Here’s Bill Maher on a recent “Real Time” show discussing the current unacceptability of certain brands of humor. (Click on screenshot to see Maher’s take; and is that really Ann Coulter as his special guest?)
Humor that deals with issues of sex, race, and the like is a touchy business. For example, unlike Maher I’m not keen on the joke that Clint Eastwood makes at the beginning, for it seems to have no point beyond saying that Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner is “acting.”
But on the other hand provocative humor that deals with sex and race, without being offensively sexist and racist, has been made by people like George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Chris Rock, and Joan Rivers. Don’t forget the common trope of female comedians about how sex-obsessed men are—along with our other unpleasant traits—humor that has a basis in reality (yes, the sexes differ in behavior), but, as Maher notes, doesn’t apply to every member of the class. Is that offensive? Maybe to some people, but I don’t think we should ban it. Calling attention to those differences can be both funny and thought-provoking. And of course the humor of Lenny Bruce (and Chris Rock), considered highly offensive by many, is drawing humor from underlying realities, not denigrating classes of people. Bruce’s humor was sometimes meant to mock racism by using racist words (see this famous bit). Chris Rock highlights cultural differences between blacks and whites, which have a basis in reality (see this video), and his take is often not only hilarious, but far from being racist. And, for crying out loud, there’s Sarah Silverman, who regularly does bits that could be seen as offensive. (Much of it makes fun of Jews, although that’s okay, I guess, because Silverman is Jewish.) This bit of hers, for example, would be widely decried as “ageism,” but I don’t find it offensive, for in truth we’re all going to die sooner than we’d like.
In other words, I have no objection to humor about race, sex, age, etc. unless its main aim is simply to denigrate others. But if even mentioning such topics is taboo, or “triggering,” then we’re truly lost, for these are important issues that warrant discussion, and humor is part of that discussion.
Maher highlights a letter from an offended student in HuffPo, “An open letter to Jerry Seinfeld from a ‘politically correct’ college student.” It’s by Anthony Berteaux, a student at San Diego State University, and you might want to read it to see how many college students feel about words that offend them.
Berteaux’s letter actually seems a bit confused. The main point seems to be that comedians like Seinfeld shouldn’t be offensive by mocking minorities (did Seinfeld ever do that?), but should also have a political line that is progressive and supportive of minorities, and Berteaux is apparently the arbiter of what’s permitted and what’s not:
It isn’t so much that college students are too politically correct (whatever your definition of that concept is), it’s that comedy in our progressive society today can no longer afford to be crass, or provocative for the sake of being offensive. Sexist humor and racist humor can no longer exist in comedy because these concepts are based on archaic ideals that have perpetrated injustice against minorities in the past.
Provocative humor, such as ones dealing with topics of race and gender politics, can be crass and vulgar, but underlying it must be a context that spurs social dialogue about these respective issues. There needs to be a message, a central truth behind comedy for it to work as humor.
Take Amy Schumer for example. . .
Berteaux then gives an example of “progressive” humor by Amy Schumer, but if you watch Maher’s piece, you can see that she’s also made at least one joke that, by Berteaux’s lights, is grossly offensive. Did she get called out for that? I don’t think so, nor should she have been.
According to Berteaux, then, there is a “politically correct” form of comedy: comedians need to toe a particular line, which I guess is the left-wing one:
While it’s not the sole role of comics to be social commentators on every issue through their comedy, I believe there is a responsibility, especially when a well-known comic is talking about sensitive topics like race and gender politics, to have an underlying message to be said.
This doesn’t mean that the funny aspect of the bit has to be compromised for the sake of social commentary. As countless comedians have proven before, it’s very possible to have a message and be hilarious at the same time.
Of course it means the “funny aspect” has to be compromised for the sake of social commentary! What Berteaux is saying here is that you can be funny, but only in a certain socially correct way. The “message” has to be one of which Berteaux approves. And that, of course, is the whole problem of free speech: who is to judge what is offensive and what is not?
