return to homepage The Lastman in Comedy by Miles Mathis Today’s headlines included
Michael Richards’ apology for using the word “nigger” in a comedy act. A few months ago the press piled on Mel
Gibson for getting drunk and saying stupid things about Jews. In between, we saw John Kerry dismissed
from any future political hope because he told a joke with an unclear
punchline. I find all of these things very offensive, but not for the
reason everyone else appears to. For me
they are clear signs of the Lastman.
The Lastman is a concept of Friedrich Nietzsche. One of my early papers first published at
Art Renewal was about the Lastman and how his arrival was being announced in
the field of art. In this paper I will
go beyond art, to show how the Lastman is solidifying his presence in the world
at large. The Lastman is a period in the evolution of the human
species. The Lastman is an intellectual
and moral reversion, a dumbing down, a conscious return to infantilism. It is the descent into idiocy. Nietzsche believed that the Lastman would
survive for a limited time, ultimately trumped by the Overman. The Overman would build a bridge over the
small-minded Lastman, taking us into a broader, deeper, more complex
future. I am not here to discuss or analyze Nietzsche or any of his
theories, but his term is useful to me here since it is so vivid and
powerful. He told us that the Lastman would
be like a cow, blinking contently in the sun.
A stupid beast, wholly controlled by the environment and the farmer. Obviously, we have not achieved this final level of
contentedness and ignorance, but the pathways have been set to take us there
quite quickly. One of these pathways is
beaten by those who would outlaw certain words. Another pathway is beaten by those who would criminalize getting
mad, saying stupid things, making mistakes, being human. The samples above beat both these pathways,
and these pathways are now broad and clear. Let us start with Michael
Richards. Richards is famous for
playing Kramer on Seinfeld. He
has now returned to stand-up. As I
said, he recently called some black hecklers “niggers” and the uproar has been
gigantic. He appeared on David
Letterman, looking like a deathrow inmate, apologizing profusely. He hired a foremost “crisis expert” to help
him apologize to the black community.
Jesse Jackson has gotten involved.
Jackson has claimed publicly that, "We
have to evaluate the use of the n-word and categorize it as hate speech, no
matter who uses it." That is, we
have a famous black man who cannot use the word himself, even when responding
to a story about the word. In
Jackson’s sentence, “nigger” would not be directed at anyone, it would just be
a word used as a word. But Jackson can
still not justify putting it in print. I have seen the Richards incident in question and I think
this reaction is absurd. To begin with,
I would like to remind my readers of a quote from Kindergarten. Not Kierkegaard, Kindergarten. Since everyone is acting like they are five
years old, this is appropriate. “Sticks
and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Have we matured beyond that quote? Have we come to realize, as towering
intellectuals and politically savvy operatives and scientifically advanced
beings, that words can in fact break our bones? Not at all. Richards’
little fight with his hecklers was on precisely the same level as a playground
shouting match, and it meant no more and no less. Little Bobby and Charlie on the playground don’t hire crisis
experts and feel the need to apologize on David Letterman and go into a
permanent career-ending funk. They just
show up at school the next day and shrug it off. Yes, it was stupid. Yes,
it was a waste of time. Yes, they could
have done better. But so what? It was just a couple of temporarily angry
people talking loudly. There is some belief that Richards’ name calling was worse
than the name calling on the other side, though I am not sure why. When you are fighting you look for words
that will hurt. That is what fighting
is. In the exchange on tape, the
hecklers say some very mean things, things that would hurt more than the
generalized and fairly meaningless “nigger” that Richards threw back at
them. “Nigger” is not a powerful slur,
since it basically means, “you’re black!”
So what. That is not even a
slur, or it is a slur on the level of “whitey.” Both are meaningless, and rely on the receiver for any real
content. If someone calls me whitey, I
have trouble attaching much importance to it.
Black people could choose to feel the same way. Of course, Richards may intend, and the
hecklers may have felt, that the content was more along the lines of, “my
ancestors were free men and your ancestors were slaves, therefore I am better
than you,” but that is a gross generalization, too. These hecklers could be from Africa, Europe, etc., or Richards’
ancestry could include slaves. In fact,
it probably does. If you go back far
enough, everyone’s ancestors were enslaved at one time or another. Again, so what? The problem with Richards’ slur is not that it was cutting,
but that it was childish. The real
problem has to do with the fact that he got beat. These hecklers were attacking him with specific things, calling
him a has-been, a one-hit wonder, things that must have hurt, and did
hurt. All he could come up with is a
generalized playground slur on the level of five year olds. He should apologize, but not for using a
forbidden word. He should apologize for
claiming to be a clever man, for getting paid for being quick on his feet, and
then standing up there and not being able to cut down a couple of drunks. It was not so long ago that
comedians of all colors got up on the stage and felt free to say pretty much
whatever they wanted. If they bombed,
then it was left at that. If they
weren’t able to justify the profanity and borderline offense by wrapping it in
laughs, then they didn’t get hired next time.
