Tim Allen thinks nothing is more effective at pissing people off than a “very funny conservative.”
“I like pissing people off, and I said there’s nothing, especially in this area, that pisses people off more than a very funny conservative, a smart, funny conservative that takes shots and is certainly self-effacing,” Allen said in an interview with IndieWire about his show “Last Man Standing,” in which he plays a conservative-leaning character.
“The left-wing point of view is so pervasive that they don’t even realize it’s a point of view. It is just a point of view,” he said. “I think this character likes that, he likes to have another point of view. It makes him sharper and more interesting. But we don’t push it.”
Allen says in the interview that the character’s beliefs aren’t exactly his own, but that liberals have a problem with humor targeting them or self-reflecting humor and that it motivates him to prod at the sensitivities of liberals for comedy.
“I think it’s funny to make fun of people that are full of themselves,” Allen said. “Liberals have a very small window of sense of humor about themselves, so I love poking at it.”
That’s a change from a few years ago, he said, when it was conservatives who had trouble being joked about.
“But right now liberals, particularly progressives, hide behind large concepts,” he said. “If you don’t agree with them, if you don’t agree with that position, then you hate women, and you hate gay people, and you hate pro-choice people, whatever. And I said, ‘That doesn’t fit.'”
“Last Man Standing” was canceled by ABC in 2017 after six seasons, but was picked up by Fox and became their highest-rated Friday telecast in 18 years. The show focuses on Allen’s character Mike Baxter, and uses current events and politics as part of the humor.
