It’s pretty darn difficult to not laugh after seeing the legendary Marlon Wayans on-screen or stage.
The Manhattan-raised comedic genius – certainly one of many talented individuals in his family – has been cracking smiles because the late Nineteen Eighties on TV and in hilarious movies. Recently, Wayans launched a stand-up tour across America and Canada – catch him in Newark, Recent Jersey (Aug. 11 and 13) and Bensalem, Pennsylvania (Aug. 12).
This week on “Renaissance Man,” the illustrious Wayans brother has an ultra-important message – you’re still allowed to be funny in 2023!
“I’m raised to inform jokes and I won’t ever fear telling my jokes,” Marlon told me with passion in his voice, also giving cancel culture an enormous heckle offstage.
“Most people on social media with these [negative] opinions aren’t even real people …They’re attempting to strip us of the very thing that makes our country special: the liberty of speech.”
Recently, Marlon used comedy to handle the senseless violence and brawl at an Alabama dock which caught the nation’s attention. It’s something he spoke intimately about on this week’s episode – together with negative response to his own commentary on the incident.
“I believe social media tousled socializing and we’ve got to get back to laughing and finding reasons to laugh and stop being so rattling sensitive,” he said. “All we’re doing is filling our airwaves, feeling out our children with fear and hate – there’s no laughter and love. The one thing that’s going to bring us together is humor.”
Marlon is even anxious in regards to the direction free speech is moving toward in America.
He said it’s time to take it back – here and now.
“In the end, they’re going to remove the First Amendment. We’re all going to should think alike,” Marlon said.
“Individuals are going to get canceled. ‘You possibly can’t think like this.’ What sort of society will we live in? … It’s OK to laugh at things. I laugh my way through life and those who need to live in drama, y’all can find the drama and the tears while I find these jokes,” he said.
Marlon isn’t kidding when he says the facility of awesome humor has gotten him through harsh moments.
“Comedy saved my life quite a lot of times,” he said. “[Once before] I went onstage, I discovered my dad died and I didn’t cancel the show … I got a standing ovation and once I [finally] let the audience know that my dad passed, I broke down on the stage.”
Like in his own case, Marlon – who said he’d be a lawyer if not a comedian – believes many more people can use humor, not negativity, to deal with life’s hardships in a way that connects them to more love.
The message is straightforward, America. Just laugh more!
“Our goal is all the time to make our jokes bring people together …The people we make fun of laugh the loudest,” Marlon said. “All of us live here on this country – mostly in harmony – laughing and making fun of one another.”
Detroit native Jalen Rose is a member of the University of Michigan’s iconoclastic Fab Five, who shook up the faculty hoops world within the early ’90s. He played 13 seasons within the NBA before transitioning right into a media personality. Rose executive-produced “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, is the writer of the best-selling book “Got To Give the People What They Want,” a fashion tastemaker and co-founded the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a public charter school in his hometown.
