coalescing despite significant internal disagreement and even utter logical inconsistency” (Sienkiewicz and Marx 9)

8What are these values that the so-called Trumpsters can agree on? The idea of MAGA (Make America Great Again) is based on a look back on a past that is a liminal experience, somewhere on the margin of things that did and did not exist (Price). In Poland, republicanism is considered a nostalgic notion (Matyja 55), and the same can be said about the MAGA movement’s look back on the Reagan years as a time of universal prosperity and economic growth, glorifying the 40th president of the United States as the man who restored order by regaining the U.S.’s status as a global superpower (Brogan 689-694). Hugh Brogan characterizes Reagan as “an untypical conservative,” whose primary concern was conserving “the achievements and attitudes of the Roosevelt years” (690), hence a time when the United States resembled a welfare state, created by a Democratic president. And yet, as the creator of the MAGA slogan, Reagan is the father of the movement picked up and developed by Donald J. Trump.

9Agosto et al. describe MAGA as a “controversial symbol, a cultural icon, and a sign of the times” (2). It is way more than a phrase; it serves as the demarcation line in the ideological war that is shaping the present-day political debate. Somewhat predicting the lack of genuine discussion in the modern-day United States, George Lakoff writes that “communication is one-way. It is the same with the White House. That is, the president does not ask; the president tells. If you are a moral authority, you know what is right, you have power, and you use it. You would be immoral yourself if you abandoned your moral authority” (10). Having been elected president gives Trump the moral authority to talk at––not to––other politicians, reporters, etc., which is different than simply standing for American ideals and values. As president, he is expected to talk the talk but seems to get a pass on walking the walk, as proven by his instrumental use of the American legal system (Lozano).

10The notion that the president can stand above the law because he is the president is an archaic one, reminiscent of paleoconservatism, where “our guy” is always right simply because he represents our side of the argument, regardless of our or his views on the issues not crucial to our community. This is the consequence of the rise of right-wing populism, which either pushed out or absorbed conservative elitism, understood as intellectual activism, allowing for compromise and discussion between both sides of the political argument (Matyja 59). While Matyja discusses the process in Eastern Europe, primarily in Poland, Jean-François Drolet and Michael C. Williams identify the same issues on the American right, claiming we are experiencing “an anti-intellectual (if perhaps understandable) response to economic and social dislocation that is nonetheless better understood as a cry of rage, pain, or resentment rather than a systematic ideological vision” (28). Emotions and convictions are more important than facts, despite right-wing commentators––Ben Shapiro being the main perpetrator of that, for example in the rap song “Facts,” in which he appears next to MAGA rapper, Canadian Tom MacDonald––proclaiming objectivity in their statements, columns and documentaries. All the while, they claim to be under attack by the “woke mob,” who are trying to censor them by taking away their right to free speech.

11But how does paleoconservatism factor into MAGA? The word “again” already hints at something that occurred in the past, which is in agreement with paleoconservatism, understood as something that requires unearthing. Drolet and Williams write that “the label paleoconservatism came into circulation during the mid-1980s to designate a diverse group of strongly anti-communist conservatives, who since the 1970s had become increasingly aware of the growing gulf between their own beliefs and policy positions and those of self-described ‘neo’ conservatives” (31). Paleoconservatism and MAGA ally not only because of their connection with the 1980s––the former treats them as a founding point, the latter as a source of nostalgia. Drolet and Williams write that “The current alignment between paleoconservatism and Trump hinges on the opportunities that his presidency creates for a populist challenge to the elite-driven narrative of America as a ‘propositional nation’ embraced by liberals and the conservative mainstream” (37). The idea of looking back worked in Trump’s favor and won him two presidential elections, and his success led to a whole group of white, heterosexual comedians leaning into similar narratives, becoming grifters. In his book on the history of Black Republicanism, Clay Cane defines them as “opportunists who shape-shift for personal gain to achieve proximity to power” (1). Again, while his criticism is focused on African American activists and politicians, white liberals partake in the grift as well, especially when they get older and/or their popularity seems to fade.

