Examples of Misaimed Fandom for characters created by comedians.
- Sacha Baron Cohen gets this a lot with his various characters. While his intended message is fairly progressive, he does also use a lot of stereotypes and racist/homophobic jokes to get cheap laughs from the audience. For every "gay conversion" or "Straight Dave" scene, there's a cheap joke about anal sex or incestuous Kazakhs.
- With Borat, he presents what can only be described as an over-the-top, wholly unbelievable portrayal of a backwards, anti-Semitic Central Asian reporter, expressing opinions that most people would find intolerable, and in so doing, gets people to agree with those opinions. Perhaps the ultimate example is "In My Country There Is Problem"
, which starts off innocently enough before launching into the chorus "Throw the Jew down the well/So my country can be free..." which the audience had no reservations at all about singing along to. The video is both hilarious and very, very disturbing, though to be fair to the people joining in the song, it was sung in a comedy club where people would be much more likely to see Borat for what he was, a comedic character. - Similarly, his Ali G character was intended as a satire of white guys trying to be black, but was ultimately worshiped by the very people it criticized.
- Inversely, his Brüno (2009) character, meant as a parody of gay stereotypes, was criticized as being homophobic. Even critics who understood the above two examples felt that he had a lot of trouble getting his intended message across.
- His characters have inspired would-be imitators who think producing "comedy" gives them cover to act boorishly, only to end up in hot water not realizing: (A) Cohen has the backing of major studios, (B) he's accompanied by a professional production team that makes sure people sign legal releases, (C) he has an Army of Lawyers scouring legal precedents to make sure he skirts the right side of the law, and (D) he reserves his riskiest endeavors for locations he can flee at a moment's notice and is OK with being banned from for life.
- With Borat, he presents what can only be described as an over-the-top, wholly unbelievable portrayal of a backwards, anti-Semitic Central Asian reporter, expressing opinions that most people would find intolerable, and in so doing, gets people to agree with those opinions. Perhaps the ultimate example is "In My Country There Is Problem"
- Al Murray's Pub Landlord character was intended as a parodic stereotype of working-class British Nationalists. He was given a talk show on ITV and asked to play the character straight. Nor does it stop people with those actual views from agreeing with the character.
- Jamie Kennedy's character B-Rad was essentially an American Ali G, a satire of white kids who want to be black, but those who only saw him in Malibu's Most Wanted might not know how much he despised the character. He mocks it in his standup act.
- Harry Enfield had the character "Loadsamoney": a loudmouthed, hard-partying, obnoxiously right-wing nouveau riche builder that was a satire of the Essex Man, a stereotype of middle-class Tory voters of The '80s. Unfortunately, said "Essex men" related to Loadsamoney's political incorrectness and lack of consideration for others and didn't realize they were the butt of the joke. Enfield quickly got sick of the character and had Loadsamoney unceremoniously Killed Off for Real in the 1989 Comic Relief Red Nose Day show.
- Sarah Silverman, especially when her fans drool over her looks, demonstrating one of the attitudes she mercilessly satirizes."I don't care if you think I'm racist, I just want you to think I'm thin."
- Stephen Colbert's character has been mistaken for a genuine conservative more than once. Most infamously, when he was invited to perform at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, where he brutally mocked President George W. Bush and his administration. A fan asked him about this before a taping of The Colbert Report:Fan: What do you think of conservatives who watch your show and think you're serious about what you say?
Stephen: It just goes to show that we haven't gotten rid of all the lead paint in our houses.- In fact, a study has shown that conservative fans think that Colbert is exaggerating and presenting his actual views in a comical manner, rather than being outright sarcastic. Both fans and newcomers were presented a clip and asked what they thought Colbert's real views were. The clip was an interview where Colbert attacked a liberal guest in an exaggerated way.
- These days, Colbert is the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he is far more straightforward about his political leanings and brings out "Stephen Colbert" the character only on rare occasions.
- Van Kooten En De Bie: Dutch comedians Kees van Kooten and Wim de Bie had it happen to them with their characters Jacobse en van Es. Originally, they were supposed to be smalltime crooks, until, in 1980, they decided to start a political party called de Tegenpartij ("The Opposing Party") with the motto "Geen gezeik, iedereen rijk" which means "No complaining, everybody rich" ("geen gezeik" is Dutch slang for "no pissing" and by extension "no complaining"). It was supposed to be a spoof on all the extreme right-wing political parties. Unfortunately, said political parties had no sense of satire and openly embraced the Tegenpartij. As a result, on May 10th 1981, "Jacobse en van Es" were shot to death while staging a coup d'etat in The Hague. Van Kooten en de Bie were very sorry to have to retire their favourite characters, and had them come back from the dead several times.
