Unforgivable. No Jimmy Carr reference? Hands down, Carr is the most offensive comedian of all time. Chappelle got criticized for telling a story about a trans friend which actually has a fairly touching moral resolution. Carr was criticized for telling a Holocaust joke, that nobody mentions all the Gypsies who were killed because they don't want to "talk about the positives." "Carr...went on to explain why he thought it was a good joke, saying that it was 'fucking funny'"
I saw the link on Reddit and thought to myself "here we go, another person who doesn't 'get' George Carlin and is going to retcon his legacy to box it into the writers agenda".
Holy shit was I wrong.
Beautiful essay. Now I have a browser filled of tabs of your previous work. At one point I had 45 paid Substacks subscriptions and ~100 free I read daily, but somehow never came across you. Have a lot of catching up to do. Putting on the coffee.
Curious who your remaining 2 slots on Rushmore would include? So many great comedians with incredible potential burned out, burned up, got cancer, overdosed, or (arguably more tragic) got caught up with the leftist mind virus that I'm not sure anyone makes it on Rushmore beside him.
What's incredible about Carlin is how he kept constantly pushing himself to evolve. We are immensely lucky his early 80s heart attack didnt take him us so soon, I wonder what Hicks might have been capable of had he not been struck down by Pancreatic cancer.
I'm cautiously optimistic for Jerrod Carmichael [glimpse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzgG4xVLux4 though I still wish YouTube still had his "Talent vs Morals" bit] - perhaps after clearing his head through his recent "Rothaniel" he too will level up.
(Particulary bummed on David Cross - 2002's "Shut Up you Fucking Baby" may be top 5 comedy albums of all time - but he seems to have not realized the Left won the Culture War)
Fry and Laurie refers to Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. They had a brilliant sketch comedy show in the 80s called "A Bit of Fry and Laurie." You can find most of it on youtube.
This is not universally true. Carlin essentially was progressive. He did not play the
Burr" bothsidesism game" .He relentlessly skewered Republicans and the right wing but generally left Democrats alone. He hated hypocrisy and the lifelessness of modern conformity and lifeless technological thinking but he never went after blacks (rarely talked about them) or gays, who he defended. He was mostly interested in the white power structure and often white Yuppie sensibility. Very late in life he got ultra cynical and lost some coherence. He did NOT equally go after everyone and generally he never built entire acts around kicking oppressed groups. Don't go cherry picking Carlin to justify the intense bigotry of Chappelle, who has nothing to say anymore. Gervais, who I like a lot, is full of it on this issue also.
He had a whole routine about how the N-word was context-dependent and not universally bad, which he illustrated by calling Eddie Murphy the word. I say this not to impugn or judge him, but to suggest that you may not be as familiar with Carlin's whole body of work as you think. At one point or another, he made jokes about virtually everyone — and often very edgy jokes, at that. And that was what made him great.
One last thing. You completely misunderstand the n***** bit. Again he is complaining about language and context. "We care about the racist a-hole who uses it." And Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor were not powerless men. Quite the opposite. It was impossible to "punch down" on them and Carlin was not doing it. He used the word at the end for effect. but you would never see Carlin doing a bit on blacks the way Jeff Foxworthy did on "rednecks".
He had one rant and used slurs for every racial and ethnic group, His concern was LANGUAGE and context. He never berated oppressed groups for WHO THEY WERE.
I am not disputing Carlin did not do that. I looked at the "cum catcher" bit. So here's my take. First, Carlin always contextualized these kinds of bits around the use or censorship of language, that words in and of themselves only had power we give them. Second, in the rape bit, he starts with a cartoon scene of Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd. This so distances rape from trauma that of course it elicits laughter. You will notice he immediately supports women as victims by saying "Elmer was asking for it, Elmer was coming on to him. "If he had said for instance "imagine Larry Hagman raping Victoria Principal, yeah watch him shove it right in there", do you think the audience would have found it funny? In the rape of the 81 year old woman, the cognitive dissonance of the "why" makes it funny but again he immediately leans into the outrage of the act. *He does not support it*. In the same bit he starts in on feminists about 3 or 4 times and immediately deflects to other abusers, mostly male. He mentions feminists "trying to control language" at 4:00 then says they have a lot of company and at 4:10 goes right to government, 25 seconds later he segues immediately to religion, 30 seconds later he immediately segues to political groups (What happened to the feminists?- these are all groups-mostly male that hold power- his traditional targets). He then mentions feminists again but immediately says he agrees with them and goes into his bigger dick theory of war (a main theme in his great bit on the Gulf War) "Mother Earth, raped again. Eh, she was asking for it". Then he attacks traditional housewife roles as baby producers. (Carlin grew up Catholic when birth control was forbidden).
FINALLY *three quarters* of the way into the monologue he goes after feminists but NOT for "cancel culture". He rips them for aping men and working for corporations. And of course what really gets his goat is middle class whites, who had been and were targets of his forever. "But when it comes to changing the language, they make some really good points." His rant here again is NOT "cancel culture", it is his great theme of the general perversion of language in a technocratic society which was his focus in the classic "soft language". FINALLY at the 9 minute mark of a 9;25 monologue he directly goes after feminists and uses "cum catcher".
