"Few of us care in quite the same way if our choices in life would meet the approval of Johnny Carson or Andy Kaufman.... It’s still bracing to hear the bitter wordplay in his lament: 'It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.'... But the durability of Carlin’s material can be dangerous, too. Dislocated from the time and circumstances that inspired his work, the arguments he delivered can be made to serve purposes he didn’t intend. As those who were closest to him have learned, when he is unable to advocate for himself, he can be made to seem like he supported any opinion at all. 'It is a daily battle for me,' said Kelly Carlin, the comedian’s daughter.... Kelly Carlin said her father was '99 percent progressive'... But he was also critical of Democrats and 'guilty white liberals,' while he endorsed other ideas that conservatives supported. He despised euphemism and the policing of language, reviled what he called 'the continued puss-ification of the American male' and rebuked his countrymen who would 'trade away a little of their freedom for the feeling — the illusion — of security.'"
From "The Strange Afterlife of George Carlin/Nearly 14 years after his death, his provocative humor has been embraced by people across the political spectrum. What happens when comedy outlasts the era it was made for?" by Dave Itzkoff (NYT).
I've been trying to watch the 4-hour documentary about George Carlin. I even subscribed to HBO just for the purpose of watching it. It's hard going. I'd much rather watch Carlin's old specials in their entirety than clips of him interrupted by other comedians vouching for him or the narrator telling me who took what drug or Kelly Carlin giving the child's-eye view. I've sat down to watch this thing 5 different times and I'm still in the second hour.
Do you think of George Carlin — or any celebrity/artist — as somehow judging you or judging the various people in your life or in our shared public life? Do you imagine that he'd hate your enemies? Do you imagine that you can apply the mind of George Carlin to the issues of our time — a time that George did not live to see? Do you, like Dave Itzkoff, think it's "dangerous" for people to use George Carlin like that?
Do you want your daughter or son, after you die, to take on the work of setting everybody straight about what you really thought — to declare, with purported authority, what percent progressive you were or where you'd stand on whatever new issue somebody dared to imagine a position you'd have taken had you lived to see it?
Do you think that the words of the dead should not be used to "serve purposes" they "didn’t intend"? Is there some "original intent" principle that applies to jokes and other works of literature?
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59 comments:
"But the durability of Carlin’s material can be dangerous, too. Dislocated from the time and circumstances that inspired his work, the arguments he delivered can be made to serve purposes he didn’t intend."
Or is it that his comedy is inconvenient to liberals right now.
And needs to be canceled.
The Real Question is: Which of those three, would you most want to watch on a talk show?
And the Answer is clear! norm macdonald
George Carlin, like Bill Maher, was brilliant on some issues and an idiot on others. And just as partisans today who haven't really followed Maher's career think he's been red pilled every time he says something that makes sense, people want to believe Carlin agrees with them on a whole host of issues simply because he agreed with them on whichever rant they saw most recently.
I think for Carlin as well as Maher, "progressive" was mostly a pose. He didn't really belong to any team, but he bought the narrative that the left were the good guys and the right were all closet Nazis who wanted to enslave the world. So yes, he may have thought of himself as 99% progressive, but it's only because in the bigger picture, underneath the cutting insights on specific issues, he was naïve and unsophisticated.
Can't Carlin's work stand on its own? He was pretty clear, lol. It's like saying Lincoln was or wasn't racist. Putting my own interpretation on someone of a different era is appropriation, right?
Eh, I just came here to recommend The Gilded Age. We have HBO because my dad has cable, but I've been surprised by the quality of their original content. We also enjoyed Julia.
With any luck the Carlin Estate can start suing for misappropriation. The high priests of True Intended Meaning will be summoned to decide each infraction and the proper punishment, probably exile, possibly a mere groveling apology. /s
Why not let his words speak for themselves? As for the idea that humor can become obsolete: really? What a self-stultifying perspective. The challenge to later audiences is to enrich their knowledge of the earlier context, strengthen their imagination, and and bring the joke back to life. It’s called cultural literacy.