I am thinking of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and George Carlin,
especially. Can you imagine Pryor or
Murphy agreeing with Jesse Jackson that the word “nigger” should be
outlawed? George Carlin is a white guy who still gets away
with saying “nigger,” and it is because he is funny. He is able to include it without offense, as a way of asserting
freedom. He says many potentially
offensive things, steps over the line, pushes the boundary, but the audience
never turns on him. Why? Because he is a great comedian. The audience doesn’t feel qualified to turn
on him. They may get home and say,
“Wow, that was over the line, I’m not sure I agree with that.” But in most cases they pay their $30 and go
back the next time Carlin is in town.
They recognize that George Carlin is a human being with whom they are
going to disagree on some things. They
aren’t going to laugh at every single thing.
Some things may shock them. But
they go on with their lives. They don’t
request a groveling public apology in front of the censors, a scarlet N, 40
days of hairshirts and paternosters, and a permanent fall from TV grace. Ben Tripp is another comedian who gets away with
using the word "nigger." Tripp writes for the lefty mag Counterpunch,
and there has been no uproar there over the word, that I know of. In Tripp's
case, this is because his politics is well known (he is clearly not a racist),
because he is very funny, and because he uses the word to make anti-racist
points. His audience accepts the word as a word and moves on. But Richards’ audience was not able to do that, to go on
with it. Was it his fault? Undoubtedly. Was it also their fault?
Undoubtedly. This is an
audience that has been schooled by Jesse Jackson and all the absurd politics of
the day. Now, I caucused for Jackson
when I was in college. But like almost
everyone else, Jackson has since nose-dived into some strange Nunnery morality,
where people can’t get mad, can’t make mistakes, can’t use certain words,
blahblahblah. Categorizing the word
“nigger” as hate speech is equivalent to outlawing the word, and that precedent
is much more dangerous to a free country than any silly war of words between
drunk people. Outlawing words is
Orwellian, whether it is done by the far right or the far left. There is simply no moral justification for
outlawing words. In pretty much the same
category, we have Mel Gibson. Fifty
years ago, people would have responded to Mel Gibson in a completely different
way. Some readers will answer that this
is because we were all tolerant of racism back then, but I don’t think this is
true. There were a lot of racists then and
there are a lot now. But the public
reaction doesn’t have much to do with racism.
It has to do with a different sort of intolerance, an intolerance for
people making mistakes, acting like idiots, saying ridiculous things, and
getting caught at it. The rational
reaction is to say, “Mel is an intemperate person who I disagree with on
certain issues. He needs to hire a
driver before he kills someone or himself with drunken driving.” But people can’t stay on target. The DWI issue, which is the one that breaks
people’s bones, has been swamped by the speech issue. Most people think it is more important that Mel likes to scream
obscenities at people when he gets drunk.
It is very important to get him in line on words and ideas. It is not important to keep him from killing
people with his car, but it is very important that he like Jews. Why? There are a lot
of people who don’t like me, but I don’t spend any time asking them to
apologize for it. If people want to hate
me or disagree with me, that is their business. They shouldn’t have to apologize for feeling what they feel, even
if it is wrong. Mel has every right to
get drunk and act like an ass. Everyone
I know gets drunk and/or acts like an ass sometimes. That’s what people do.
They get angry, they get depressed, they confused, and so on. So what?
Does that mean these people can’t do their jobs, can’t raise families,
can’t make movies, can’t paint pictures, can’t vote? How Mel Gibson deals with his anger or his confusion is his own
business, as long as he doesn’t drive drunk, and I would never think to judge
his movies based on his drunken tirades.
A lot of your heroes, whoever they were, went on drunken tirades, or the
equivalent, and if you plan to dismiss everyone who disagrees with you or who
acts like an ass occasionally, you will be left with no one. Even Jesus had his storms in the
marketplace, even Gandhi made his mistakes.