- The real life Dutch far right wing party, The Centrum Partij, had the characters on the cover of their pamphlets and said: "THESE GUYS FINALLY LET PEOPLE HEAR THE TRUTH!"
- Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis starred on the hit Canadian comedy series SCTV. The two of them created the characters of Bob and Doug McKenzie — two beer-drinking, idiotic brothers that talk about menial subjects, while throwing in every stereotype of a typical Canadian into the two brothers that they could think of. Thomas and Moranis did this as a way to get back at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who tried to force the show's production team to add two minutes of "identifiably Canadian content". The actors did this as a way to show how silly the mandate was. But when the characters premiered, Bob and Doug were a hit with the Canadian audience that the two actors were trying to lampoon, and the characters became one of the most famous aspects of the show, thus utterly failing to present the CBC's idea as foolish.
- Comedy shows such as The Office, Little Britain, Extras, and Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat have been praised by some for their disregard of political correctness, when in fact the disregard of political correctness is what's frequently being satirized.
- This is traditionally a risk of doing provocative comedy routines, particularly those involving racism and other forms of bigotry; no matter how noble the intentions of the performer, it inevitably becomes difficult to tell whether people are laughing at the satire of the racist character or whether people are laughing with the racist character. The reverse can also be true, it at times being difficult to tell whether the performer actually is satirizing racial issues or whether they're just using this as an excuse to get some cheap laughs using racially-based humour.
- It's becoming increasingly popular in UK comedy to openly mock people who are ardently anti-political correctness (generally straight white men) as just being rude bullies, with Dara O'Brien mocking it as being against "being polite" and Mock The Week guest Mickey Flanagan's occasional racist jokes going over very poorly and being mocked by the other panel members. This, purely because of people misinterpreting and feeling validated by subtle satire of criticism of political correctness.
- Alf Garnett of the British comedy show Till Death Do Us Part and Archie Bunker of All In The Family, the American adaptation, still provoke great debate over whether they were supposed to be satires of the kind of racist mindset they displayed, or played straight. Word of God claimed the former, but a heck of a lot of viewers seemed to believe and agree with the latter.
- To a lesser extends this goes for the Dutch series "In Voor en Tegenspoed" (English: "For better and for worse") as well. The lead character, Rijk de Gooyer who was born for the part, was an extreme bigot. This was around the time that racism in politics became a hot issue again (due to the right-wing Centrum Democrat Party). Somehow, people missed the scathing satire entirely. Eventually set right when a parody of the Centrum Democrat Party came to his house to talk about the 'issues' in modern day Holland. The main character listens attentively, agrees with most of the stuff and calls over one of his friends to listen to what they have to say. Cue one of his black friends coming over and listening to their drivel. Funny as hell, especially because you see the smile on his friend's face getting bigger and bigger, while the representatives from the racist party getting more nervous by the second.
- Charlie Brooker, in a Radio Times interview, described how he was once approached by the Conservative Party to star in an election broadcast. Though he doesn't bash viewers over the head with his politics, it's still quite clear that he isn't a Tory.
- Several mainstream news organizations have taken Jon Stewart to task for being voted America's most trusted newscaster — while hosting a program dedicated to mocking the news — largely because he was one of the few presenters, comedic or not, willing to ask questions hard enough to make the guests uncomfortable (while having an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject matter). This was one of the biggest criticisms Stewart faced: being America's "most trustworthy anchor" while telling jokes often got him accused of wanting to have his cake and eat it too, thus bringing his misaimed fandom on himself. Whenever he was addressed on this, he'd reply with some variation of "I'm just a comedian".
- Stewart lampshaded this fact in his well-known appearance on CNN's "Crossfire" in 2004 - Stewart says that news organizations look to his show for cues on integrity. When the hosts try to grill him for not being "hard-hitting enough" on guests, Stewart explains, "You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls... if your idea of confronting me is that I don't ask hard-hitting enough news questions, we're in bad shape."
- Crossfire was actually cancelled just four months after that interview, with CNN's CEO explaining that he sympathized with Jon Stewart's remarks.