I think your last three paragraphs nailed the key questions, Ann. No child knows the adult minds and actions of their parents. They know the parent-speak, and general lessons (good...and bad) from their parents. But they are rarely, if ever, around their parents when their parents are interacting with other adults, being the individual humans they are- being themselves. Speaking their actual thoughts, their praises, slurs, humor, and slanders. No kid really knows the person their parent is or was. They know only their 'parent personality'.
Also, sorry to tell Kelly Carlin, but there was nothing like todays 'progressives' in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's. Carlin was surely a Liberal- in the older sense. I doubt he would have approved of today's progressive sense of righteousness when it comes to censorship, multiple genders, new pronouns, closed ears/eyes/minds. I don't know for sure, of course, but I can glean much from listening to his comedy for years- as I have.
I suspect he'd be recognized more as a Libertarian today than anything else. Certainly not a Government-mandated progressive.
As for the stupid question, "What happens when comedy outlasts the era it was made for?" That does not apply here. It does not apply to those who were so brilliant that their humor crosses time and trends. It sails over the current dogma and strikes at all of it, in every age.
Mel Brook's Blazing Saddles? It may end up getting banned officially at some point, but it'll be around as a lesson forever. Lenny Bruce? Don Rickles? George Carlin. Marx Bros.? And on and on. There are so many that live and will continue to live beyond the age they were introduced.
Because they hit at truth. Truth does not have a timestamp.
Better question: what's a useful idiot who's no longer useful?
Also, it seems like a 'that's not funny' tag might apply, in two ways.
- the marginally funny HBO documentary
- anything transgression against the narrative du jour that Carlin might have said if he were living now.
Bill Clinton was the most recent Democratic Party leader when Carlin died. Clinton was famous for centrist "triangulation" to gain advantage over the hard right and keep the hard left in check. Love him or hate him, he was largely effective (and his follow-up to Lewinsky made him stronger).
Today we've lived through super-secret-statist Obama followed by Trump and the associated deranged reaction, and now transparently-statist-propagandist Biden. In face of legislative losses blockades circa 2010, Democrats adopted "win by any means necessary." The congressional cowards couldn't even vote for "Obamacare" and merely "deemed it passed." Amoral ends-justify-the-means tactics expanded 100x during Trump.
The left didn't leave the left, the left abandoned sanity and pragmatics in favor of recklessness and impulse. This is why the right loves Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Manchin today -- they are grounded, principled Democrats.
Wars are lost when one side advances too far and can no longer support itself -- its supply lines collapse. Carlin didn't go beyond the cultural supply lines.
He sounds more conservative than Mitt Romney.
I loved the "Class Clown"-era Carlin, but as he aged he just became bitter and unfunny. (Don't we all!)
I'm cautious when seeing quotes attributed to him. His name has been "misused" a lot by various groups (right and left) to trade on his moral authority. Which is odd in itself - I don't know that he ever claimed he had any.
Isn’t art supposed to be universal and timeless?
Language presupposes the death of the speaker, far from requiring his presence. The best can do is sign what you way, by listening to it and then saying yes to it. Then it's on its own.
Maybe it's a sign of the better-to-great comedians that they make a lot of people, of various political views, uncomfortable. If we think the world is progressives vs. conservatives (who can become reactionary in a progressive world), a smart comic will probably agree with progressives that there are stupid or evil things in traditional ways of doing things; but then the specific solutions progressives propose will have their own problems. You're going to put who in charge? Insofar as progressives become moralistic and dogmatic, they are easy pickings for someone with a sense of humor. It's cruel to treat the mentally ill as if they are hopeless, so the humane thing is to pretend they're sane? Some comics avoid controversy by showing the funny things "we all do" in daily life: the way we cook or eat or date. A few get to a different level: George Carlin, Norm Macdonald, Richard Pryor, and maybe Dave Chappelle. Eddie Murphy when he came back to SNL as a guest host.
It's a strange phenomenon, someone says (or their child says, after they're dead) I'm (or Dad was)"a 100% progressive" except - they don't believe in or act in accordance with a single progressive idea.
What should we call this phenomenon???
