The-Numbers.com shows how comedies made up 20 percent of the total movie market share in 1997. Six years later, that number peaked at 21.44 percent.

That year we saw classic romps like “Old School,” “Stuck on You” and “Bad Santa.”

By 2020, the comedic market share shrunk to 3.8 percent. Now, it stands at 6.73 percent after 2023’s first quarter.

What changed? Isn’t it obvious?

[It’s fairly obvious, and it’s because the woke comedies that replaced the previous genre entries turned out to be — surprise!! — not funny. Even a potentially valuable premise like “Rough Night,” which offered a female version of “Hangover,” arrived flat thanks to a refusal to fully commit to the bit. When “representation” is a higher priority than comedy, what you get isn’t funny, and really isn’t comedy. It’s a didactic, a lecture of sorts on how problematic Hollywood finds us for laughing at genuine comedy. There may be a masochistic demo that enjoys such condescension, but it’s a very limited market when it comes to escapist fare. — Ed]