12One group that particularly participates in this exodus from liberal to conservative are comedians like Joe Rogan or Tom Segura, who oppose the notion that made stand-up artists like Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor or George Carlin essential for the political discourse––speaking truth to power because it was the right thing to do. Modern-day comedians seem to be more interested in self-promotion and financial gain, as proven by the mass participation of some of the most recognizable American comedians in the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia in October 2025. It is almost impossible to imagine Segura or Rogan, with their obsession with health, saunas and cold plunges, criticizing mainstream politics like Carlin did at age 70 in his last stand-up comedy special, shot four months before he died. Obsessed with their masculinity, contracts and sponsorship deals, grifters present themselves as anti-liberals because it allows them to profit.

13That is not to say that there are no liberal grifters, who look for financial gain in their criticism of Trump and his administration. Jimmy Kimmel may be just as unfunny as Rogan, they are two sides of the same coin, which makes comedians like Tim Heidecker (or Katt Williams, or David Cross, just to name a few) so invaluable. The decision to analyze Heidecker and his stand-up special in this article stems from his ability to criticize (and satirize) modern comedy in a way that no other modern comedian did, because of his keen ability to combine the what with the how with the who of a particular brand of comedy that has gained traction in recent years among right-wing grifters like Roseanne Barr, Rob Schneider or Jim Breuer, who turned (superficially) political only after their stars faded out. The form of comedy of their choice is based on looking at the past with exaggeration and admiration.

14Sienkiewicz and Marx dub this form “paleocomedy” and explain the genesis of the term as follows: “In naming the phenomenon of ‘paleocomedy,’ we draw directly upon the right-wing ideology of paleoconservatism, a philosophy present in aspects of Trumpism” (48). They further write that “a closer consideration of paleocomedy reveals how raced, classed, and gendered power structures have long been with us and persist today” (78). Despite using the new media, like streaming platforms and social media, paleocomedy glorifies the past in unprecedented ways by simply pretending to be representative of something that once existed. Interestingly, paleocomedy is not a new phenomenon, and Sienkiewicz and Marx ascribe it retroactively to Mike Huckabee, the most prominent comedian to date to utilize it.

15Huckabee is more than a comedian though, he is also––or maybe primarily––a politician. The governor of Arkansas in the years 1996–2007 and the current United States Ambassador to Israel got into comedy relatively late, after his political career seemed over. Citing Carlin and Pryor as his influences (Holmes), Huckabee used Twitter (now X) to write short, political jokes, directed at the left and liberals in 2017. Sienkiewicz and Marx write that “the former governor is enacting what [they] term ‘paleocomedy,’ backward-facing humor that creates pleasure, and conservative political meaning, by knowingly indulging in hackneyed old jokes and comedic formats” (45). In other words, Huckabee’s jokes, which were based on bad puns, toilet humor and making fun of “hip” topics like hip-hop or healthy eating (Hornshaw), were exemplary of conservative comedy, as described by Zupančič, in their form but were also (paleo)conservative in their essence.

16Huckabee’s idea of humor is based on stereotypes––Koreans eat dogs; cartoon character Speedy Gonzalez offers an accurate depiction of Mexicans––and puns. Sienkiewicz and Marx write that “paleocomedy is at its funniest, and least dangerous, when it remains bounded in conservative spaces that are committed to polite, if still anti-progressive, decorum” (76), however, that was not the case with Huckabee, who, thanks to his jokes, remained relevant, in the limelight and became the US ambassador to Israel after Donald Trump was reelected for the presidential office.

17Marx and Sienkiewicz also include “the legions of libertarian podcasters,” as another huge element of the right-wing comedy complex. Firstly, the authors highlight the potential of the podcast’s form, as it creates a sense of friendship and belonging, keeping the listeners engaged longer and exposing them to adjacent content–– “visitors are enticed with a quick beer or bite but are always asked to stay a bit longer” (114). According to Marx and Sienkiewicz, it is precisely the libertarian ideas that work especially well in comedy podcasts, since libertarianism emphasizes free speech absolutism, supports drug legalization, anti-regulation stances and, perhaps most importantly, avoids policing “offensive” humor (115). This allows libertarian comedians to push boundaries, justifying that action philosophically via the nonaggression principle––there is “no moral fault” in using a racial slur unless it directly harms someone (Marx and Sienkiewicz 116). Libertarian comics simply use their freedom of speech to make jokes that can be offensive toward minority groups, women, and LGBTQ communities, all under the “anti-woke” reasoning.