Carlin was against soap opera news. No calls for civility from him. A form of authenticity.
I didn’t enjoy George Carlin when he was alive. He had some material that was good, but he lived during a time full of comedians. I preferred others. Mostly because Carlin came across to me a bit like an asshole. Robin Williams started to become that way late in life, but we didn’t know how bitter he was until he took his own life. I rather see a comedian who is also having a good time, like Steve Martin. As for moral compass, any decent comedian is like a court jester. Usually immoral in behavior but not in words.
I would categorize Carlin as a liberal, not a progressive. They are not the same thing.
"Progressive" is a self-bestowed title which one who is on a mission of 'change' grants themselves, being in contrast to those 'luddites' who may disagree that change is the sine non qua of the virtuous life. Absent is the clear end goal of what brave new world that change may lead to. And to the detriment of Progressivism, we see that end goal more clearly every day these days.
I suspect that Carlin's daughter is quick to point out her personal perception of her father's worldview so that she can maintain her status within her social circle, which she inherited simply for being the offspring of a popular figure.
“What should we call this phenomenon???“
Spin+eulogy = SPEULOGY
Carlin was a Libertarian.
I say that in terms of the definition - not his political voting habits or political affiliations.
It must drive progressives insane when anyone plays the clip of Carlin mocking volvo driving greenie-pussy.
"Do you think that the words of the dead should not be used to 'serve purposes' they 'didn’t intend'?"
If the words are good they will take on a life of their own. Attempts at control probably damage the longevity of the output. Anyway, every emission of popular culture is a hostage to fortune and posterity, despite everyone's best efforts to manage and curate them. In the end the audience, if any remains, will do whatever they like with the material.
Surely Carlin understood that when he died he'd just have to take his chances like everyone else. Think of a slightly different kind of case that demonstrates the same principle: all the authors whose works and reputations were maimed, post-mortem, by biographers and scholars -- regardless of any cleansing bonfires of documents lit by their executors, or lawsuits launched by their estate.
As for these NYT busybodies trying to police contemporary reactions to George's old jokes: as Carlin himself might say, fuck 'em.
Save the planet!
Asking what a dead politician would think today doesn't make much sense. JFK wouldn't go against his family, his college, his state, and his party. Whatever he thought in his own day, he'd probably change with his environment. He was a political animal and took his bearings from his environment. Same thing with FDR. Eisenhower is harder to gauge. His family became NeverTrumpers and Democrats. Jefferson is anybody's guess, and with him the what "would they be now" game gets silly.
But Carlin wasn't a politician. He was a curmudgeon in his own day and didn't run with the pack. He'd still be an outsider asking inconvenient questions. Maybe he'd be Russell Brand. Maybe he'd be somebody like Bill Maher, obviously liberal, but willing to go after some progressive sacred cows. Maybe he'd be a yellow dog Democrat who made up for his heterodoxy with big contributions to progressive causes. Maybe he would turn right, or maybe he'd fall into line behind Biden. Who can say? A lot of life depends on chance and on unpredictable factors. Maybe he'd be Willie Nelson, too out of it to articulate much of anything. Maybe he'd be Althouse.
I suspect something similar is going on with Hitchens.
In last 15 years of life, Carlin was the snarky, cranky old libtard that all the old boomers loved. He not only was FUNNY he was WISE. And so BRAVE. That the NYT's readers still love him, isn't surprising.
Libtards love hearing the same thing over and over, laughing at the same thing over and over, and making fun of the same declasse groups over and over.
What happens when comedy outlasts the era it was made for?
Ask Aristophenes. I would guess he'd include having his work ripped off by later comics, being called old-fashioned and out of date while still being laughed at, and having scholarly articles written about something penned on a parchment, with friends egging him on, in a wine bar, while drunk as a loon as deadline approaches.
His 1992 take on idiots who insist on "saving the planet" is great and destroys all the current doomsday rhetoric of the left.
Hence, they're conflicted.
OK, I first read the Biden salty language story, and the first thing I think of is '7 words you can't say on TV.'
Then I scroll down to this story.
Weird. Or the professor is trolling us with a swearing theme...