But at the end of his piece, Berteaux completely undercuts his own thesis. First he argues that comedians can be offensive, but “offensive within the right context.” What the bloody hell does that mean? It really means that comedians shouldn’t be offensive, or rather, they can say strong stuff, but it can’t bruise the feelings of the audience. He then goes on:
So, yes, Mr. Seinfeld, we college students are politically correct. We will call out sexism and racism if we hear it. But if you’re going to come to my college and perform in front of me, be prepared to write up a set that doesn’t just offend me, but has something to say.
There’s no reason you can’t do what other comics are doing. You have an amazing legacy, both in stand-up and on television, because you do your job well.
But, there’s a generation in college right now that hasn’t seen your comedy, and there’s a demographic that yearns for laughter. College students today are looking to be provoked, to be offended by comedy, and to think about these issues within the context of comedy.
So please, take the first step and come to a college campus with a set that will make us laugh.
Offend the fuck out of college students. Provoke the fuck out of me. We’ll thank you for it later.
In other words, offend me but don’t offend me. If you have “something to say,” well, it should be something that I already approve of.
And how can you be “provoked” unless there’s a possibility of being offended? This whole ending makes no sense, and means that the author either doesn’t know what he’s saying or doesn’t know the meaning of the word “provoked.”
Regardless, Maher is right about Bertreaux’s letter, which suggests that comedy be censored and that the Thought Police should determine which comedy is acceptable and which is not.
Weigh in below with your opinion.
h/t: Diana Macpherson
Yep Anne Coulter was the special guest there to promote her book about immigration.
Now I’m guessing that will be offensive, but perhaps not amusingly so.
Conservatives find her hilarious. Thomas Sowell once compared her to Dorothy Parker.
According to Maher (in an interview I saw) he and Coulter are good friends. ‘Course, I may have that wrong (please).
They are friends, but I don’t know if they are close friends.
He called her his dominatrix on one show.
I think he must think she is so absurd that it all must be a joke, which it is.
This is all too depressing for my old brain to deal with.
Damn. There I go again slurring seniors.
That’s okay. You’re gonna die soon, and then your old brain won’t have to deal with anything at all.
b&
I didn’t hear you slur. 😉
I hear ya, GB.
Eh? Speak up! Don’t mumble!
I find it offensive (offensive for the sake of dialogue) that this student is telling Jerry Seinfeld how to be a better comedian and that the only value to comedy is social commentary. Students wont have the opportunity to thank Jerry Seinfeld later, other students will protest and petition before in anticipation of someone being offended.
The crack about the student “helping Stephen Hawking with astrophysics” amused me. Many students grow out of this phase; but if my friends list is an accurate guide, some don’t.
I’m afraid I found my college contemporaries in the 60s to be humorless prigs. They seem to be running things now.
“Progressives” are well intentioned and are probably on the right side of history, but are a bit like kids who demand everything right now, regardless of cost.
“Progressives” are rapidly are rapidly becoming more rigid and hidebound than the people they oppose. Many if not most view their particular ideology du jour as the one true faith with none other to be tolerated.
They only cared bout freedom of speech and belief when they had less political power
Somebody is going to have to explain to me someday what in the name of the ghost of John Maynard Keynes does policing what Jerry Seinfeld says on an ESPN talk show have to do with a liberal policy agenda.
They are progressive not liberals. Not just that they are the worst parts of the original progressive movement with some “theory” as the intellectual backbone. Its a rejection of the enlightment values that make up liberalism. They are basically only on the left because they don’t hate certain classes of people and are willing to throw crumbs to the lower class.
The left/right divide is about fiscal policy. Those on the left are in favor of a welfare state, where money is redistributed to prevent those at the bottom from living in abject poverty.
Liberals and “progressives” are mostly on the same page there, though the latter tend to be delusional about how people end up at the bottom. They believe that all differences are due to culture, and that if we could only arrange society in just the right way, everyone would be equally successful. Liberals know that’s pure nonsense, that no matter how carefully you arrange society, there will always be haves and have-nots, and that the goal of the welfare state is to ensure that the haves provide support to the have-nots, because the latter can’t be blamed for their lack of luck or ability – no matter how you come down on the issue of nature versus nurture (hint: the former wins by a landslide), it makes no difference to reaching the correct conclusion that people are ultimately not responsible for their lot in life, and it’s morally repugnant to simply let the losers in life’s lottery suffer the consequences of their birth.
