Franklin's Focus 6/7/10

Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and George Carlin

Where are you now that we desperately need you?

Each one of these verbal giants was during his heyday a brilliant
critic of our insane puritanism and militarism. Of course, mainstream
Amerika was appalled by these critics of American society, politics,
and foreign policies. Bruce and Carlin are dead now, and Sahl only
occasionally emerges for interviews. With those three missing from the
comic stage, so too are any deep or brilliant forms of American satire
with respect to government, religion, and societal rules in general.

Were he alive, can you imagine what George Carlin would be doing today
with the huge sex scandal within the Catholic Church? Can you picture
the rage of Lenny Bruce taking on the Pope? And how about American
wars and imperialism? All three would have mercilessly shredded the
political dimensions of Amerika's drive toward empire and powerfully
attacked the institutionalized criminality of the Catholic Church.

I do happen to find today's Lewis Black to be hilariously funny, but
he does not for the most part attack the socio-political phenomena I
want to see skewered. His knocking of Madison Avenue and the frauds of
capitalist marketing is certainly quite amusing, and that is of some
value. When one of his periodic appearances shows up on TV, I always
tune in.

Which brings me to an observation I've made about his audiences. Black
uses the strongest imaginable profanity with great gusto. The roving
camera, in the meantime, is constantly turning to the audience, which
is composed mostly of couples who are probably married or on dates.

Something interesting is happening here. Every last woman seems to be
almost collapsing and nearly falling out of her seat with laughter,
while their male escorts are merely sitting straight and grinning. The
profuse use of words such as 'fuck' and 'fucking' would have been
offensive to the vast majority of women not all that long ago. Women
now seem to be far more relaxed with such high levels of profanity
than men, at least in this kind of entertainment context. So what does
that mean? It seems clear that most women are now more sophisticated
in these matters than men. They more easily look beyond the adjectives
to the message. Go figure.

Is women's lib the reason? Naw. It's got to go deeper than that. When
I was young, a man would not dare to use the word 'fuck' in front of
his own wife, who was presumably his closest friend. I submit that
something worthwhile is occurring, but I'm not sure I can define it.
When I was a kid, the smartest kids would reply to insults with,
'Sticks and stones can break my bones' etc..." Those kids were
probably saner than their fathers and mothers about words. Could it be
that women simply are becoming more rational than men about so called
'profanity', or is something deeper now happening in our culture?

In any case, I enjoyed watching the women of Black's audience having
observably much more fun than their constipated boyfriends and
husbands. What do you think?

And oh yes, the fucking hole in the seabed is still spewing out vast
amounts of poison into the Gulf of Mexico. I say this with no apology
to my female readers, but with a hope that my male readers will not be
made uncomfortable by my choice of words.

Warmest regards,
Richard