I was a Carlin fan for years. He could be a very funny man with keen insights. I watched the two-part HBO program that covered Carlin’s life and also served as a propaganda tool to be used against Trump, Republicans, etc.
I guess I can blame the execrable Judd Apatow - he can kiss my ass - for his usual brain-dead contributions.
As with so many questions, the answer is that everything Carlin said or wrote in the 20th Century should be public domain. His daughter should be on the road with her own act, instead of acting as his curator.
Much like Martin Luther King, Carlin said a lot of things which now make Leftists very uncomfortable. Nothing enrages them more than quoting King to them.
Carlin did a rant about the lunacy of environmentalism which would get him cancelled now.
It's all the stuff he said about not trusting the government (and other such positions of the left "back in the day") that upset the libs now.
Lem Yes
Christopher Hitchens is my 'go to' dead person.
My opinions need guidance.
Temujin @ 6:34: "...Truth does not have a timestamp."
You are rockin' the house. Thanks.
In other words, Carlin would be a Republican by now, because the Democrats oppose 99% of what the "99% progressive" Carlin believed,
And Hitchens would have ditched these Democrats too. I don't see any evolution of Hitchen's thinking that could ge to approval of policing thought and expression or a "Ministry of Truth."
Imagine if we had had a "Department of Disinformation" in the Viet Nam era blocking 'amplification' of anti-war sentiment as "Russian disinformation."
Lem Yes
Christopher Hitchens is my 'go to' dead person.
My opinions need guidance.
I listened to a Carlin clip just the other night. Posted by someone on the Instapundit OT. I suppose because it opened with him going off on the need for "one-hour photofinishing" with "who's nostalgic for just a few minutes ago" put me in the right head space. His bits are still good, but his religious attacks would likely now be going after progressives/activists who have taken up the control of others banner. Back then, the "enemy" was old religion, today it is new ideology. After all, today, waiting an hour, much less a day, to see your photos is unconscionable. I suspect Carlin could have had a field day with that
RoseAnne said...
I'm cautious when seeing quotes attributed to him. His name has been "misused" a lot by various groups (right and left) to trade on his moral authority.
Yeah, I think he's probably more misquoted/misattributed than Jefferson.
I always liked his football/baseball comparison schtick.
I always think of his "Everyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac" joke, too. Like, a lot. (I looked that one up to make sure I wasn't misattributing!)
What happens when comedy outlasts the era it was made for?"
What is this new era of comedy he alludes to and where can we find it?
Carlin would have loved to have lived to see Rush Limbaugh die of Lung Cancer from greedily sucking on too many big brown dicks.
Well, when the elites exempt luxury yachts and private jets, including those used for "pleasure" from carbon taxes on the fuel, they hate it when we say "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."
It's like the director of The Matrix complaining about the culture's interpretation of "the red pill." She maybe didn't even get wet the movie really meant.
George Carlin had a hilarious riff about Muhammad Ali that I've seen on reruns of the Ed Sullivan Show. It went something like this.
Muhammad Ali had a job. He beat people up. The government wanted him to change jobs. They wanted him to kill people. Muhammad Ali said, "That's where I draw the line. I'll beat people up, but I won't kill them." The government said, "Well, if you won't kill people, we won't let you beat them up."
Mark Twain would like a word.
I was once a big Carlin fan, although my built-in BS detector told me that his iconoclasm probably ended where his statism began, so I'm not shocked to learn that he was, in his heart of hearts, a "progressive" (i.e., statist). It's always sad (although not uncommon) when the allegedly free-spirited satirist turns spear-carrier for The State.
So: The material can be made to mean anything, regardless of how Carlin originally meant it.
But isn't this the correct post-modern way? The Text is The Text. Authorial intent is irrelevant and unknowable. The Viewer / Reader interacts with The Text, and that is all that matters.
The thing that really bothers me about so much contemporary argument is, not only does it ignore it's own ideology, it expects that the audience doesn't remember or care about anything that happened more than a week ago.
It's unmoored from reality, AND it's unmoored from itself.