This difference in perception is in large part responsible for the real difference between liberals and the problematic left we’re lately complaining about. Because the latter believe that we’d all be equal but for the depredations of bad cultural norms, they feel it necessary to compel everyone to adopt “good” cultural norms. That makes them extremely authoritarian and totalitarian. As much as they clamor about diversity, they have no interest in a diversity of worldviews, so anyone who doesn’t toe the party line is relentlessly shamed and denigrated.
I expect a substantial portion of people who identify as “progressive” (if not the outright majority) are, in fact, just liberals who have adopted the more trendy label. So it’s not strictly fair to associate the label as a whole with the dysfunctional identity politics of SocJus. But I’d rather people use the term “liberal”, because it doesn’t so easily lend itself towards accepting “progress” that’s pushing us in the wrong direction. Liberal principles can be sought from any direction. Thus I can tolerate criticism of these authoritarian leftist views which label them “progressive”. I won’t stand for calling them liberal, though, and rebut such claims frequently.
The well-intentioned part is one of the less admirable qualities. The tea party is well-intentioned, the people who try to pass laws to protect women from having an abortion are well-intentioned, the people who support authorities in crisis are well-intentioned. Indeed, there’s very rarely any “moral” action that’s not well-intentioned!
There’s also a certain irony in attacking these “offensive” comedians by the left because those comedians are almost always on the left side of politics themselves. They’ll attack people who share similar values for going about it the wrong way (as if they have the solution for these social ills that’s escaped everyone else), instead of finding ways to engage the people who don’t share those values.
Then again, the authoritarian mindset is strong in some people…
This is what happens when these kids have been basically under constant surveillance every moment of their lives. They become like those ex cons that commit a crime just to go back to prison. They never had independence so they don’t know how to handle it when they get into college and then the real world.
The strange thing for me is that I’m really not that far removed from this generation. I graduated less than 10 years ago. I’d say kids these days as if it were a problem, but looking back I’m fairly certain there have always been those liberal authoritarians around.
Looking back, I’m glad I found cynic comedians like Bill Hicks and Dylan Moran at a young age.
Any student or individual should be free to define their own code of what humor should or shouldn’t be but that doesn’t give any individual or group the right to make that a law to be enforced. Why does anybody today think their personal beliefs should forced upon others? Also, to think it is objectively true that humor must serve a social purpose and create meaningful dialog is madness on a grand scale.
Shirley, people who insist that humor must serve a social purpose and create meaningful dialog must be joking.
(Please excuse me for calling you Shirley.)
Berteaux’s opinion obviously cannot work. What is funny is a strange, strange thing, really, and it is hard to explain why something is funny.
As everyone knows, for some reason comedy very often works when it depicts pain and misfortune applied to others (as in slipping on a banana peel), or when the comic deliberately brings up things that are borderline offensive (as in the 7 words you cannot say on television & how white people cannot dance, etc.).
So policing the content of comedy means that comedy will be less funny.
Yep. I don’t know if you know Very Bad Wizards, but they had a go and sort of failed, with some flak.
Comedy is notoriously difficult to define or explain.
I made some one laugh by holding up my finger once.
hat might get a whole nother reaction in a different setting.
Somebody said that cliches are truths that have been repeated too often. Conversely, I guess that Bill Maher is saying that stereotypes have a sufficient component of truth in them for us to go on finding them funny, even though we know them to be stereotypes.
The fact is that the best humour always gets quite close to the edge of pain, rather as the feelings induced by tickling are halfway between discomfort and pleasure. Clint Eastwood’s joke in the clip is very much on that line, and perhaps crosses it, not because of its inherent quality, but because we suspect that the teller of the joke has a particular macho animus against the “victim”… On the other hand, the latter has rather laid herself open to jokes of that kind, not by her decision to change gender, but by her willingness to become a public icon of transgender…
Some comedians, of course, make their comedy by enacting stereotypes themselves. The best examples that I know are from the UK, John Cleese in Fawlty Towers and Ricky Gervais in the British version of “The Office”. I think this kind of comedy was christened “cringe comedy”, because it is so close to the line between funny and painful.
