Woody Harrelson was right to joke at Big Pharma’s expense

Woody Harrelson took a jab at the jab — and revealed that much of the left still views COVID vaccines not as a medical advancement but as a religious virtue.

While hosting SNL last weekend, Harrelson embarked on a meandering monologue where he talked about getting blazed in Central Park just before the pandemic and reading an outrageous movie script.

“So, the movie goes like this,” Harrelson said. “The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes, and people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over.”

He added, “I threw the script away. I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day long.”

Predictably, the blowback was swift, with nearly every ensuing news story proclaiming Harrelson was spreading anti-vax conspiracy theories. Outrage spread on Twitter and a Vanity Fair critic opined: “Taking the stage to float conspiracy theories disguised as provocative humor is both intellectually dishonest and tedious.”

But maybe the former “Cheers” star had it coming. After all, he made a joke about Our Lady of Pfizer.

And during Lent, of all seasons.

We all know the only approved vax humor is a jazzy dance number with human syringes twirling around Stephen Colbert.

Harrelson — who was brilliant as rubber-handed Roy Munson in “Kingpin” and most recently playing a hyperbolic version of himself in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” — can and should be judged on the quality of the joke.

Maybe his crack doesn’t belong in the pantheon of yuk yuks, but it was not crazy or dangerous rhetoric. The only danger here is turning Big Pharma and COVID mandates into sacred cows.

According to the commandments set forth by the sensitivity police, comedy should always punch up, never down.

I believe the multibillion-dollar corporations that provide COVID vaccines, and our government, whether Republican or Democrat, fit that bill.

But joking or questioning the official party line gets you called an antivaxxer or a conspiracy trafficker. Just ask Jon Stewart, who last year presented a hilarious and extremely logical theory that the virus was indeed from the Wuhan lab. He was mocked and subject to a torrent of backlash from his once adoring progressive cheering section.

This time last year, the powerful Hulu series “Dopesick” was an awards show darling. The show, based on the investigative book of the same name, told the story of how Purdue pharma — in concert with the FDA and some media — were able to make oxycontin a mainstay of the rural American diet.

No, I’m not comparing opioids to the COVID vaccine, but rather pointing to a strange hypocrisy.

We can reflect on how we let a drug company run roughshod over whole swathes of the country and rake in billions of dollars in the process, yet we’re not allowed to question certain pharma companies, unions, government agencies or mandates during this unprecedented time in our nation’s history.

Why do these entities now deserve immunity from scrutiny?

How did we become so incurious and docile?

As more evidence emerges about mask mandates, the likely origins of COVID and the overall effectiveness of COVID vaccines, it’s time to open the floor to common-sense dialogue. And yes, a few jokes.

The day of his SNL monologue, Harrelson clarified his position, calling for an end to the showbiz industry’s outdated COVID protocols in an interview with the New York Times. “It’s not fair to the crews. I don’t have to wear the mask. Why should they? Why should they have to be vaccinated? How’s that not up to the individual,” he said. During Sunday’s SAG Awards, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher echoed a similar sentiment for the industry, saying it’s time to end its “bulls — t” mandates.

COVID exists. It’s something we have to live with. And going forward with this rather unsavory — and yes, in a small number of cases, deadly — interloper, we have to acknowledge certain truths about mitigation. But we can’t let ideology trump our desire to find some consensus.

Harrelson has sparked not just a doobie, but a valid conversation — and perhaps even a change in his own industry.

Not bad for a stoner “redneck hippie.”