How 9/11 Changed Comedy

It has been 25 years since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and Wesley has been reflecting on what has changed since then — particularly when it comes to comedy.

The first film he saw in theaters after the attacks was “Zoolander,” which opened to mediocre box office numbers and mixed reviews. The movie became a flashpoint as the world wrestled with questions about what was funny and when it would be OK to be funny again. And that uncertainty about what American comedy is, whom it’s aimed at and whether it can be therapeutic may never have gone away.

This week, The Times’s comedy critic, Jason Zinoman, sits down with Wesley to remember the debates about comedy in the aftermath of the attacks, and to think through how that period changed the art form in ways that we’re still experiencing today.

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