Offensive Game Plan

 Is there room for woke in comedy?

According to Jerry Seinfeld, a (checks notes) comedian, “You just expected, there’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight. Well, guess what—where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and P.C. crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people. Now they’re going to see standup comics because we are not policed by anyone.” This is a pretty edgy take from a guy whose most recent project was a no-hold-barred expose of the invention of the Pop Tart. Made even more so by his use of the word "crap." 

This complaint is nothing new. Comedy as a function of society since the days of the court jester has been a way to stretch society's view of the world. "Say, did you ever notice the king wasn't wearing any clothes? What's up with that?" That's right, Jingles, fight the power! 

In more recent times, funny guys like Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin have been held up as examples of genius that should not be muzzled. Pryor's meditation on the N-word. Carlin's seven words you can't say on television. Lenny Bruce normalizing heroin use and Yiddish. These were trailblazers, pathfinders searching for the nerve of this great land and trying to land squarely on it. Remember Andrew "Dice" Clay? 

Not everyone does, but back in the late eighties and early nineties, he was at the top of the comic heap, becoming the first stand-up to sell out Madison Square Garden. With his leather jacket, slicked back hair and deliberately abrasive persona, he took America by storm. Or chunks of it, anyway. Enough to sell out Madison Square Garden. 

And then he was gone. He packed up the Diceman character and admitted that it "may have gotten out of hand" because he couldn't get work in a business that was evolving under his pointy-toed boots. He kept his career going by being the first celebrity fired on The Apprentice 2 after he referred to his "boss" as "Donny Trump." And he got a role in a Woody Allen movie. 

Make of this what you will, it would seem that there are ebbs and flows in show business, and the boundaries that were broken in seventies do not need to be broken again. Being funny doesn't mean being offensive. That's always been a risk in comedy. Not everyone can be as cutting edge as the auteur behind that Pop Tart movie.