18When addressing the libertarian podcast ecosystem, Marx and Sienkiewicz focus primarily on “a unicorn in the world of contemporary talk media” (118) ––Joe Rogan and The Joe Rogan Experience––as well as the podcast hosted by “Big Jay’’ Oakerson, Luis J. Gomez, and Dave Smith, Legion of Skanks. Accordingly, Joe Rogan’s podcast function as a “gateway” to the more “hardcore edge” (121). He is not straightforwardly aligned to right-wing media––sometimes he promotes progressive topics, such as support for healthcare systems or criticism of certain corporate practices; at other times, however, he invites right-wing or controversial figures like anti-vaxxers and steroid abusers. Through that Rogan tries to create an illusion of neutrality, within which, behind personal freedom and free-market ideals, hides a rather paradoxical prejudice towards otherness. By incorporating elements of both liberal and right-wing perspectives, Rogan prepares his audience for much more extremely offensive content, such as that found on Legion of Skanks.

19Libertarian podcasters from Legion of Skanks embrace misogynist and racist tropes, all of which lie under the ideological umbrella of: “freedom of speech is absolute, as long as you do not physically harm others.” Moreover, there is also a kind of “premium version” of the podcast––namely, libertarianinstitute.org. The channel is based on no-rules humor, incorporating all forms of sexism, homophobia, and overt racism. As described by Marx and Sienkiewicz, they are “anarchic and gleefully offensive” (122). However, “for those who enter the right-wing comedy complex’s bar through this side door” (123), dated, childish and, primarily, highly offensive jokes become a manifestation of free speech, which applies only to punching down––making jokes at the expense of marginalized groups. And this is exactly what Tim Heidecker mocks in his stand-up special.

3. I Tell a Joke, You Laugh: (Dis)orienting Aesthetics of An Evening with Tim Heidecker

21The use of satirical modes of expression in Heidecker’s work is by no means incidental. As he admitted in an interview with the prominent comedian Tom Papa, “Comedy is not about preaching” (Papa 1:04:31). Heidecker does not treat comedy as a vehicle for expressing his political views or personal opinions, nor for normative judgments about what is right or wrong. As pointed out by Heidecker, “cloaking in the things [one] is against” (Citarella 29:09), is a crucial part of satire. Yet when one considers the formal properties of satire as an artistic mode, the argument implied by the joke is never explicitly stated within it. It is the audience who draw conclusions or derive their own meanings from the joke (Young 73). As Heidecker further emphasizes, “people who think that it is funny will laugh; if they noticed that something is wrong, they will rethink it” (Papa 1:04:31). In this sense, his comedy does not explicitly propose alternative moral behaviors to counter the shortcomings it exposes; instead, Heidecker simply gestures toward the right-wing comedic clichés.

22According to Dustin Griffin, “the business of the satirist is to insist on the sharp differences between vice and virtue, between good and bad, between what man is, and what he ought to be” (36). Heidecker proposes his own antidote for the artificially constructed, media-driven world of politics. He uses satire, parody, and irony to expose the “political spectacle” (Young 49) involved in every public act, especially performance (Ranciere). Robert Harris writes that the world of the satirist is “a world of hypocrisy, in which social standing, church membership, titles and degrees, peer praise, lip service to morals, and wealth are all used to hide evils of the first order” (13). In such a world, offering simple moral lessons is unlikely to have any real impact on society. Therefore, to display their critical attitude and ethical perspective, satirists are forced to use more creative methods, such as irony, which, according to Paul Simpson, tends to be regarded as the key tactic used in satirical work (52). It usually involves the creator being “as much a hypocrite as the target of the work” (Harris 13).

23In An Evening with Tim Heidecker, Heidecker symbolically becomes, in his own words: “a traditional right-wing, reactionary guy’s guy” (Citarella 27:40). As Dannagal Young writes, “there is no easier way to show that something is obviously a catastrophe, than saying that something is awesome” (75), and that is exactly what Heidecker’s on-stage persona does in his stand-up. Heidecker created a stand-up special where, instead of performing jokes as himself, he becomes “an obnoxious, washed-up, right-wing version of himself, having somewhat of a complete breakdown on stage in front of a live audience” (Fish 6:28).

