I’m Over Randy Rainbow’s One-Note Act

by Chris Peterson

There was a time when Randy Rainbow felt genuinely timely. The country was unraveling, the news cycle was absurd, and here was this hyper-theatrical, heavily caffeinated parody machine turning political chaos into slick little bursts of musical catharsis. I got why people loved it. Honestly, I did.

But at this point, we need to be honest about what Randy Rainbow actually is now, and what he is not. He is not especially daring anymore. He is not especially surprising. And he is definitely not useful.

What he is, at least in my view, is a deeply repetitive performer who found one formula that worked, one audience that would reward it endlessly, and one tone of smug exasperation that now passes for insight, no matter how little is actually being said.

That may sound harsh, but I think it is fair.

Let me make this painfully clear before someone tries to turn this into a comment-section field trip:

I’m not a Republican, I don’t support Trump, and this isn’t a defense of anything Trump represents.

This is me saying that Randy Rainbow’s brand of political parody has become repetitive, self-satisfied, and ultimately unhelpful.

Keep in mind, he didn’t start off as a political satirist; he started lampooning celebrity culture, making fun of (at the time) entitled celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, and Kanye West, just to name a few. And the videos were pretty funny, especially for the time (15 years ago!).

The Trump videos started coming around the 2016 election, and, it was so, so welcome. Trump was seen by many as a breath of fresh air, an outsider, someone who could shake up American politics (which he successfully did, I guess). Randy Rainbow ridiculing Trump and his brand was much needed.

I loved those videos, especially coming from someone who loves musical theatre.

Fast forward nearly 10 years; we’re sadly still dealing with a Trump administration, all liberal voters (presumably Rainbow’s audience) are all sick of Trump and can’t wait to be done with him once and for all, and here’s a list of Randy Rainbow’s subjects of his last 14 parodies since the 2024 election:

Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, RFK, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, MAGA Voters, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Kamala/Donald Trump (2024 Election Special)

We have 3 more years of a Trump presidency. Are we getting three more years of the same videos and jokes from Rainbow?

Let’s get into the jokes themselves. I am not a humorist by trade, but I know what tickles a good funny bone; so let’s just look at Rainbow’s latest video on Melania and highlight a few of his jokes:

“It is an honor to have you on the heels of the groundsucking, flopumentary, “Melania”

“As legend has it you despise your husband, and sweetie pie you’re not alone”

(to the song of “Life of Ophelia” by Taylor Swift) “Real Housewife who gives no f*cksville, so shady, our gorgeous useless first lady Melania, complicit in his evil plans, his sleaze, his lies, girl you’re faker than your tan, your teeth, your smize, don’t know what the hell you did, to pay, the price of spending life with this conniving despotic putz.”

I can’t transcribe anymore out of a duty to not bore you further.

To be fair, it takes some cleverness to slam Melania to the tune of a Taylor Swift song this in sync. But the barbs themselves show no cleverness, even to the target audience, and they induce more groans than even mild chuckles, because they could come straight from the hosts of MS NOW or from Stephen Colbert’s nightly monologues; that’s how politically charged the lyrics are.

And the biggest problem is, it’s so predictable.

To be clear, this is not really a criticism of his politics. It is not even a criticism of parody. I love parody. I love satire. I love theatricality. I am probably the exact kind of person who should be eating this stuff up with a spoon. But that is probably why the limitations of Randy Rainbow’s work feel so glaring to me now. Once you strip away the piano and the increasingly familiar eye-roll, there is rarely much left beyond the same basic joke told the same basic way.

That is the problem. Not that he exists. Not that he has an audience. Not that people find him comforting or funny. It is that his work has become so formulaic and so self-satisfied that people keep mistaking recognition for relevance.

You know the rhythm before the video even starts. He is going to act horrified. He is going to deliver a few cutting little lines with that patented “can you imagine?” energy. He is going to wrap the whole thing in a Broadway-adjacent parody structure. His audience will feel validated. And then everyone will move on, having mistaken a familiar performance for meaningful commentary.

That is not me saying satire has to change minds to be worthwhile. But if someone is continually elevated as a bold political voice, I think it is fair to ask a very simple question: what is actually being added here now that was not already obvious five years ago?

For me, the answer is increasingly: not much.

And I think that is why his videos have gone from amusing to irritating. They do not sharpen the discourse. They mostly flatter the existing beliefs of an audience that already agrees with him. That might be emotionally satisfying, but emotional satisfaction is not the same thing as sharp satire.

In fact, I would argue that Randy Rainbow’s biggest strength has become his biggest weakness. He is so committed to the persona, that there is almost no room left for evolution. Every video feels like brand maintenance. Efficient. Predictable. Polished. Entirely too pleased with itself.

There are so many other worthy subjects to lampoon outside of politics while staying on brand; so many different topics that could keep his YouTube Channel fresh.

And yet, he stays the course.

Part of my skepticism here also comes from history.

I have had issues with Randy Rainbow before, particularly when controversy resurfaced around old racist and transphobic tweets and the response that followed. What bothered me then, and still bothers me now, was not just the existence of those tweets. It was the cleanup instinct, the attempt to move quickly past them, and the all-too-familiar suggestion that the standards were somehow different then. I did not buy that excuse then, and I do not buy it now. (For anyone who wants the full context, I wrote about it here).

Randy Rainbow’s videos, at least now, feel like an endless performance of being right. And being right is not the same as being incisive. Plenty of people are right. That alone does not make the art necessary. It certainly does not make it brave.

Randy Rainbow, for me, no longer cuts. He ornaments. And maybe that is the cleanest way to put it.

His work is not dangerous enough to threaten anyone, not searching enough to challenge anyone, and not fresh enough to surprise anyone.

It is decorative resistance. Performance for people who want the aesthetics of outrage without the inconvenience of depth.

If that sounds mean, so be it. I am not arguing that he has no talent. He’s been nominated for multiple Emmy’s for his work. He’s written best-selling books.

Good for him.

I argue that talent can become a trap when used solely to reinforce the same brand, and make fun of the same targets, over and over again.

That is where Randy Rainbow has landed for me.

And maybe that still works for some people. It certainly does for BroadwayWorld, who promote his videos like Hollywood premieres. Maybe they still find it cathartic.

That is their right.

Mine is to say that I think the act has gone stale, the persona has swallowed the point, and the emperor’s new show tune has been sounding awfully familiar for a while now, so much that I and (I suspect) many of the people who used to love his work are now tuning him out.

And maybe everyone else left standing should tune him out, too.