I Agree With John Cleese And DL Hughley That PC Speech Rules Are Bad

Cleese says that political correctness "began as a good idea." I disagree, I don't think it was ever a good idea. I think that the GOAL of political correctness is good: greater power and autonomy for people who historically have been abused and exploited. I'm 100% in agreement with that goal. I just think restrictions on speech are a particularly stupid and useless way to go about achieving that goal. You can use politically correct speech and still be a horrible, evil, hateful person. You can break every PC language rule and still be a good, loving person who enriches the lives of all those around him.

Cleese says you can't have comedy with political correctness. He's right. Well -- at the very least, you can't have comedy which is very funny at all.

Over and over on this blog I've praised Bob Fosse's movie Lenny, released in 1974, about Lenny Bruce, a stand-up comedian who broke every PC language rule and was a good, loving person who enriched the lives of all those around him, and about his fight for freedom of speech, and wondered whether that movie could even have been made after decades of political correctness.

Another comedian opposed to PC language rules is DL Hughley. Hughley and I are far from agreeing about everything, but, as he puts it: "Either you believe in freedom of speech or you don't," and we both do.

Some time during the last few years Hughley did a stand-up special for cable TV, on which he talked about the word "(n-word)" and how white people like me aren't supposed to use it. He said that the white people in the audience were getting all tense, because he, Hughley, was saying "nigger," and because everybody knew that Hughley and all the other black people were allowed to say it, but they weren't.

And then Hughley said something like, "But as soon as those white people are in their cars going home tonight, they're going to be all, 'Ohhhhh -- (n-word n-word n-word n-word n-word n-word) [...]'"

And I was offended when I saw that. I was all: I've never talked that way in my entire life. And it's true, I never had. Until then. But since I saw that comedy show, many times, when I've been alone, I've said, "Ohhhhh -- (n-word n-word n-word n-word n-word n-word) [...]" And laughed, and laughed.

And it's all DL Hughley's fault.

Anyway, when DL Hughley said that stuff on his comedy show, it seemed to have the same effect on the audience as when Dustin Hoffmann, playing Lenny Bruce in Bob Fosse's movie, intentionally and pointedly used every offensive ethnic slur he could think of in the space of 30 seconds or so: both times the audiences laughed hard, and seemed to relax. It seemed to lessen inter-racial tensions, not increase them. It seemed to get people to look at each other and think, Wow, what silly things make barriers between us! Smashing the barriers is exactly what PC-speech advocates are trying to do by trying to get everybody to stop saying certain words. Bruce and Hughley go 180 degrees the other way: the smash the barriers by using those very same words. They use the words in a way that takes the hurt out of them.

In the video above, John Cleese says he's been advised not to perform on college campuses, because the political correctness there has become so extreme that he's bound to cause a controversy. And when I heard him say that, I thought: All the more reason for you to perform there. If we're against PC rules, we should confront them. But I don't know whether Cleese in fact does disregard that advise, and perform on college campuses, in order to confront the political correctness with which he disagrees.

I should not neglect to mention that I don't know whether or not it's true that political correctness is particularly extreme on college campuses.

In writing this blog post, I debated with myself whether to write, as I ended up doing, "Ohhhhh -- (n-word n-word n-word n-word n-word n-word) [...]" or if I should write out the n-word. I don't know whether it's cowardly for me to praise Lenny Bruce and Cleese and Hughley for sticking their necks out, and then not stick my own neck out.

On the other hand, I don't know how funny this post is, and the positive effect that those comedians have had has been in large part because they've been so funny.

I'm conflicted about this. On the one hand I feel like a (p-word for female genitalia) for not sticking my neck out, for not putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak; and on the other hand I don't want to increase tensions instead of lessening them because I went about things in an unskilled manner. I know that good intentions by no means always equal good results. I've done a little bit of stand-up comedy myself, and I wasn't very good at it at all.

"KITTIES ARE NICE!" (Comedy Sketch)

TALK SHOW HOST: Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight's musical guest are a band that formed 25 years ago in Tacoma, Washington. There were one of the original Seattle grunge bands, and they're here to perform the title track from their 20th album, Kitties Are Nice. Please welcome Logjam!

(LOGJAM launch into a hard rocker, lotsa guitar feedback, nasty bass and drums. They're just a little bit too macho and grim-faced. Like Pearl Jam,



but even more so. In fact, if Pearl Jam want to play Logjam, that'd be perfect. The lyrics to the song "Kitties Are Nice" are just the three words "Kitties are nice" repeated a few times. The lead singer sings "Kitties are niiiiiiiiiiii...iiice," and other band members join in and harmonize during the word "nice." After the song crashes to its end, Logjam grimly put down their instruments and walk over to the host, shake his hand and the hands of his sidekick and the other guest who hung around and take their seats.)

HOST (to BAND MEMBER #1, LEAD SINGER) : That's an unusual song! Is it literally about cats, or should listeners be looking for symbolic meanings in the lyrics?

(The instant the host begins to speak to the singer, the personalities of all the band members change from those of brooding alt-rockers to those of squirming toddlers.)

BAND MEMBER #1: Kitties are nice!

(Band members begin to fidget, and to softly grunt and squeal at the thought of nice kitties.)

