So Louis C K is apparently in some hot water. In the truest tradition of the provocateur comics I neither expect and fervently hope to not receive an apology from him. He goes on SNL for the finale of the fortieth season and promptly rolls out jokes about racism, bad parenting, Israel and Palestine, and of course pedophilia (because who wouldn't). Now the Internet outrage squad is ready to kill him as the twitter verse has erupted in disheartened head shaking at the appalling lack of taste.
The only problem is the bit was really, really funny.
I remember being a kid a watching Richard Pryor joke about the nurses scaling the burned tissue off of his raw body after he had set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. I remember him telling jokes about freebasing cocaine, and addicts passing out on the street high on heroine. I remember Whoopie Goldberg telling jokes about drug usage and Ronald Reagan having a homosexual fling with Rock Hudson (apparently Nancy had a fling with Rock as well). I can recall Carlin, well, telling a whole shitload of George Carlin jokes (do I need to list them?) although the equating of Desert Storm to little boys playing with toys in the sand does stand out. And it goes without mentioning the antics of Dangerfield, Hicks and Kennison were all way, way over the line.
Of course as time has gone some of these bits have gotten dated and upon the later watchings do perhaps get a little staid, but the thing that made them so funny at the time was that they were so shocking. It was guys and girls joking about things we didn't talk about in "polite company" and it was great!
Today we have guys like Conolly (the murder of the Baby Jesus is the core of the Christian Faith), Chris Rock (we've all seen THE bit) and Louis who remind us that sometimes we just have to laugh at the stuff that isn't funny. Because it's cathartic and it reminds us that life can be pretty awful and yet still funny.
And I think that is amazing.
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