Those aren’t exceptions: the Brits and Australians produce a lot of ‘cringe comedy’ sitcoms and the like. I’d bet there’s been at least one running on TV in any given year since Fawlty Towers in the ’70s. I remember being flabbergasted when I heard that Michael Crawford was to be the male lead in Phantom of the Opera in London, because he started his career basically acting the idiot-butt-of-all-jokes role in “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave Em.”
Indeed, who would have thought.
Why? It is one thing to say that you personally like humor that also spurs social dialogue. By all means, that’s your right and choice. But its quite another thing to imply or say that all humor must do this. If you dislike humor that doesn’t have a progressive message, well, don’t listen to it.
Its possible, but its also hard to do. The same thing is true for novels: it is hard to write a good one that has some powerful political message but isn’t heavy-handed or contrived (and thus something of a failure as a fictional story). Now, I greatly admire the novelists that do that, but I don’t think all novelists are required to do that…and as a reader, sometimes I pick out the trashy novel without any redeeming social value because that’s what I want to read.
This reminds me of the words of Josef Skvorecky, a Czech writer who emigrated to Canada in 1968. He was critical of artists who use their art to promote an ideology (which make sense considering the limitations on his work in Czechoslovakia). He said, “when you start writing ideological novels, you are no longer a writer, but a propagandist.”
It sounds like students looking to put restrictions on comedy acts are doing something similar – imposing their ideological views on artistic expression, more concerned that the ideas aren’t compromised than that any boundaries are pushed or new ideas are shared. It’s a very limiting mindset that would only lead to a watering down of culture if it were to be followed.
Well I think you can do both well, but for every successful novel like that there are probably tens or hundreds of failures. Sometimes the same author produces both: I read Sherri Tepper’s early novels and greatly enjoyed them for both the story and feminist/equality message – which was often not subtle at all, but still worked quite well. However, her later stuff is (IMO YMMV, etc…) just heavy-handed dreck.
That is true about novels, if it is done without exploring other avenues. But there are plenty of singular novels that have a strong political message that are very important. Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Animal Farm come to mind.
On the subject of whether comedy can be permitted to dwell on offensive things, did people catch the recent monologue by Louis CK on Saturday Night Live? That got a bit of buzz over whether he crossed a line, especially on the comedy of child molestation. I was laughing, uncomfortably, but I accept that is what a lot of comedy is supposed to do
The important point Maher did make was by showing that Seinfeld, Rock and Cable Guy were all making the same complaint about the college set today. And as he said, you don’t need to wait for the xrays to come back.
I saw that show only because Direct TV was giving out free channels for a couple of days. They do that in attempt to sucker in more viewers. I pay way too much for TV without taking more stuff like movie channels.
Apparently Coulter was on the show to sell a new book…something about immigration that Donald Trump and other mindless individuals might read. Stereotype for dumb blond is the only thing that comes to mind so kick me off campus.
It would be a major mistake to characterize Coulter as a “dumb” blond. A former gentleman friend of her’s once commented that she doesn’t believe 90% of the rubbish that comes out of her mouth and her word processor.
I picked that up somewhere as well, though I do not know if it is true. She is one rich lady, that is fer sure.
So we can’t be rich and stupid? I’ll ask Trump about that one.
A former gentleman friend — that’s the evidence I was looking for.
There is ample evidence that says yes.
I commented below, but to reiterate: I think it would be pretty easy money to invent the most vitriolic right wing screeching, pass it off as logical argument, and sell it to the right wing screechers.