24In a conversation between Marc Summers and Tim Heidecker, Summers referenced the work of Andy Kaufman and his satirical alter ego, a loud and obnoxious failed performer, Tony Clifton. As Kaufman’s close friend, Summers admitted that he was struck by the authenticity of the Clifton persona: “The first time I saw [Tony], I barely recognized [that is was Andy]” (Summers 7:44). Heidecker has repeatedly emphasized in interviews that Kaufman was a formative influence on his own artistic practice, particularly in his effort to create content that would “maintain [his] independence” (Citarella 44:09). Yet what appears to have inspired him most was precisely Kaufman’s commitment to authenticity, best encapsulated by Clifton. The sense of authenticity behind Tony Clifton comes primarily from the character’s distinctive visual stylization. In contrast, Tim Heidecker focused more on reproducing the recognizable behavioral patterns and rhetorical habits of conservative comedians. Nevertheless, both Andy Kaufman and Heidecker sought to persuade audiences of the authenticity of their performed persona to separate the work from the artist.

25In an interview for the Vulture, Heidecker explained that in An Evening with Tim Heidecker, he intended his on-stage persona to become, in Harris’s formulation, “as much a hypocrite as the target of the work” (13). As he stated, “My director, Ben Berman, and I talked about trying to present it as faithfully as you would any stand-up special and not be too cute about it. The trailer has an energy to it that’s very masculine, with that Black Keys–style soundalike music. We thought that the straighter we played it, the more reflective it would be of that scene” (Lizotte 14). By meticulously reproducing the stylistic and ideological markers of right-wing comedy without overt signals of irony, Heidecker sought to create a performance that would be virtually indistinguishable from the very genre it critiques. The satire thus emerges not through exaggeration alone, but through an unsettling fidelity to the conventions of reactionary comedic discourse.

26From the very beginning of the special, Tim Heidecker confronts the audience with an awkward, chaotic, and anger-ridden comedian. Each minor inconvenience rapidly escalates into an exaggerated outburst of frustration. Immediately after stepping on the stage, Heidecker launches into a nearly two-minute comedic struggle with the microphone (An Evening with Tim Heidecker 0:56)––as he admitted in the interview for the Vulture, an element taken from Bill Cosby’s “mic work” (Lizotte 26). This, on the other hand, is followed by over a minute of shouting at the AV crew to turn off the music. As he complains, “This whole setup, this whole fucking place has been a nightmare. … Everybody here, I’m talking the camera guys, the fucking people that work here, have been treating me like shit from the minute I got here” (An Evening 3:36). This opening sequence is crucial for the subsequent development of the performance. It allows the viewer to perceive that beneath the façade of a supposedly self-assured and narcissistic persona lies, paradoxically, an insecure and clumsy individual who deflects every failure onto others.

28Besides elements of the insulting language, Tim Heidecker also underscores what might be described as a libertarian-inflected tendency toward prejudice (usually preceded by the ostensibly conciliatory phrase, “I love it, but…”). In 2024, Joe Rogan released the stand-up special Burn the Boats on Netflix. Sienkiewicz and Marx write about his overall material, as the book was produced before the special, that it “is steeped in racist and sexist iconography that, while supposedly ironic, remains quite racist and sexist” (119). Rogan’s special is, indeed, saturated with allegedly harmless racist and misogynistic jokes––from parodying Asian people (Burn the Boats 31:35) to the frequent repetition of profane and gendered slurs, all supplemented by graphically explicit descriptions of the “pleasure of anal probing” (Burn the Boats 7:44). Most striking, however, is Rogan’s performance of what might be termed “implicitly” explicit prejudice. His disclaimers of universal tolerance––“Listen, I don’t hate anybody. I love everyone. And I love gay men”––are immediately followed by analogies that reinforce stigmatizing and dehumanizing comparisons––“But I think about gay men the same way I think about mountain lions. I am happy they are real, but I don’t wanna be surrounded by them. They are dudes who fuck dudes. I don’t like my chances, okay? They are not unicorns; they are just men who fuck men. And every man who has ever lived is a shitty cum salesman, okay?” (Burn the Boats 48:08).