Now because Carlin says something does not mean I automatically genuflect on it. I think his brush stroke is way too broad about feminism and I think "cum catcher" crosses a line and I think he did it deliberately as provocation, not because he believed it. I thought in his last specials his cynicism was way over the top and had lost much comedic social critical value. (the four states as prisons with the greatest losers.)
OK so he did it. but one has to measure isolated bits vs the entire arc of his career and one notices these types of "observations" are not the norm. Carlin is consistently defending women. Over and over and over he points out the crap that women take and how men are abusers. If he used the word faggot it was rare and usually in a context. I can't remember one monologue Carlin built with anti gay bias as a central theme. But he had numerous bits going after gay bashing and persecution of homosexuals. George Carlin was galaxies away from being homophobic. And I think we have to take his comments on Larry King about Dice Clay, and those like him, at his word.
Chappelle on the other hand is not concerned with the social themes and language in the same way Carlin is about gays and trans people, even if he falsely claims that is his purpose. Chappelle is a genuine homophobe/transphobe who goes after people FOR WHO THEY ARE, not for their behavior. He spends inordinate amount of time on this circulating back and defending himself, Gervais imo tries to be like Carlin but is far clumsier. I don't think Chappelle is trying to provoke for some higher good. **It's who he is**.
A question arises. Why? Males and especially black males have had a deep seated anxiety about non hetero orientation. Carlin talked a lot about that. In their ratings, Chappelle's audience on Netflix was 59% male, the highest male audience of any show in that period. But there is another reason I picked up on, a rage against other oppressed groups that are not black. I ran across a very incisive article that supported this POV
So I disagree with you completely. Carlin and Chappelle are nowhere close to one another and Carlin was consistently progressive and almost universally went after powerful people and power structures. They could not be more dissimilar in this regard.
Here is the piece. It's about Chappell's misguided black rage.
See also South Park. Those guys make fun of virtually everyone on all sides, and I love them for it.
Agreed. It just makes humor more versatile to be unencumbered like that.
Unforgivable. No Jimmy Carr reference? Hands down, Carr is the most offensive comedian of all time. Chappelle got criticized for telling a story about a trans friend which actually has a fairly touching moral resolution. Carr was criticized for telling a Holocaust joke, that nobody mentions all the Gypsies who were killed because they don't want to "talk about the positives." "Carr...went on to explain why he thought it was a good joke, saying that it was 'fucking funny'"
I saw the link on Reddit and thought to myself "here we go, another person who doesn't 'get' George Carlin and is going to retcon his legacy to box it into the writers agenda".
Holy shit was I wrong.
Beautiful essay. Now I have a browser filled of tabs of your previous work. At one point I had 45 paid Substacks subscriptions and ~100 free I read daily, but somehow never came across you. Have a lot of catching up to do. Putting on the coffee.
Curious who your remaining 2 slots on Rushmore would include? So many great comedians with incredible potential burned out, burned up, got cancer, overdosed, or (arguably more tragic) got caught up with the leftist mind virus that I'm not sure anyone makes it on Rushmore beside him.
What's incredible about Carlin is how he kept constantly pushing himself to evolve. We are immensely lucky his early 80s heart attack didnt take him us so soon, I wonder what Hicks might have been capable of had he not been struck down by Pancreatic cancer.
I'm cautiously optimistic for Jerrod Carmichael [glimpse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzgG4xVLux4 though I still wish YouTube still had his "Talent vs Morals" bit] - perhaps after clearing his head through his recent "Rothaniel" he too will level up.
(Particulary bummed on David Cross - 2002's "Shut Up you Fucking Baby" may be top 5 comedy albums of all time - but he seems to have not realized the Left won the Culture War)
Thanks for the kind words. The other two spots in my Mount Rushmore would be rather crowded. Monty Python and then Fry and Laurie.
I’m curious, what tweet got your main account banned from Twitter?
You might be confusing me with someone else, I've never been banned.
Sorry, assumed your handle on substack was also your twitter handle. Found the right one (not this apparently: https://twitter.com/JamiePaul)
Yeah that's not mine.
I'm embarrassed to ask.. Laurie....
Google gives me:
-Hugh Laurie (top result, I'm guessing not him)
-Laurie Metcalf, of Roseanne fame
-Laurie Kilmartin
-Laurie Elliott
I'm admittedly ignorant of non-US comedians ..
Also, Monty Python is cheating. Just saying. You'd disqualify me for the '94 cast of SNL.
Fry and Laurie refers to Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. They had a brilliant sketch comedy show in the 80s called "A Bit of Fry and Laurie." You can find most of it on youtube.
Edit: this is one of my all-time favorites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-dchJPXGA
You just blew my mind!
Loved George Carlin’s standup as a kid - and his bits ring true now more than ever!