This constant apologizing and
demand for apology is a sign of something much deeper than political
correctness. It is a sign of
infantilism. It is a sign of the
Lastman. It is a sign of a people who cannot deal with emotion, with anger,
with sadness, with loud words, with disagreement, with opposition. We want to outlaw hate and hate speech, which
means we want to flatten out the emotional ride of life. We want to knock out all highs and
lows. After we outlaw hatred, perhaps
we can outlaw love, since love is also a passion that is often difficult to
control. It is scary, it leads to
confrontation and distress, to name calling, to wild imaginings and
expectations. It often leads to
pain. So outlaw it. You may think I am drawing wild parallels, but contemporary
society is moving in this direction as well.
“Love speech” is also exponentially more tepid than it used to be. And I am not just talking about compared the
Troubadours. No, listen to Frank
Sinatra, especially the old stuff (from before the 60’s) and you will see the
difference. Or Nat King Cole and Tony
Bennett. Or, in the 60’s, think of
Johnny Mathis. You don’t even have to
go back that far. Go back to the
70’s. Love speech in the music and
movies was completely different than it is now. Every decade there is more talk of sex and less talk of love. Even where romance remains, it has been
pinched and simplified, its richness and extravagance excised, its idealism
jettisoned, its caprice informed, its exaggeration tamed. All this control is in service of the Lastman. The farmer is turning his cow into a
hornless beast, a blinking, slow-moving grassy-brained creature only good for
milking or sending to the grinder. But before we wrap this up, let
us look at my third example, the poor beast John Kerry. Kerry was talking about education and
military service, and meant to imply that people who don’t know anything about
history end up in stupid wars like the Iraq War. This “joke” was aimed at Bush, obviously. But Kerry left a word out of the punchline,
which made it look like he was talking about the soldiers in Iraq, not
Bush. Even if Kerry had been talking about the soldiers, his point
should have been well taken, since the point applies equally to them. In general, the most educated people don’t
end up on the front lines of wars, and many of the soldiers in Iraq don’t
appear to know much about history. We
know that from the interviews. Some
soldiers are no doubt smart people who do know history, but that is not the
point. Kerry’s statement, even read
incorrectly, is a generalization, and as a generalization, it is true. Statistically, Kerry would have been correct
if he had said what Karl Rove had wished he had said. And that is where we hit the central issue. Kerry’s blown punchline was spun by Rove,
and Kerry found a way to lose again.
Initially, Kerry refused to apologize and attacked Bush and Rove
directly. For a shining moment we saw
Kerry as a real man. Unfortunately,
that shining moment soon paled, and Kerry knelt before Rove and did his
bidding. This allowed Rove to double
his bet: Kerry was now not only admitting to an infraction (otherwise, why apologize)
he was also flip-flopping once more.
After refusing to apologize on Monday, he apologized on Tuesday. A couple of weeks later, after the midterm elections, the
media was asking if Kerry could outlive the blown joke. Kerry had left one word out of a sentence, had been spun
into a meaning he didn’t intend, and now his career was in jeopardy. How could this happen? How could a society accept the proposal that
a miffed sentence was a career-ending gaffe?
How could a media propose it?
How could a media that had failed to investigate wholesale failures of
governance from both parties justify focusing attention on trivia? Even more to the point, how could the readers of the “news”
continue to read it? How could they not
permanently cancel all their subscriptions to every magazine and newspapers and
online agency? How could they stand
there in the field, bitten by flies, chomping on grass and swishing their
tails, and not get the tiniest bit bored or suspicious? Because they are Lastmen. A lifetime of head vises has convinced them
that it is unforgivable to get mad, to feel strong emotion, to make mistakes,
to love, to hate, to get loud, to make demands, to fight, to be intemperate for
any reason, to use certain words, to change their minds, to be different, to
take risks. Instead, they stand there
and get milked. They put “question
authority” bumper stickers on the car, and then drive under surveillance
cameras at every intersection, allow their dictionaries to be censored, their
mail to be opened, their phones tapped, and their cars searched. They blink contentedly as the Constitution
is erased word by word, the banks steal from them, and the oil companies
price-fix them into poverty. They
watch their fellows being tasered and do nothing. They watch their neighbors being tortured and killed and they do
nothing. One can only suppose that they
will clip-clop down the chute when it comes their time, and be amazed that
security is not at the end of it. If this paper was useful to you in any way, please consider donating a dollar (or more) to the SAVE THE ARTISTS FOUNDATION. This will allow me to continue writing these "unpublishable" things. Don't be confused by paying Melisa Smith--that is just one of my many noms de plume. If you are a Paypal user, there is no fee; so it might be worth your while to become one. Otherwise they will rob us 33 cents for each transaction. |