I have Ph D training in Jerry’s department at the U of Chicago. Can you imagine the money I’d make from religionists of all stripes if I “came out” as having studied evolution at that level and found it “lacking?” …and started writing books espousing creationism? It wouldn’t even matter if I just recycled old creationist canards and repackaged them. The fact that I came from the U of Chicago Dept of Ecology and Evolution would lend all sorts of new credence.
N.b., watch the “Overtime” segment from that episode. More than once she comes off as the most rational of the panelists.
I heard the same thing from,a friend who talked to someone that worked for her. She is obviously trying to be entertaining by saying outrageous, reckless things.
Here she uses a gay slur to describe John Edwards, the candidate that soon after dropped out of the race because he had gotten a woman pregnant.
https://youtu.be/GB3X4iz8jTU
Ah, the priggishness of youth! The certainty of having just learned a Truth! O tempora! O mores! At one time I would have considered this as dumbing-down education, but perhaps it is time for a class on the history of comedy? It was not that long ago that comedians like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were pushing the boundaries of free speech. More than that, though, and in common with all PC police, he doesn’t understand free speech. His message to Seinfeld is that college students don’t want to hear it if they don’t agree with it, and indeed, it shouldn’t be said, if they don’t agree with it. This hardly comports with their role as “learners” (is “student” a bad word?), because if you only hear one side of an argument, it’s not education, it’s indoctrination. If it’s OK to banish certain speech, who is going to make the decisions about what speech is allowed? A majority? “College Student” needs to learn that when it comes to one’s opinions, we are all in a minority at some point.
It’s the age. When I was eighteen I thought I knew it all, had all the solutions. Every year since, I’ve realized how much less I know than I thought I did, and how much more I’ve got to learn. I still think back to things I said then and in my twenties and cringe with embarrassment. I can imagine writing something similar at that age. It’s a good thing for me the internet wasn’t around then.
Now my opinions are better formed and I’m old enough not to care what other people think of them in most circumstances. But, I’ll change them for a better argument or higher quality information.
Unfortunately, with things like journalists and other commentators going after politicians for flip-flops, a lot of people now think changing your mind is a sign of weakness. It should be recognized as part of the learning process that we should be doing our whole lives.
Well I just had to go and pig out on Frankie Boyle. Feel better now
I wonder what some of these folks would say to the other rule of “inoffensive humour”?
I’m referring to what (say) Aristophanes used to do, or classic The Simpsons, or _The Boomer Bible_ – insult *everyone*. After all, TBB has “books of the most chosen nations”, where each name of a book is an (mild) ethnic slur. (E.g., “Yanks”, “Russkies”.) Since they cover most of the world’s superpowers (over time) that covers most everyone of power at some time or other; the book of Others makes fun of everyone else.
I would say one should be restricted to one of the two sorts though.
Seinfeld (at least his show of the same name, which I never really watched, but …) seemed to be the ultimate in inoffensive stuff of the first kind – a lot of it seemed to be stuff making fun of Seinfeld himself.
Inoffensive??!? Oh, but won’t you please think of the soft-talkers? The close-talkers? The can’t-go-rights? The ‘restofus?’ Seinfeld didn’t just insult minorities, he even went to the trouble of making up minorities to insult!
😉
I’m kinda kidding. No I don’t find anything in his material to be offensive…but I’m sure someone does. That, of course, is why we don’t base free speech rights on what isn’t offensive.
I never found Seinfeld funny. He just wasn’t offensive enough.
cr
The trope of make up an ethnic group so you can tell jokes about them is very very old.
There was an interesting twist that tips the hand aboutone reason why this is done I caught on a Taxi rerun once: Lakta is explaining the religion of his people and how he is not allowed to do something or other for reasons of faith. In the middle of his silly (to the viewer and in story, to his coworkers) harrangue, there’s a one-off about how it is exactly like how Alex (the Jew) won’t eat pork. He doesn’t stop, but there’s sort of a pause in the laughter at that point which is interesting (to me at least) sociologically and so on.
I’m glad there’s no humour in Germany. That’s one quagmire of a discussion avoided.
Ha ha! People never believe me when I tell them that I find Germans have a great sense of humour.
