Comedian Whitney Cummings doesn’t think Hollywood should “dismiss” or “malign” people who don’t agree with them.
Cummings claimed understanding the other side is what helps her write comedy the whole country will love in an interview published Wednesday by the Daily Beast.
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“I’m fascinated by playing devil’s advocate and want to understand the people I disagree with,” Cummings told the outlet. “I don’t want to dismiss and malign.”
“I think it’s very self-righteous or sanctimonious to just dismiss people we disagree with without trying to understand why they believe what they believe,” she continued. “I don’t get it. I grew up in Washington, D.C., mostly, but also in Virginia and West Virginia, so I grew up seeing both sides, and people believing different things. Even though I don’t agree with somebody, I don’t think they’re dumb.” (RELATED: Whitney Cummings Opens Up About The Details Behind Her Nude Photo Scandal)
Cummings went on to say she understand why some people value Donald Trump and that it’s important to be educated on how the other half of the country thinks.
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“It’s so weird to me in Hollywood where writers are like, ‘F*ck the right!'” Cummings said. “You’re a writer! You’re supposed to want to empathize with characters you don’t necessarily agree with because you have to write them. I just try to take the judgment out of it, and the emotion out of it.”
Cummings is definitely right about this. If you want to appeal to the whole country instead of a subset of people, you do need to understand them. When you constantly make fun of one group of people, you’re alienating people from wanting to pay attention to your comedy.
That’s really where we’ve seen the death of comedy.