What am I left with? "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution."
"The planet is fine. It's the people who are fucked." - George Carlin
Howard said...
Carlin would have loved to have lived to see Rush Limbaugh die of Lung Cancer from greedily sucking on too many big brown dicks.
Racist and homophobic
Clearly from a Democrat
If a "journalist" at NYT types an entire pointless, idiotic screed without including a single factual assertion, is it still a pack of lies? Is he still a lying liar who always lies? Yes, say I. But I'm still working out the precise logic of the situation.
I agree with RMc: “I loved the "Class Clown"-era Carlin, but as he aged he just became bitter and unfunny. (Don't we all!)” I remember thinking as a kid that Godfrey Cambridge was funny. Bill Cosby was funny. And for awhile George Carlin was funny. Then, when he got old, he wasn’t funny. He was bitter. I like funny, but funny’s hard.
I'm not sure Carlin's material really holds up. As a performer he's great, his rhythm is outstanding and really carries you along, but if you slow it down and look at the actual jokes it's quite a lot of "why do we park in the driveway and drive in the parkway?!" dressed up just a bit. He got in early on the angry/cynical rant finished off with earnest stentimentalism as a routine and was definitely influential, but the "Carlin was a prophet" stuff only works if you just take a quote or two and don't sit through a whole show.
Same, to an even greater degree, for Bill Hicks. I definitely remember being impressed at what a brave, trenchant truth-teller he was when I first heard him, but listening now he mostly seems like an asshole with a solid joke and quip or two.
Also, just sayin', but Carlin was a multimillionaire when he died--despite near-constant shaming of those greedy fat cats or obnoxious rich people he decided not to give all his own cash away to the needy.
"This is why the right loves Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Manchin today -- they are grounded, principled Democrats."
That's your perception of them as "grounded, principled Democrats," and why the right loves them, (assuming you're accurate), because they are essentially Republicans in all but party name.
"Surely Carlin understood that when he died he'd just have to take his chances like everyone else."
Carlin understood that when he died he'd be dead.
"In other words, Carlin would be a Republican by now, because the Democrats oppose 99% of what the '99% progressive' Carlin believed."
Do you think someone who rejects the Democrats must be a Republican? How woefully unimaginative!
"Imagine if we had had a 'Department of Disinformation' in the Viet Nam era blocking 'amplification' of anti-war sentiment as 'Russian disinformation.'"
Uh...don't you realize many scorned anti-Viet Nam War protesters as "reds" and "commies" and that the FBI was convinced the civil rights movement had been infiltrated by communists?
We keep Isaac Newton’s work in mechanics and gravity, and we ignore his writings on alchemy.
But members of the big club that we ain’t in can order up articles like this when they don’t like how the hoi paloy start scoring points.
Those people didn’t have power over publishing, Mr Cook.
Robert Cook said...
"This is why the right loves Tulsi Gabbard and Joe Manchin today -- they are grounded, principled Democrats."
That's your perception of them as "grounded, principled Democrats," and why the right loves them, (assuming you're accurate), because they are essentially Republicans in all but party name.
If Manchin were "essentially Republican in all but party name" then a whole bunch of Biden nominees would never have been approved.
You might want to try to look at the world from some place OTHER than the extreme Left
Robert Cook said...
"Imagine if we had had a 'Department of Disinformation' in the Viet Nam era blocking 'amplification' of anti-war sentiment as 'Russian disinformation.'"
Uh...don't you realize many scorned anti-Viet Nam War protesters as "reds" and "commies" and that the FBI was convinced the civil rights movement had been infiltrated by communists?
1: Many of them were, and still are, commies
2: The issue is not how someone is label, the issue is what happens after someone is labeled.
3: Morally decent human beings think you can point out that someone is acting like a Russian tool. Morally wretched people (the Left and their fellow travelers) claim once you've pointed that out, you can and should then go on to censor those people and drive them out of the public square
4: Are you pretending that you don't know that the Verona Papers exist? Start here for a list of some of the actual Russian tools in American politics https://www.conservapedia.com/List_of_Americans_in_the_Venona_papers
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