29Tim Heidecker incorporates a similar dynamic of prejudice into his performance; however, he does so in a markedly more symbolic and mediated manner––perhaps in order to avoid falling into the very trap of libertarian reactionary comedy that he seeks to expose. During his stand-up, he remarks: “I love when we get into politics, because despite everybody sorta has their opinions and we disagree, we can still get along” (An Evening 43:12)––a statement that ostensibly affirms pluralism and mutual respect. He then continues: “For example, when I want to get a drink, I get a soda. I get a Coke. And then you find these people out there, who go ‘I like Pepsi.’” Accompanying the line with a comic facial expression suggesting disdain and failure, he adds, “Huh?” followed by ironic laughter (An Evening 43:12). The only acceptable “reality” is the one in which everybody drinks “Coke,” whereas Pepsi-drinkers are in the wrong.

30A comparable mechanism operates in a joke about vegans. When announcing his New Year’s resolution, Heidecker protests against the proliferation of vegetarian substitutes: “I went into a restaurant to get a cheeseburger the other day. I said, ‘Can I get a cheeseburger?’ This guy behind the counter goes, ‘Oh, well, we only have veggie burgers, man.’” Punctuating the line with an exaggerated facial expression, he erupts: “Fuck you! No more bullshit!” (An Evening 20:22). Through these seemingly innocent jokes, Heidecker shows how prejudiced right-wing comedians––and, in consequence, their designated audiences––usually are and how they very often use these well-timed ironic glances at the audience, “so that they are perfectly clear who the villains are” (Berry and Sobieraj 47).

31However, where does this “emotional, angry, and fearful tone” of right-wing comedians come from? According to Berry and Sobieraj, it arises from the “authoritarian divide” between left- and right-leaning personalities. In fact, they conclude, “individuals who embrace [an authoritarian personality style] are more attracted to aggressive rhetoric in political commentary, which narrates the world in black and white” (99). Through his satirical approach, Heidecker exposes this underlying anger, sometimes bordering on psychosis, that is hidden within many male comedic personas: a persistent sense of frustration, feelings of being undervalued despite being untalented, an entitlement to audience laughter, and their validation. This frustration, on the other hand, is often covered up with the comedian raising his voice.

32In Burn the Boats, Joe Rogan frequently delivers his material by shouting at the top of his lungs, a vocal intensity that closely resembles his commentary style during Ultimate Fighting Championship events. His performance is marked by sustained volume and heightened aggression that even starts blurring the line between stand-up and combative spectacle. When it comes to the on-stage persona constructed by Tim Heidecker in An Evening with Tim Heidecker, the artist does not rely on continuous shouting. Instead, perhaps to make it more noticeable, Heidecker’s persona marks many isolated, disproportionate outbursts that bear little relation to the content being delivered at that moment. Beyond the previously mentioned exclamation “no more bullshit,” Heidecker at one point reproduces Rogan’s physical intensity while recounting a story about attending the opera: “I took my wife to the opera house. I’m sitting there. I got my suit on. I’m looking good. And this shows starts. [sighing] And I’m looking around, this guy’s up on stage, some jerk’s up there going…la la la. I could not take it. I stood up, and I go, ‘Shut the fuck up!’” At this moment, Heidecker rises from his stool and physically enacts the outburst, shouting and graphically visualizing the sudden eruption of anger (An Evening 23:22).

33While talking about his special in the interview conducted by Ashwin Rodrigues, Heidecker said that he “loves the live element of [the show] and the risk that something might work, and something might not”––he is simply not afraid and appreciates the elements of improvisation in his comedy. In the book A Conservative Walks into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor, Alison Dagnes states that “the liberal nature of satire is a function of the personality of the satirist as ‘unconventional,’ ‘artsy,’ ‘freethinking,’ and ‘unpredictable,’ traits that are more prevalent among liberals than conservatives” (133). In contrast to liberals, who normally “favor the new experience, the abstract, and the nonconforming,” conservatives prefer more traditional experiences and predictable patterns (Hibbing, Smith and Alford 94).