This has never happened before in human history…The thought has to occur that each generation calls the previous one offensive and out of date and this has happened since the beginning of time. The current generation are dealing with a slightly different set of struggles and public demonstrations of moral probity than the previous one. Which is true. But some of them are still a whiny bunch of humor-free special snowflakes…and another thing–why is the music so loud nowadays?And, in my day we had proper tunes…grr get off my lawn you kids… (etc cont on page 94.)
I guess I am getting old now and am now the cliché but this generation really does suck but for the opposite reasons most of those older then me complained. I am in my mid 30s too and how Puritanical this new generation is well wired.
If a kid like you feels that way, imagine…
Here’s some rather NSFW comedy from Doug Stanhope on just that theme.
That is exactly what I was trying to get at.
The kid’s letter boils down to “Art should conform to ideology”, which wouldn’t even be worth ripping apart if not for the fact that so many other people today agree with him.
IMO widespread agreement would be a good reason for ripping into it. The more that think that way, the louder we contrarians need to be. However I think in the case of Jerry Seinfeld’s stand up comedy, his ticket receipts for comedy club shows – whether on-campus or off – do the ripping-into for us. My guess is if Mr. Seinfeld came to SDSU and Mr. Berteaux argued in op-eds that the students should stay away, the results of this clash would be…a sold-out show for Mr. Seinfeld.
This will not even make sense to him because he doesn’t have an ideology. He has truth, and goodness, and justice. He is purifying the world, and the work of purifying the world always bears good fruit.
It’s scary because being able to ridicule is essential in a democracy. There is no humour in a totalitarian regime – at least not one you enjoy publicly.
“The only justifiable purpose of any media is to advance my preferred cause.” There should only be music for the cause, books for the cause, comedy for the cause. This seems to be a core attitude of many authoritarians, be they fundamentalists, soviet-style communists or contporary progressives. And like most authoritarians, he’s deluded that his viewpoint is the majority. “We college students” he says, blissfully unaware that so many of his peers are conservatives who think he’s on the fringe, and so many of those conservatives are eagerly waiting to acquire the apparatus of censorship and social control and turn it against progressive causes. And the conservatives always seem to be better at it.
He is from San Diego State U. I worked at the other university nearby many years ago (UCSD), and I can confirm that southern Cal is pretty heavy in very sensitive liberals. Oh, there were people of all political varieties, but it was definitely a very liberal place with a strong emphasis on bend-over-backwards plurality. I loved the environment and the people, but it would surprise me sometimes.
We had a man and woman couple who frequented campus who were known only as ‘the naked people’. They would walk around in the nude. Stand behind you in line at a campus store in the nude. But if you mentioned in conversation later that maybe they should not do that you would be gently but firmly rebuked by other students.
“…is that really Ann Coulter as his special guest?”
Yes, it was and in the “Overtime” discussion of presidential candidates on that episode she, more than once, came off as the most rational person on the panel. I was astonished. She actually said that Bernie Sanders was the most viable Democratic candidate.
It made me start to wonder if her loonie utterances and vitriolic publications on politics are a clever business move to fleece the right wing screechers and not what she really believes in her true mind.
As I commented under 13 above, if one believes a former boyfriend of her’s, she does it for the money.
I actually think she’s a very smart sociopath that can take on the persona of the right wing conservative shill very easily and make a lot of money doing so. Look at how she doesn’t at all mind saying incredibly offensive things right to the faces of people – she doesn’t care because she doesn’t have the capacity for caring and she isn’t afraid because she has an itty bitty amygdala. I have no proof of this but this is how she strikes me. Also, I’ve often been fascinated by her and if I’m fascinated by someone, it means the person is probably a narcissist or a sociopath because I tend to have a blind spot where they are concerned.
Well I must remember to write a note in my diary the next time the impossible happens and I hear some racist or sexist humour.
I don’t see any indication of what Berteaux claims to study, but if he were studying law, then I’d expect him to propose repealing the law of gravity, or if he were studying maths, he’d feel the need to deal with the inconveniently long winded transcendental numbers by redefining them. π = 3 , anyone?
