How HBO's 'Crashing' brilliantly takes on PC culture and stand-up comedy in the #MeToo era

Spoiler alert! Contains minor spoilers from the Feb. 10 episode of HBO's "Crashing." 

NEW YORK – Is it a bad time to be a straight white man in comedy?  

Hardly, but that doesn't stop many of them from saying it. High-profile comedians including Jerry Seinfeld, Louis CK and Norm Macdonald have all bemoaned that comedy has become too politically correct in recent years – a groan-worthy sentiment that's echoed by (fictional) veteran comic Jason (Dov Davidoff) in Sunday's incisive new episode of HBO's "Crashing," midway through its third season. 

"This (expletive) used to be fun; it used to be dangerous," Jason tells Pete (Pete Holmes), shortly after bombing with a crude stand-up set about being casually racist and not asking for sexual consent. "If I were a biracial lesbian doing the same material, that crowd would've carried me around – they would've had a parade for me." 

The episode comes to an ugly climax when Jason – furious after female comic Ally (Jamie Lee) calls out his misogyny onstage – drunkenly harasses a waitress, who turns down his aggressive advances. The club docks his pay and he has a heated post-show confrontation with Ally, where she likens his off-color jokes to "hate speech." 

Unlike most of "Crashing," which is set in New York, Sunday's episode is set at a fictional comedy club in rural New Jersey. The premise was inspired in part by a 1999 Bill Cosby book in which he mocked sexual consent, as well as the headlines executive producer Judd Apatow and the show's writers saw in the wake of the #MeToo movement. 

"As all these issues came up with sexual harassment, we thought, 'Oh, maybe there's a way for us to to reveal deeper aspects of this in our fictional world,' " Apatow says. "You know, 'Here's what it's like to be a woman on the road and all of the ways you're disrespected. Here's what it's like to have to work with the terrible, misogynist comedian and here's how he treats you on the road. And here's what it's like to be a waitress in a comedy club when all the comedians are trying to hit on you.' We realized (this episode) was a good space to acknowledge what's happening in the world."

Rather than introduce a new character to exemplify fragile masculinity, the writers chose to bring back Jason, who until now was primarily the show's gruff manager of a low-level club where Pete got his start. 

"He was a good character to discuss how some comedians have a certain comedic stance that isn't working anymore," Apatow says. "It's this (type of) put-upon white male who complains about how everything's changing and has all these theories about how people should behave. ... There are some people who do (that material) as a bit or a character – they know it's wrong and we watch it knowing that's the point. And there is a lot of humor to be mined in men talking about how difficult it is to adjust to a world that's waking up, and it's OK to talk about if your heart is in the right place.

"But there are certain people (like Jason) whose hearts aren't in the right place," he continues. "It's just easy humor jacking up men to make them feel like they're the kings of their castles."

Lee, who's also a writer and producer on "Crashing," says the episode is not based on any specific experiences, although she relates to Ally's frustration with being the only woman in an all-male lineup and being told how to do her job by club managers. She hopes the episode furthers the discussion about the #MeToo and Time's Up movements in comedy, and that comedians who share Jason's outdated ideas will learn from it. 

"Part of me feels bad for them, because that is so much their reality that they're not even open to expanding their reality;  that would be an even larger burden to them, living in a world that's outside their comfort zone," Lee says. "But then another part of me is like, if they're not going to try and grow and change and pay attention to the conversations that are being had, that is on you. And Ally essentially says that you have to take accountability for the way you are and the way you impact people around you."