34Tim Heidecker decides to satirize these predictable patterns through his on-stage character, who initially describes himself as “an artist, as somebody that’s always trying to push the envelope and push things forward creatively and for his audience” (An Evening 7:14) ––a self-description that closely echoes the rhetoric often associated with the libertarian “legion” surrounding Joe Rogan. Then, he gets into a three-minutes-and-thirty-six-seconds-long improvisation, which he calls “comedy without a net” (An Evening 7:36). In doing so, Heidecker makes it clear that through frequently fumbling jokes, stumbling mid-sentence, and therefore creating constant chaos on stage, his character is incapable of handling improvisation. Such a dynamic closely resembles Rogan’s stage behavior in Burn the Boats, where moments of insufficient audience response are often met with visible panic by the comedian––he becomes increasingly animated, raises his voice, intensifies his physicality, and attempts to regain control through heightened aggression. Whenever he runs out of ideas, or when a part of the show does not go as planned, Heidecker’s persona fills the gaps with unfunny jokes––jokes which rely heavily on predictable patterns, stripped of any originality. In this sense, the performance turns toward what might be described as the typical playground of the paleocomedy.

35During the special, Heidecker describes his stand-up as a “slice-of-life stuff.” As he continues, “This is a slow burn. These are long format. These are not bing, bing, bing. These are not hot spots, just punch lines. This is storytelling” (An Evening 44:49). All the while, he does not proceed to tell any stories but rather delivers bits that the character wrote down on a piece of paper. From this perspective, Heidecker’s stand-up special becomes a “worldview of nostalgic, white, patriarchal, father-knows-best-ness” (Sienkiewicz and Marx 64)––the typical format of paleocomedy. Over time his bits begin to resemble the style of comedian Mitch Hedberg, whose performances were a stream of disconnected one-liners. Yet, unlike Hedberg, Heidecker’s character tells jokes that are unfunny, forced, predictable, and most importantly, offensive. Those are jokes “performed by white men telling jokes to audiences presumed to be unmarked by racial or gendered power imbalances” (Sienkiewicz and Marx 46).

36After the failure of his attempt at “comedy without a net,” Tim Heidecker shifts toward what Sienkiewicz and Marx describe as paleoconservative “clichéd stand-up routines [and] dads making dad jokes” (46). His on-stage persona begins, seemingly out of a lack of ideas, by playing with audience members’ names. Julie becomes “Julie Roberts”; Colin turns into “calling all cars” (accompanied by a siren imitation); Nick prompts “Just in the nick of time”; Dave evokes “David and Goliath.” He concludes with a female audience member named Cookie, remarking, “Well, I could go an hour there” (An Evening 9:27–11:21). Then, Heidecker transitions into observational humor about air travel, reminiscent of bits by Joe List and Jerry Seinfeld: “I always end up sort of in the last position when flying. You know, you get to the airport, show them your I.D., they say, ‘That’s too bad, sir. You’re in zone 5.’ I said, ‘Well, at least I’m not in the Twilight Zone’” (An Evening 13:18).

37Moreover, he also makes a joke alluding to the, seemingly, main representant of paleocomedy––Mike Huckabee. The joke itself is “Huckabeean” in content and form, as it relies on stereotypes and puns (and is equally as unfunny as Huckabee’s tweets, although in this case the lack of humor is intentional). In the joke, Huckabee is a child in his family home in Arkansas. Heidecker describes him as “fat,” a stereotypically obese child from the American South, who comes to the kitchen, to his mother, who is preparing a large portion of biscuits for her family. Speaking with a southern drawl, young Mike Huckabee declares to his mother: “Momma, I can be president one day,” pronouncing the words “I can be” like his last name, “Huckabee” (An Evening 39:28). By using stereotypical imagery and form, with a clear opening, buildup and punchline, Heidecker catches the essence of paleocomedy. The content is likewise well-known and “safe,” in the sense that it applies to known comedic spaces and decorum of punching down for what may be treated as a cheap laugh: the stereotypical perception of obesity and the South.

38Despite the character’s self-satisfied delivery, these jokes are, quite literally, nothing more than “bing, bing, bing,” a sequence of predictable punchlines built on mockery, phonetic wordplay, and crude stereotypes. They exemplify the very aesthetic Heidecker seeks to expose––an aesthetic that aligns with what Sienkiewicz and Marx describe as “the red brick walls that keep innovation, progressivism, and diversity out of the comedy club” (48). Through this exaggerated banality, the performance foregrounds how such humor relies not on creativity and innovations but rather on the repetition of offensive, predictable conventions descended from the “old–school” comedic tradition.