A serious detachment from reality.
Now racist and sexist (and ablist and intelligencist) humour might be unpleasant, particularly for those on the receiving end. But that doesn’t make them non-existent. Nor does it make them un-funny in the ears of the people making the jokes. If you want to make them non-existent, then you need to make them not sound funny to the people who otherwise would use such forms of humour. Which involves applied psychology, or cess-pit wading. Proposing fiats isn’t going to succeed.
Wanna see/hear something offensive, watch daytime all-female talk shows. “Men’s always…or never…” “Women…shoes…love shopping…oh Girl!”
Every damn sexist stereotype repeated over and over again. As if chromosomally men are prevented from changing a diaper, falling in love, dressing themselves, or cleaning and all women are born to buy shoes, can’t change a tire, and act like a princess, drinking Chardonnay and who can only dream of finding true love like in a romance novel.
and dont get me started on crap TV shows like Black-ish!
A worthy rant if ever there was.
I agree 100%. The media is pretty thoroughly awful, sexist tropes of all sorts abound, day-time talk shows are the most thoroughly stupid of all human endeavors and Moscato is a much better day-time drinking wine than Chardonnay. (lower alcohol content)
Not to mention how annoying the women on the show are who, like you say, talk about shoes, shopping, make-up, cooking. Ugh.
George Carlin, being interviewed by Chris Rock said that he like to sense where the line is, cross it deliberately, then drag the audience over there too, and have them realize that they’re glad he did that.
Worth watching
https://
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw1ImiSR6Eg
Wow, that interview with Carlin was from 1997 and what struck me was the part where Carlin said he was working on comedy bits criticizing religion, how he thought it was the worst thing ever for the world.
It made me think back: he was sounding like a “strident New Atheist” there. I don’t remember off hand any trend, or even individuals, who were being so publicly strident against religion, pre New Atheism.
Am I remembering right, or was there already some decent precedent for public figures strongly, publicly railing against religion?
Once you make a value sacred, it’s being set up for people to tear down, and comedians are the best placed people to do this. As H.L. Mencken said, a single belly laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms.
The importance people place on the sacred, and the importance they place on demanding others similarly revere the sacred as they do, is something that should be treated with suspicion and mockery. And these same people who want us to conform to their version of the sacred also want to tear down the rival versions of the sacred that are antithetical to their own.
On the left, we want to tear down the values placed in tradition, when those traditions enshrine and embolden racism. On the left, we want to tear down the values placed in sanctity when it comes to religious authorities telling us how to live and how to (and more specifically not to) have sex. On the left, we want to tear down the free market thinking that feeds inequity and promotes waste of precious resources all for a profit.
That entails, of course, that our values can similarly be attacked. To want the ability to make changes in a society only in one direction is fascism!
Okay, but what if the underlying social commentary of a comedian’s every joke is that there should be no topics inappropriate for satire and mockery?
I can agree with that, as long as the comedian in question is a skilled enough satirist to make it clear that it is satire. Few are.
But the most important question is whether a certain student somewhere in San Diego would agree to that. 🙂
Unfortunately, satire is often lost on the people who most need the message. In the aftermath of Ferguson, several people I know linked to that Chris Rock bit as if it were serious advice.
That’s hilarious! Depressing, but hilarious.
Though if you can’t thumb your nose at human stupidity, what else can you do? Fight nonsense with irreverence.
I might add that even someone (at least humourwise) innocuous as Bill Cosby used to do it too – there’s a _The Cosby Show_ episode which has a subplot of Theo trying to teach himself telekinesis. This is not treated “respectfully”.
In Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”, the man from Mars doesn’t understand humor until he finally realizes that humor must have someone (or a class of someones) as the butt of the joke. All humor makes fun of someone. That is what makes it funny. Personally, I have a great fondness for self-deprecating humor.
Is it just me, or is new-school “left-wing” authoritarianism (as opposed to left-wing liberalism) indistinguishable from old-school “right-wing” authoritarianism (as opposed to right-wing libertarianism).
