I hate these bastards.
Comedy has always had a cruel, misanthropic element. Whether it's Swift, Flaubert, Voltaire or Shakespeare. Nabokov thought Don Quixote was a very cruel book - and his own books are cruel - Lolita, for example, a very funny book in its own way.
I suppose the sense of self righteousness comedians feel is cousin to the role of the Fool in Shakespeare and elsewhere. The Fool has license to say things the nobles can't say, the price of which is they're never taken seriously. Which also helps explain the endless desperation you find in comedians to be taken seriously. They have to plead their case as serious artists because people instinctively mark down jokes as a lower form of art, a clever trick at best.
I'm watching him now, in a Mission Impossible film, playing opposite Tom Cruise. It's ridiculous. How did that happen? Who allowed it? From Emanuelle Beart to...fucking Simon Pegg.
Which also helps explain the endless desperation you find in comedians to be taken seriously. They have to plead their case as serious artists because people instinctively mark down jokes as a lower form of art, a clever trick at best.