39In his special Tim Heidecker also incorporates the clichéd stand-up device of doing impressions––an element which, in many paleoconservative performances, tends to be unsuccessful and reliant on crude signaling rather than on the authenticity or precision of parody. In Burn the Boats, Joe Rogan at one point performs an impression of Joe Biden. Crouching in an awkward position and contorting his face, he shouts: “I got hairy legs, my uncle got eaten by a cannibal” (Burn the Boats 4:02). Beyond whatever humor may arise from Rogan’s exaggerated physicality––which, notably, bears little resemblance to Biden––the joke itself relies less on inventive satire than on caricature and distortion. Similarly, at the very end of An Evening with Tim Heidecker, Heidecker’s persona launches into a sequence of deliberately unsuccessful impressions of celebrities like Tom Hanks or Jack Nicholson (whose name he mispronounces as “Jake”). Crucially, he does not actually say any jokes while he is doing the impressions; instead, he presents the impressions themselves as if they were inherently humorous. In doing so, he reproduces a defining feature of paleocomedic performance: the assumption that exaggerated, rather offensive, mimicry, even when unconvincing or superficial, is sufficient to generate laughter.

4. A Kaufman-Level Courage: Conclusions

40During the interview with Summers, Heidecker admitted that “it is very from that Kaufman place that [he] is doing [his stand-up special] for [himself] and maybe like three people in that room who know what is going on and know what [he] is trying to do” (38:03). This remark underscores Heidecker’s resistance to the expectation that comedy must provide broad, immediate affirmation. On a personal and artistic level, Heidecker opposes the tendency of certain right-wing comedians to demand specific, predictable reactions from their audiences––again, as Joe Rogan, who in Burn the Boats delivers the punchlines in a louder manner, as if giving the audience cues when to laugh for the Netflix cameras and microphones. Paradoxically, Heidecker distances himself off-stage from the very dynamic his on-stage persona mockingly articulates in the line, “I tell a joke, you…? Laugh!” (An Evening 13:36). The use of satire in Heidecker’s work, thus, emphasizes his refusal to impose a singular interpretive framework upon the audience or to force them into rejecting a particular comedic mode. Instead, he grants viewers autonomy, allowing them to decide for themselves whether what they are witnessing is humorous, uncomfortable, or simply absurd.

41Acting as “a leather-jacket-clad, ‘truth-telling’ comic with none of the talent, but all of the narcissism and aggression” (Lizotte 1), Tim Heidecker uses his on-stage alter ego to expose the characteristic aesthetics of both libertarian anti-woke comedians and paleocomedy. Through the opening sequence of An Evening with Tim Heidecker––in which he “fumbles with the microphone or yells for silence while trying to nail inept wordplay” (Lizotte 2)––Heidecker immediately establishes the incompetence of the persona. The performance suggests that beneath the façade of the narcissistic macho figure, often associated with right-wing comedians, lies a deeply insecure individual who responds to minor setbacks with disproportionate anger and cruelty. Throughout the special, the persona delivers numerous jokes that, despite their ironic framing, are saturated with prejudice, offensiveness, and a distinctly paleocomedic archaicism.

42Heidecker, thereby, demonstrates how many right-wing comedians––particularly those aligned with libertarian anti-woke discourse––commit to improvisation and so-called “comedy without a net.” When he declares that he is about to “push things forward creatively as an artist” and “challenge himself” through a technique that supposedly taps into his superior intelligence and creative potential (An Evening 7:14), this rhetoric perfectly echoes the bravado characteristic of anti-woke comedy. Yet, because of Heidecker’s persona’s lack of talent, the attempt at innovation collapses into awkward pauses, verbal stumbles, and exaggerated outbursts of anger. What emerges instead are clichéd stand-up routines and offensive, prejudiced “dad jokes,” with which the promise of “boundary-pushing originality” ultimately devolves into the predictable playground of paleocomedy world.

43However, while Heidecker’s satire is deeply engaged with the right-wing industry, it is not itself a part of it. Instead, Heidecker produces his material to unmask it. When playing such an “edgy” character, it is certainly not enough to be just “edgy”––one has to be “edgy” in a creative and distinctive way. As he admits in an interview, even though he uses this conservative, father-knows-best, attacking tone in his stand-up, “It is not an opportunity to go on a tirade of punching-down insults. I could go out there and be a pig, but that’s not fun for anyone. I’m not looking to provoke in that way. I have a line I don’t want to cross. I’m trying to be an antidote to the toxic shit on the other side of comedy” (Wray 15).