Here are general policies of both groups (that I think are rediculous):
1. Religions are sacred. Don’t disrespect or critize religious beliefs.
2. Sex is something men do to women, and women aren’t responsible for their own agency. Mutual drunk sex is automatically a man raping a woman.
3. Women are fragile and can’t handle differing views. They need “safe spaces” complete with pillows, play doh, and videos of frollicking puppies. (Looking at you, Brown U.)
4. Don’t debate ideas. Debate can trigger “episodes” in women.
5. Women is skimpy outfits is obscene and sexist. (Or is empowering and women demand the right to wear skimpy outfits. Hard to know which extreme is the position of the day. I do support the latter, though.)
6. No racy comedy. Race and gender jokes just aren’t funny.
7. Ethnic groups should keep to their ethnic cultures. (So as not to “appropriate them.)
They really are turning into their grandparents when it comes to race and sex.
Politically correct humour = an oxymoron.
cr
Politically correct humour? What a joke!
Amy Schumer eh?
On bit I saw had her joking about drinking.
drinking like a homeless person.
= Stereotypical and insensitive.
Keep looking for the perfect comedienne.
Oh, and having read Berteaux’s letter, I agree with Prof CC, Berteaux wants to hear offensive comedy but only offensive towards the correct people. Ugh!
Still, at least he linked to a George Carlin piece which led me to another Carlin rant on ‘Euphemisms’ that I hadn’t seen before –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
And his ‘list of people who ought to be killed’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVlkxrNlp10 (would that count as ‘hate speech’ these days?)
I do love the sound of sacred cows being slaughtered.
cr
Just watch Daniel Tosh do stand-up. His humor is some of the most bigoted, hilarious, and socially conscious I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe he’s still on TV (Tosh.O). He even had an episode where he had folks sit around a table and comment whether they found specific words offensive. These words were completely made-up, but that didn’t stop nearly all of them from finding the words offensive. Everybody wants to be offended at something just so they have some torch to bare or great cause to fight for.
When did this become a thing where the biggest victim wins? Even in presidential races now its how can take the biggest umbrage.
Far cry from the JFK and FDRs of the world.
Dear College Student,
Recently, I’ve heard about your expertise in critiquing one of the greatest comics of his generation. You also displayed your superior mind-reading capabilities by taking an anecdotal statement representative of the trend Seinfeld was referring to and assuming he meant this alone proved his case (which you felt was proven by simply asserting it.) As a citizen who appreciates the value of a well-rounded education and the proven merit in hearing opposing viewpoints (all opposing viewpoints), I am disheartened.
While I do agree with you that college students today are more sensitive to issues of race and gender politics, it’s simply because you’ve been coddled as children, making one wonder whether your sensitivity to language really just might be as traumatic as shell shock was to WWI soldiers. As college students who are (apparently the first generation in human history) engaged in a myriad of social, economic, and political issues, it’s your duty to be actively engaged and educated about issues of sexism, racism and prejudice. And really, what better way to demonstrate this than to declare that you are the arbiter of what every college student should find “appropriately sexist” (whatever the fuck that means)? I’ll leave it to you to determine whether this use of “fuck” is appropriate.
But, I’d like to refocus the conversation to the notion that there are free speech overlords pronouncing from on high what is and isn’t appropriate.
We need to talk about the role that provocative comedy holds today in a progressive world.
It isn’t so much that you admitted to not knowing what the definition of “too politically correct” is and nevertheless went on for several pages about it, it’s that you can paradoxically define a progressive society to be one that you apparently think would do well to imitate the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. It’s what progressive, free-thinking societies do. Take Vladimir Putin for example…
Sincerely,
College Student Who Started During the Unenlightened Second Millennium
It isn’t so much that you admitted to not knowing what the definition of “too politically correct” is and nevertheless went on for several pages about it, it’s that you can paradoxically define a progressive society to be one that you apparently think would do well to imitate the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. It’s what progressive, free-thinking societies do. Take Vladimir Putin for example…
Sincerely,
College Student Who Started During the Unenlightened Second Millennium
There is no possible argument for censoring comedy.