As I'm sitting here watching Mad Men, one of my favorite shows, they are dealing with tragedy left and right. The JFK assassination, MLK assassination, riots, racism, and on and on. Each time we thought we as a Country could not take anymore, we triumphed. Now those are all past events, and as a society we have had new pain to endure, especially with school and/or mass shootings. Where does it all come from? Are we making a 360 degree turn and ending back up in our primal state?
Jim Carrey has officially withdrawn his support of a new movie he is in, "Kick Ass 2". I saw the first one, it was great! It had Mclovin' from Superbad in it, (poor kid, no one will ever remember him other than Mclovin'), a decent plot, and a great female kick ass character. Now why has Jim Carrey withdrawn his support from this movie you ask? He said with such a violent film, he cannot support it's violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook Massacre. Sandy Hook was without doubt a terrible tragedy, no one will dispute that. Now is Jim Carrey being a hero by speaking out against his own movie, or are things just too PC now a days?
Comedians are getting hit left and right about jokes they tell now. I'm not talking about the racist rants and raves of Michael Richards (Kramer from "Seinfeld"), I'm talking about true legit jokes. If you go to a Roast of whoever, what do you think you'd expect? Roasts are notorious for being raunchy, personal, and hitting so far below the belt that it's comedy, it's funny, it's all in jest. It's friends coming together to pay a tribute to a great comedian. Gilbert Gottfried lost his job as the voice of the Aflac duck because of a tweet which ended in many people screaming from the rooftops how wrong it was. He profusely apologized, yet it fell on deaf ears. Many comedians came to his defense saying it's just comedy.
What would happen to Richard Pryor today? If you ask almost any comedian their influences, Richard Pryor is in that mix. Sam Kinison is in that mix. These are the greats. Where would comedy be without them? I understand the tragedies that have happened and am in no way condoning or making light of them, but where do we draw the line? Are we able to still laugh? What about Richard Pryor? Are they going to start taking his albums off of the shelves? When will the censorship stop?
Maybe some people are disagreeing with me right now, maybe I'm not making valid points. What I do know is that there is such a thing as "too soon" for comics, they draw the line and do have respect. These comics have feelings too and how do you make a weeping society smile again? With a joke. Slowly but surely the tables are turning. What's going to happen when we can no longer push the envelope? When our comics are told what topics they are able to talk about, what will happen to our laughter? It seems like we are moving backward and telling people you can't say this and you can't say that. Well what happens when we aren't allowed voices of our own? There is such a thing as being politically correct, but I think we've crossed the line. Pretty soon we will only be able to hear knock knock jokes if society has their way.
Comics speak from experience, they always say they are dark souls or speak from a dark place. Maybe they grew up in rough neighborhoods, maybe they didn't have the ideal childhood. This is their outlet, comedy. Making people laugh. If we didn't have the Louis C.K's, Lisa Lampanelli's, Anthony Jeselnik's, Amy Schumer's, Roseanne Barr's, Bob Saget's, Bill Burr's, Dave Chappelle's, and the Jeff Ross' of the world, what would this world be like? I don't know about you, but I don't ever want to find out.
Peace, love, and butterflies.....
Follow me on twitter @buttrfly7740