This is not universally true. Carlin essentially was progressive. He did not play the
Burr" bothsidesism game" .He relentlessly skewered Republicans and the right wing but generally left Democrats alone. He hated hypocrisy and the lifelessness of modern conformity and lifeless technological thinking but he never went after blacks (rarely talked about them) or gays, who he defended. He was mostly interested in the white power structure and often white Yuppie sensibility. Very late in life he got ultra cynical and lost some coherence. He did NOT equally go after everyone and generally he never built entire acts around kicking oppressed groups. Don't go cherry picking Carlin to justify the intense bigotry of Chappelle, who has nothing to say anymore. Gervais, who I like a lot, is full of it on this issue also.
He had a whole routine about how the N-word was context-dependent and not universally bad, which he illustrated by calling Eddie Murphy the word. I say this not to impugn or judge him, but to suggest that you may not be as familiar with Carlin's whole body of work as you think. At one point or another, he made jokes about virtually everyone — and often very edgy jokes, at that. And that was what made him great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQHN1ipLPdY
One last thing. You completely misunderstand the n***** bit. Again he is complaining about language and context. "We care about the racist a-hole who uses it." And Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor were not powerless men. Quite the opposite. It was impossible to "punch down" on them and Carlin was not doing it. He used the word at the end for effect. but you would never see Carlin doing a bit on blacks the way Jeff Foxworthy did on "rednecks".
He had one rant and used slurs for every racial and ethnic group, His concern was LANGUAGE and context. He never berated oppressed groups for WHO THEY WERE.
Read the other comment first.
I am not disputing Carlin did not do that. I looked at the "cum catcher" bit. So here's my take. First, Carlin always contextualized these kinds of bits around the use or censorship of language, that words in and of themselves only had power we give them. Second, in the rape bit, he starts with a cartoon scene of Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd. This so distances rape from trauma that of course it elicits laughter. You will notice he immediately supports women as victims by saying "Elmer was asking for it, Elmer was coming on to him. "If he had said for instance "imagine Larry Hagman raping Victoria Principal, yeah watch him shove it right in there", do you think the audience would have found it funny? In the rape of the 81 year old woman, the cognitive dissonance of the "why" makes it funny but again he immediately leans into the outrage of the act. *He does not support it*. In the same bit he starts in on feminists about 3 or 4 times and immediately deflects to other abusers, mostly male. He mentions feminists "trying to control language" at 4:00 then says they have a lot of company and at 4:10 goes right to government, 25 seconds later he segues immediately to religion, 30 seconds later he immediately segues to political groups (What happened to the feminists?- these are all groups-mostly male that hold power- his traditional targets). He then mentions feminists again but immediately says he agrees with them and goes into his bigger dick theory of war (a main theme in his great bit on the Gulf War) "Mother Earth, raped again. Eh, she was asking for it". Then he attacks traditional housewife roles as baby producers. (Carlin grew up Catholic when birth control was forbidden).
FINALLY *three quarters* of the way into the monologue he goes after feminists but NOT for "cancel culture". He rips them for aping men and working for corporations. And of course what really gets his goat is middle class whites, who had been and were targets of his forever. "But when it comes to changing the language, they make some really good points." His rant here again is NOT "cancel culture", it is his great theme of the general perversion of language in a technocratic society which was his focus in the classic "soft language". FINALLY at the 9 minute mark of a 9;25 monologue he directly goes after feminists and uses "cum catcher".
Now because Carlin says something does not mean I automatically genuflect on it. I think his brush stroke is way too broad about feminism and I think "cum catcher" crosses a line and I think he did it deliberately as provocation, not because he believed it. I thought in his last specials his cynicism was way over the top and had lost much comedic social critical value. (the four states as prisons with the greatest losers.)
OK so he did it. but one has to measure isolated bits vs the entire arc of his career and one notices these types of "observations" are not the norm. Carlin is consistently defending women. Over and over and over he points out the crap that women take and how men are abusers. If he used the word faggot it was rare and usually in a context. I can't remember one monologue Carlin built with anti gay bias as a central theme. But he had numerous bits going after gay bashing and persecution of homosexuals. George Carlin was galaxies away from being homophobic. And I think we have to take his comments on Larry King about Dice Clay, and those like him, at his word.
Chappelle on the other hand is not concerned with the social themes and language in the same way Carlin is about gays and trans people, even if he falsely claims that is his purpose. Chappelle is a genuine homophobe/transphobe who goes after people FOR WHO THEY ARE, not for their behavior. He spends inordinate amount of time on this circulating back and defending himself, Gervais imo tries to be like Carlin but is far clumsier. I don't think Chappelle is trying to provoke for some higher good. **It's who he is**.
A question arises. Why? Males and especially black males have had a deep seated anxiety about non hetero orientation. Carlin talked a lot about that. In their ratings, Chappelle's audience on Netflix was 59% male, the highest male audience of any show in that period. But there is another reason I picked up on, a rage against other oppressed groups that are not black. I ran across a very incisive article that supported this POV
So I disagree with you completely. Carlin and Chappelle are nowhere close to one another and Carlin was consistently progressive and almost universally went after powerful people and power structures. They could not be more dissimilar in this regard.
Here is the piece. It's about Chappell's misguided black rage.
https://slate.com/culture/2021/10/dave-chappelle-the-closer-netflix-controversy.html