Mentions of sexual assault, racism, and mocking of religious themes.

Summary

• Some comedy movies touch on sensitive subjects like sexual assault, racism, and religious themes that make audiences feel uncomfortable.
• Controversial comedy movies often sacrifice quality for laughs or normalize offensive portrayals, leading to backlash and bans.
• Despite their controversial nature, some comedy movies are still considered classics and among the best in the genre.

Although comedies are made to make the audience laugh, some of them have stood out for being controversial rather than funny. Comedy is a tough genre as it’s not easy to make people laugh, and many comedies end up sacrificing quality for laughs, while others bring quality but don’t exactly make their audience smile. The world of comedy is also difficult as there’s a thin line between comedy and rudeness that many writers ignore or aren’t aware of, leading to comedy movies that end up touching on sensitive subjects that don’t make anyone laugh, and instead, they make the audience feel uncomfortable.

Of course, there have also been comedy movies that knew they were dealing with taboo or difficult subjects or consciously made offensive portrayals that, unsurprisingly, led to them being banned and labeled as controversial. Others, however, became controversial with time, as what they did wrong was normalized when the movies came out, but in retrospect, they should have done things differently. Still, some of these movies are considered among the best comedy movies ever and some have even become classics, but that doesn’t erase their controversial history.

10 Sixteen Candles

Long Duk Dong & a controversial plotline taint Sixteen Candles’ legacy

John Hughes’ coming-of-age comedy Sixteen Candles is now regarded as a classic from the 1980s, but it’s also quite controversial due to Gedde Watanabe’s character, Long Duk Dong. Dong was a Chinese foreign exchange student staying with Sam’s grandparents, whose appearances were accompanied by a gong sound. Long Duk Dong perpetuated offensive Asian stereotypes in Hollywood, and the character was used as an unfunny running gag.

Sixteen Candles is also controversial due to a plotline involving rape, between Ted and Caroline after Jake encourages the former to drive her home as she was “so blitzed she won’t know the difference”. Although no sexual activity is shown, Caroline wakes up next to Ted in the car, certain that something happened.

9 Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder’s use of blackface & portrayal of disabilities were too much

Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder follows a group of actors making a Vietnam War film in the middle of the jungle, and after the death of their director, they are forced to rely on their acting skills to survive. Tropic Thunder is a satirical comedy movie, but its parodies of clichés and real-life issues didn’t sit well with many. Ben Stiller’s character was criticized by disability advocates for his insensitive portrayal of intellectual disability, even though Stiller insisted that the target of the jokes were method actors who did offensive portrayals of intellectual disabilities.

In addition to that, Robert Downey Jr’s character is an Australian method actor who underwent a “pigmentation alteration” surgery to temporarily darken his skin for a role as a Black character. The use of blackface was also heavily criticized, though others defended it by explaining that the point of it was to mock actors who have done blackface and other extreme things that method actors often do.

8 Saved!

Saved! was both praised & criticized by religious groups

Saved! is a satirical black comedy movie directed by Brian Dannelly. It follows Mary Cummings (Jena Malone), a student at a Christian high school who has sex with her boyfriend to “cure” him of his homosexuality, but she becomes pregnant. While some religious groups praised Saved! for its depiction of real challenges that Christian teenagers go through and its blend of religious satire and teen film, others found it to be anti-Christian and that it mocked the Christian Faith.

7 Sausage Party

Sausage Party’s tone was too much, but so were its behind-the-scenes issues

Sausage Party is an adult animated comedy movie directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan. It follows a sausage (voiced by Seth Rogen) who lives in a supermarket and learns the truth about what happens to groceries when they are bought, leading him on a journey with his friends to escape their fate. Sausage Party has very graphic scenes and a dark sense of humor that didn’t sit well with many viewers, and to add even more to the controversy around it, there were behind-the-scenes problems. Animators were forced to work overtime for free, and some of them were blacklisted due to their complaints and went uncredited in the movie (via Variety).

6 Trading Places

Sexual assault & blackface were used for “laughs”

Directed by John Landis, Trading Places follows Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd), a wealthy commodities director, and Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy), a street beggar and con man, who are made the subjects of a bet to test how each one would perform if their life circumstances were swapped. Although Trading Places was a critical and commercial hit during its release, with time it has become quite controversial due to its use of racial language, blackface in a scene with Aykroyd, and a rape joke involving Paul Gleason’s Clarence Beeks and a gorilla.

5 Borat

Borat pushed the boundaries of comedy

The mockumentary black comedy movie Borat was directed by Larry Charles and stars Sacha Baron Cohen as the title Kazakhstani journalist who travels to the United States to make a documentary. For it, Cohen’s interactions with Americans were real, and much of the movie was unscripted. Borat was criticized for its offensive ethnic characterizations and comedy style, and the real people who interacted with the character weren’t happy with how they were tricked and how their appearance in the movie affected their lives, so much so that some sued Cohen for it. Unsurprisingly, Borat was banned in various countries.

4 The Interview

The Interview chose a controversial target

The Interview was directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and it follows journalists Dave Skylark (James Franco) and Aaron Rapaport (Rogen), who set up an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Randall Park) and are later recruited by the CIA to kill him. Of course, The Interview was highly controversial, with the North Korean government threatening action against the United States if the film was released. As a result, the movie was reportedly reedited, but it still got a limited theatrical release, with many major theater chains choosing not to release it out of safety concerns.

3 Monty Python's Life Of Brian

Monty Python's Life Of Brian’s religious satire wasn’t well received

Monty Python's Life Of Brian was directed by Terry Jones and tells the story of Brian Cohen (Graham Chapman), a Jewish-Roman man born on the same day as Jesus, as well as in a stable next door to his, so he’s later mistaken for the Messiah. This alternate-reality scenario caused backlash from religious groups, with some calling the film “blasphemous” and protesting its release, with the scene that got the most criticism being Brian’s crucifixion, which Christian protesters found to be mocking Jesus’ suffering. As a result, Monty Python's Life Of Brian was banned in different countries.

2 Dogma

Dogma was labeled “blasphemous”

Kevin Smith’s Dogma follows Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and Loki (Matt Damon), two fallen angels who plan to use a supposed loophole in Catholic dogma to return to Heaven after being cast out by God – but as existence is founded on the idea that God is infallible, if they succeed, they would be proving God wrong and would undo all creation. Dogma was a critical and commercial hit, but its treatment of Catholicism, the church, and God, led to it being labeled “blasphemous” by religious groups, who also protested its release and even sent death threats to Smith.

1 Pink Flamingos

Pink Flamingos mixed a lot of controversial elements

John Waters’ Pink Flamingos follows Babs Johnson/Divine (Divine), the “filthiest person alive” who lives in a trailer with her mother, her son, and a companion. Babs is confronted by a pair of criminals who envy her reputation and try to outdo her in filth, making way for various bizarre and grotesque situations. Although Pink Flamingos has been praised and became a cult classic, it continues to be controversial due to its graphic scenes (such as the infamous ending where Divine eats dog poop), nudity, profanity, sexuality, and more. Of course, Pink Flamingos was banned in various countries.