A Canadian comedian with a solid international fanbase just watched six sold-out shows vanish in Minnesota. Ben Bankas lost his gigs at Laugh Camp Comedy Club in St. Paul after clips of his routine on Renee Good's death blew up online - the routine hit raw nerves in a city still reeling from the January 7 shooting.
Club owner Bill Collins cited threats, media frenzy, and street chaos as the reasons for the cancellation. "After discussions with, and concern from public authorities, legal counsel and staff, combined with heightened threats, increasing media attention and civil disorder, we have determined the risks and related liabilities cannot be overcome," Collins told People Magazine.
Outrage began to erupt when Bankas did a routine on Good, the Minneapolis woman killed on January 7 when her vehicle made contact with an ICE agent while attempting to flee, after she had been obstructing an active ICE operation. Bankas performed material about Good at Laugh It Up Comedy Club in Poughkeepsie, New York, on January 9 and January 10, just days after the shooting. He posted video clips from those sets on Instagram, where one reel reportedly racked up nearly 400,000 likes.
Bankas opened his bit by calling for a moment of silence for Good, then pivoting to say he hoped “that dog’s okay…and her pet,” a reference to Good’s dog, who was in the car with her, and her wife, Becca, who had been in the vehicle but left shortly before she told Renee to drive off while the agent was in front of her car.
“That’s what you don’t want when you’re dealing with the police — your lesbian wife saying ‘drive, baby, drive,’” he told the crowd. “Her last name was Good; that’s what I said after they shot her in the face,” he continued. He then backed off slightly, saying, “I’m not a liberal, so I don’t celebrate the death of people that I… I didn’t hate her, I didn’t know her, but now that I know her, I hate her”.
He pushed further by mocking activists he imagined would rally around Good’s memory. “That’s the left’s Charlie Kirk. They’re gonna get shirts ‘I am Renee Good. I am a dumb, retarded lesbian.’ Get your shirts right now. Benbankas.com,” he said during the routine. He described Good as “a dumb, retarded, crazy lesbian” and suggested officers hesitated to use force because she was white and they assumed she had never committed a crime. The Instagram reel of the Good joke drew more than 129,000 likes and thousands of comments, and Bankas used it to promote tour dates stretching across North America and Europe.
The fallout for Laugh Camp Comedy Club extends beyond a lost weekend. Collins told reporters that Bankas would have been one of the strongest draws in the club’s history. The Creative Artists Agency, which represents Bankas, demanded full compensation for the canceled shows and announced it would bar all of its other clients from performing at Laugh Camp until the dispute is resolved.
The unfortunate pattern here is that comedians willing to target progressive causes or figures face organized pressure campaigns aimed at shutting them down. No similar wave of threats or cancellations seems to follow non-conservative comedians who push boundaries or offend. For example, just last week, Stephen Colbert quipped, “Do not compare ICE or Border Patrol agents to the Nazis. That's an unfair comparison. The Nazis were willing to show their faces.”
That’s what passes as an acceptable joke to progressives.
Bankas posted a Facebook video of him reacting to the cancellation on stage in Washington, D.C. He blamed the cancellation on political pressure after receiving a voicemail from a liberal who was upset about one of his jokes. “They were pussying out,” Bankas said, adding that he was willing to absorb costs and even hire armed security to keep the shows alive. “I was ready to spend a lot of my own money,” he said, because audiences deserved the release. “The people of Minnesota who are normal and are, are good people deserve to fucking laugh.” He also framed the cancellation as part of a broader climate of fear and instability, in which even entertainment gets caught in the political crossfire.
That reel has drawn more than 145,000 likes and has been viewed nearly 3 million times.