- Stewart lampshaded this fact in his well-known appearance on CNN's "Crossfire" in 2004 - Stewart says that news organizations look to his show for cues on integrity. When the hosts try to grill him for not being "hard-hitting enough" on guests, Stewart explains, "You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls... if your idea of confronting me is that I don't ask hard-hitting enough news questions, we're in bad shape."
- Andrew "Dice" Clay's character of "The Diceman" was a Deconstructive Parody of a 1950s greaser, with appallingly backwards views on women, as well as being blatantly racist and homophobic. All of this was intentional on Clay's part; The Diceman was meant to show that people viewing The '50s as some sort of "golden age" were ignoring a lot of problems with the decade. Unfortunately, the satire was a little too on the nose. Roger Ebert once reviewed one of Clay's shows, and was aghast at the audience responding to the sexist drivel of The Diceman by pumping their fists and chanting Clay's name. However, Ebert made the mistake of confusing the character with the comedian, which was a very common occurrence when it came to Clay's routines. Part of the problem was that Clay never broke character in interviews, leading many to believe that The Diceman was what Clay actually believed (or at least that it was an exaggerated version of it). This confusion ended up eventually killing Clay's career when a lot of people missed the fact that The Diceman was a parody, taking his sexism and racism at face value and applauding it, which got all the wrong kind of attention.
- Pee Wee Herman (who, like Andrew Dice Clay, rarely broke character in the public eye) was a parody of 1950s children's television hosts created by Groundlings member Paul Reubens, who eventually was popular enough to be given his own acclaimed children's show, despite the fact that the original play that Reubens' character came from having much adult humour in its content. "Pee Wee" was instead received and treated as a legitimate children's entertainer, which added to the shock when Reubens was arrested for public lewd behavior in the early 1990s.
- To a small extent, Bill Maher. Despite his enormous atheist fandom, he's actually just as critical of hardcore atheism as he is of religious extremism. In fact, not-so-extensive research will reveal that he's more of a hard agnostic than an atheist.
- Chris Rock's "Black People Vs Niggaz" segment of Bring the Pain made him a star, but too many people missed the message of the routine. The message was to point out the self-hatred and intentional ignorance that some black people suffer from, and how it's a problem for all black people in America, especially black people who were trying to break the mold. Thus, the message of the routine was to Stop Being Stereotypical. However, many white supremacists used the routine to justify their beliefs and mistreatment of black people. Chris Rock has said in interviews that many people completely missed the point of what he was saying; as a result, Rock stopped doing the routine.Chris Rock: I've never done that joke again, ever, and I probably never will. 'Cos some people that were racist thought they had license to say "nigger." So, I'm done with that routine.
- In recent years, Dave Chappelle picked up a Periphery Demographic of right-leaning fans despite his rather liberal views. Most notably, conservative pundits Candace Owens and Steven Crowder expressed admiration for Chappelle's 2020 specials despite Chapelle's left-leaning stances and Chappelle's support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, which Owens and Crowder oppose. Nonetheless, many conservatives are aware that Dave is not conservative himself, but nevertheless respect him for standing up to "Cancel Culture" and political correctness.
- Many years after his death in 2008, George Carlin's routines have been co-opted to say things he didn't mean to say.
- Carlin's routine about people's immune systems needing practice on strong germs has occasionally been quoted by the anti-vaccination movement, who attempted to justify their decisions to not take the COVID-19 vaccine to supposedly make their own immune systems stronger. Despite George no longer being able to rebut it, his daughter Kelley has enthusiastically taken up the task, making clear that he was a strong supporter of vaccines despite what he said in his routine.
- Carlin's rants on media censorship have been co-opted by bigots on social media who want to be able to say whatever they want online with no repercussions, including hate speech. However, while Carlin was was indeed against needless censorship of more adult language in the media, it was primarily because he saw most of what was censored to be relatively harmless on TV. Furthermore, while he did defend the right for people to use offensive language or racial slurs, he did not necessarily condone the use of it to pick on underdogs or minorities, especially in comedy. In an interview with Larry King, Carlin commented on Andrew "Dice" Clay's character of "The Diceman", with Carlin saying that while he stuck by Clay's right to say whatever he wanted, Carlin didn't think it worked. Carlin argued that this is because comedy is "punching up" — that is, making fun of people above you and those in power — and "punching down" by going after minorities and oppressed people (even if it was as a Deconstructive Parody) was a hard sell. So in short, not only did Carlin not condone being bigoted on social media, but he thought that the consequences of such actions would inevitably come back to bite bigots in the ass.