HOST: ... Okay! (Turning to BAND MEMBER #2) : Todd, you've written most of the lyrics to Logjam's songs, and on this albums you wrote all the words. Up until this album a lot of the songs have been pretty wordy, going into some details about themes like environmentalism and political oppression and sexual exploitation. On this album, all of the songs have lyrics which are either three or four words long, and are identical to each song's title: "Kitties Are Nice," "I Wike Wittle Kittehs," "Look at dah Kitteh!"

and so forth. What brought about this sudden change in approach?

BAND MEMBER #2 (at first reacts with the bug-eyed and hunched-shouldered demeanor of a toddler who's been startled by something unfamiliar and alarming; then he relaxes a bit and exclaims: ) I like kittehs!

(The fidgeting and ecstatic, kitty-besotted grunting and squealing of all of the band members steadily increases.)

BAND MEMBER #3: I have a kitteh named Alice!

BAND MENBER #4 (shouts, but it's muted because he's not miked) : Alice is a vereh nice kitteh!

(Emphatic squeals of agreement from the other band members. From here to the end of the sketch, the squealing and fidgeting and arm-waiving and interjected shouts about how kittehs are nice and how the band members like kittehs and like to pet them and how Alice is vereh nice and so forth only continue to increase.)

BAND MEMBER #3: Alice is vereh friendly. If you sit on my sofa Alice will jump up onto the arm of the sofa and purr and rub you with the top of her head. After you pet her for a while she will settle down onto the arm of the sofa. And then you can very gently rest your forearm along her back so that your fingers can pet her head. And... And when you do this... Her tail will flick back and forth against your chest and shoulder and upper arm... And... AND IT TICKLES!

(At this point all of the band members completely lose what little composure they have left. Some are rocking back and forth and moaning softly. Some fall off of their seats and roll around on the floor.)

HOST (is staring open-mouthed at them. With a visible effort he composes himself, turns to the camera and says) : Folks, we're going to take a short break. When we return, George Smith of the San Diego Zoo is going to bring out some baby koalas.

(At the mention of baby koalas the band members become still more animated with pleasure.)

Take the Awful Existential Weight of the World From My Shoulders, Please!

Today someone asked me about the phrase "The Wrong Monkey," and I explained that I came up with it at a moment when my feelings were hurt because I felt that a clique was snubbing me a little bit. I meant it in the sense of, "I'll show them! I'm the wrong monkey to be snubbing! They'll be sorry!" It was completely empty bluster. I don't believe I ended up showing them anything in particular, but the name "The Wrong Monkey" stuck as an Internet handle, and later also became the name of my blog.

I explained all this, and the lady who'd asked me said that I had told the story in an amusing way, but also apologized for laughing at what she imagined to be a painful episode in my life. I didn't feel it was like that: the pain was slight, brief and long since forgotten, and I got that cool name out of it. This story was almost all upside. But what she said reminded me of some stand-up comics I've known.

I'm not a good stand-up comic. I found this out in the early 1990's when I tried to make a career out of it. Now, I can sometimes be very funny one-on-one: sometimes someone I'm talking to will be amused by what I'm saying, and I'll be able to really feel their amusement, to grab it, and spontaneously keep it going, and growing, and often get that one person laughing so hard they can't stand up any more and they're wheezing and begging me to stop.

What I didn't realize until I finally tried stand-up comedy is that a comic has to do that with an entire group of people at once. Which, for me at least, is a totally different thing. In retrospect, it seems that it shouldn't have surprised me that I can't work a room, because I can't make just anybody laugh -- it's only a few individuals, here and there, now and then. It's not something I can do whenever I want.

So anyway, I worked some comedy clubs, and bombed, and I hung out with some comedians and got to know them a little. And there's a range of personality types among them, but many of the funniest ones are just brutally downbeat offstage, horribly depressed and pessimistic. Now, I've had my battles with depression. But not like these comics. You know that episode of Seinfeldwhere George has started dating a woman who laughs a lot at the things he says, and he asks Jerry not to be funny around her, and Jerry happens to be sitting alone with her in the diner and has just finished a long spiel about how horrible and pointless life is, and she asks him what he does, and he replies, "I'm a comedian!" ? Well, that's especially funny if you know a lot of comics. Funny, because it's true. Offstage, a lot of them could give Bleak Jerry a real run for his horribly-depressed money.

One of the most memorable moments from the time when I failed to make it as a stand-up comic came when I was watching another guy on stage, a much better comic than I'll ever be, a guy who night after night felt the collective funny bone of an entire roomful of people at once and manipulated it unmercifully, made them laugh so hard that they fell out of their seats and cried, the way I can sometimes do with one person, and offstage -- oh my God! That poor guy, you don't wanna know.

The moment I remember was a few seconds into a big laugh he'd gotten. I've long since forgotten the joke he told that got that laugh going. What I remember was what he improvised to make that laugh bigger: he said, "Thank you. Thank you for laughing at my pain."

Okay, that might not seem like such a brilliant thing to say. You may have heard comics say close to the same thing several different times -- maybe exactly the same thing, word for word. Because it's an honest and succinct summing up of what a lot of comics do: bare their horrible anguish for the amusement of the general public.

Because I knew that guy a little bit, I knew how completely sincere he was being when he said that. I think that was when I realized I wasn't going to make it as a comic. Because I wanted to be that kind of comic, but I wasn't nearly unhappy enough.