The comedy roast is bleeping sacred.
The term “roast” has a specific meaning in the culture. A specific purpose, too.
Anything goes. Anything. Goes.
Repeat as necessary.
And it’s all in good fun. We watch for the pleasure of hearing the very worst things said about famous people.
“The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast” set the gold standard. These galas featured old-school stars like Joe Namath, Don Rickles, George Burns, Gene Kelly and many more excoriating their peers.
Comedy Central took that baton in the modern era. The new targets were oh, so familiar and certainly varied:
- Charlie Sheen
- Joan Rivers
- Roseanne Barr
- William Shatner
- Pamela Anderson
- Donald J. Trump
- Justin Bieber
NOTE: Adult material in the following clip reel (but necessary for context):
Comedy Central’s roast series took a knee after the 2019 roast of Alec Baldwin. That was no accident.
The woke mind virus was at full strength at the time. A few short months later, the George Floyd riots poured fuel on the Cancel Culture blaze.
Offensive jokes became a fireable offense. Now, roasts are back.
“The Roast of Tom Brady” in 2024 made it official. That night featured some of the most offensive gags ever uttered and made stars of both Nikki Glaser and Tony Hinchcliffe.
Guess what happened next? Nothing, more or less.
Oh, a few news outlets attempted some “outrage”/”backlash” stories, but it never amounted to much.
Why? Woke was on the run at that point. Comedy was roaring back, thanks to rebel comedians like Joe Rogan, Tim Dillon and Shane Gillis.
We recognized roasts for what they were, and not who might be offended by them.
Which brings us to Netflix’s “The Roast of Kevin Hart.”
The most recent blaze featured more of the same, including some ghoulish gags targeting the dead. Several comics joked about Pete Davidson’s father, a firefighter who died in the 9/11 attacks.
Davidson was there, on stage, and he laughed along with the gallows humor.
He got it. Or, at the very least, he pretended he did. And he gave as good as he got.
Consider this awkward Davidson line recalling the 2025 assassination of conservative hero Charlie Kirk. Note: The following joke is R-rated and mature:
Tony Hinchcliffe is here, looking like both a child molester, and the doll they give the child to show where he touched them. Tony reminds me of Charlie Kirk in that he’s definitely been on camera letting a guy [bleep] in his throat.
Gross. Inappropriate. Too soon?
Not in a roast. That phrase doesn’t exist in that context.
Newsbusters, an essential site that breaks down liberal media bias, raged against the joke. It’s “dangerous dehumanization.” HiT disagrees, despite considering Newsbusters one of the most valuable resources on the web.
The site wasn’t alone. Libs of Tik Tok and Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire fame also cried foul over the crack.
We’ve seen that “dehumanizing” charge levied against much of what late-night TV has to offer. That’s different in context. TV monologues aren’t roast-level affairs. It’s an entirely separate delivery system.
Plus, roasts tend to be one-night-only affairs. Late-night hacks demean their political foes five nights a week, often in collusion with Fake News narratives.
A roast functions in a different fashion. Yet some comics don’t even get that.
Comic actor Lil’ Rey Howery put out a video blasting Netflix’s special for the night’s George Floyd gag. That’s “disgusting,” he said, wishing the crowd had booed the bit.
It didn’t.
Why? They know that anything goes with a roast. Again.
We’ll let comedian Adam Yenser have the last word.
Roasts are understood by both the performers and audience as a venue for dark, edgy, and offensive material. Jokes are intentionally controversial.
If you wanna complain about the Charlie Kirk joke but not the George Floyd joke, you’re a hypocrite. If you wanna complain about…
— Adam Yenser (@CleanComedian69) May 13, 2026
The post That Charlie Kirk Roast Joke Wasn’t Out of Line appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
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