I don't know. It depends on what year you're talking about.
A joke about a pregnant slave seems pretty darn stupid today, in 2022. But you know what? That was the gist of humor when I was young. Push the line, be cutting edge, offend as many people as possible. That was comedy in the 70s and 80s.
Nonetheless, there has never been a less tolerant or more judgmental time in my life than now. Almost every day someone is punished for saying something that offends someone. That's quite a cultural whiplash for me, who grew up in the 70s and 80s when pushing the line and being as offensive as possible was all the rage.
I remember an old humor magazine - Cracked I believe - that did a lampoon of the old Hogan's Heroes television show. The point was that Hogan is upset and nobody can figure out why. Finally he blurts out that everything is wrong and the whole show needs a revamp. What was that revamp? In the last full page frame it shows us - they're no longer POWs, they're in a death camp! Complete with striped issue and shaved heads, Klink is now a death camp SS commandant and everyone can finally cut loose. The last line of the strip? Klink, leaning on Hogan's shoulders, asks if he's finally happy. Sure, Hogan says, you bet I am - it's a gasser!
Imagine that today. Such were liberal values, c. 1980. Not today. In fact, if I have to pick one reason not to trust 'progressives', it's that every day I see the Left change the values that the Left I grew up with openly endorsed. From the fascism of banning books or art, to personal behaviors, to the sudden insistence that we must not be color blind when, as recently as my sons' schooling, they were taught the importance of being a color blind society.
I have little patience for a movement with a 'here today, gone later today' approach to principles. Especially when it's also quite prepared to retroactively punish those who were foolish enough to listen to the past message now suddenly condemned.
UPDATE:
Ah, the things you find on the Internet. So Catherine McClarey did the digging I didn't imagine could be done and found that last page punch line:
Wow. It was more offensive than I remembered. And yet, perfectly fine back then, since offend and disrespect was all the rage. I you were offended, you were the problem. Have I mentioned that I don't care for a society that changes it's values faster than you can change the diapers on a 3 month old baby on a beans and broccoli diet?
https://i0.wp.com/www.dailycartoonist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/hochmans-heroes.jpg?ssl=1
ReplyDeleteSo there it is! I still have a small stack of old mags from yesteryear, including some of those types, but wouldn't you know, I didn't have that one. I sometimes worry that memories of that sort can inject what wasn't there into the past. Nice to know I wasn't too far off. I certainly don't see that published today!
DeleteI read Mad Magazine back in the Sixties. Never had a subscription, merely purchased it from the magazine rack at grocery stores on occasion. I didn't think it had much of an impact at the time, but it is amazing how more than a few of their satirical pieces lodged in my brain over many decades. A look back at a time when America was indeed the land of the free.
DeleteEven in 1990 they managed to put a show called "Heil Honey, I'm Home" on network television (about the domestic life of Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun in cliched 50's sitcom style). It was shortly pulled due to controversy, but the thought that even the pilot could be aired (with seven more episodes filmed) is kind of amazing.
ReplyDeleteOddly, in the mainstream, such shows often didn't make it. Stand up comedy, HBO, magazines and written humor seemed able to keep it going. The first time I heard anyone shout out someone for offending them - and getting traction - was the gay rights movement calling out Eddie Murphy, and getting support from the media. That was about early to mid 80s. Being offensive could still keep it going, but by the 90s it was more 'who are you offending' that was the question.
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