Well I’ve just read one of the worst pieces of review ‘journalism’ I have ever encountered.
The Guardian has a delightful little rant entitled “The new offenders of stand up comedy” by Brian Logan, a man so desperate to appear up to date with comedy trends that is forced to completely invent these theoretical trends out of thin air. His stance is that there is some kind of backlash against the Politically Correct comedy of the late eighties and nineties which now allows comedians to be every bit as racist and offensive as the comedians of the seventies, and the audience (thats mister and missus racist thickie on the street i.e. you and me) are simply loving this new racism which he implies we are lapping up under cover of their ironic presentation.
The only slight problem with this piece is that Brian Logan is a fucking idiot. One of the comedians he chooses to misrepresent is Richard Herring, a “veteran comic” who was one half of Lee and Herring aka Fist of Fun in the early nineties. Richard Herring is currently preparing for a stand up tour entitled Hitler’s Moustache in which he sports a genuine example of the titular facial hair in order to investigate how such symbols are perceived and to analyse entrenched beliefs and whether such symbols can be reclaimed. But Brian Logan (clearly an irony black hole) chooses to quote from Herring’s entire show only the phrase “that racists have a point”.
Okay Brian lets play that game. Which comedians do you hold up as genuinely positive “offensive comedians?” He cites, amongst others, Bill Hicks, Ben Elton and Billy Connolly, describing them as ” against establishment opinion” coming from “what might broadly be described as left-libertarian perspective” railing against “religious orthodoxy, obscenity laws, militarism and racial inequality”. As a good Guardianista Brian logan must have just come while writing that.
But wait.. hang on… Bill Hicks? He was pro war. Didn’t he say of the first Iraq conflict “I’m Pro the war but anti- the troops. Not the most popular opinion I’ve ever had.” Bill Hicks was antifamily and kids. “Having a child is no different to eating food and a turd coming out of your anus.” Need more proof he was anti children? He tells a horrific story of wanting a child to be sucked out of an aircraft door. When discussing a story about a kid who killed himself jumping off a building while high on drugs he concludes “Good! One less gas station attendant in the world. I’m guessing we didn’t lose a cure for cancer there.” He is anti children, patronising to the poor and disadvantaged and encouraging drug fuelled suicide. Ben Elton? Anti the disabled. Don’t remember that? He creates a whole routine over a severe condition Margaret Thatcher had in which the tendons were drawing her fingers into a claw. Is it funny to laugh at the disfigurements of someone who was nearly a pensioner at the time? Famously he even thinks the whole of World War One was a badly run waste of time. Ben Elton clearly thinks we should have let the precursors to the rise of the Nazis continue unopposed. Is he secretly a fascist?
Brian Logan clearly thinks Jo Brand is a fine example of a healthy, non-ironic PC attitde , yet ignores all her routines reducing women to cake loving man-lusting alcoholics. Her quotes appear to be implying Jimmy Carr is doing nothing more than delivering all the women hating jokes everyone has been missing all these years. She is quoted as saying (she is impling this is theo pinion of the audience out there - that’s mister and missus sexist thickie on the street i.e. you and me) “Where have all those delicious anti-women jokes gone? We miss them.” is that really what you think Jo? Really? That’s actually genuinely what you were trying to say when Brian Logan interviewed you? That’s your genuine opinion about all of Jimmy Carr’s persona and routines?
And as for Billy Connolly, well he clearly wished a hostage victim to be murdered. No doubt he laughed heartily when Kenneth Bigley was beheaded. That was obviously and without any question exactly what he wanted, and wanted the audience to also think.
But wait, hang on, could it be possible that… none of these comedians actually literally felt that what they were saying should be taken at face value? Could it be possible that they were taking extreme positions in order to analyse our feelings towards such issues?
In their podcast when Richard Herring and Andrew Collins (no doubt according to Logan another ’suposedly’ left wing writer) discuss the likelihood that Madeleine McCann is dead, are they really wishing for the young girl’s death or enjoying her abduction for comedic value? Or could they possibly be… reflecting reality and the genuine thoughts that millions of intelligent adult have, but that the media is unable by convention to discuss. When every paper prints ‘updated’ pictures of Maddie ‘as she looks now’, where is a single article saying “Of course she doesn’t look like that now! It’s utterly stupid and cruel to the parents to pretend that she might, and even if she did the one way guaranteed to ensure she doesn’t any longer is to print those photos!”
Are they mocking her or the insane, mawkish reaction of the media?
Podcasting has filled a required role in the media - a forum of expression of opinion by professionals (and amateurs) that would never be allowed in any other company controlled media outlet. You are no more allowed to break laws on a podcast than you are elsewhere, but you are allowed to voice opinions that would be unheard of in a newspaper, but many people you know in real life actually hold. This is why more and more performers and broadcasters have a podcast outlet in addition to their more mainstream output, as a release valve for what they want to express without editorial control or censorship.
Brian Logan has the utter fucking unironic cheek to even bring up the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand phone call to Andrew Sachs, a huge issue, let’s not forget, simply because a) the victim was famous b) the media actively created the furore themselves. Beadle was humilating people for years, even recent shows like Trigger Happy TV continue to mock innocent people in various degrees of unpleasantness. It’s pathetic comedy when done by anyone, but why does Brian Logan continue that single incident to be so noteworthy? Just because the media decided it should be? So this bold journalistic investigator of cutting edge trends… reports solely according to what his own media decides is important.
Some comedians do walk a very fine line between irony and celebration of unpleasant viewpoints. Al Murray, for example, appears to be slightly losing sight of where that line is and it would be entirely possible to watch an entire show of his and believe that he really was expressing far right viewpoints without irony. But almost every other comedian Brian Logan mentions is clearly expressing their viewpoints with an eye to mockery. Richard Herring in particular it would simply not be possible to sit through an entire show or podcast and come away genuinely believing his stand up to be racist. You just couldn’t’ genuinely do it.
The whole point of his Hitler Moustache show is to look at entrenched beliefs and to ask if such shocking symbols as the Hitler Moustache can be reclaimed and actually used against the concepts they are connected with. He asks if perhaps people can start sporting such a moustache as a protest against the worrying trend of the BNP rise. It’s a little hard to see how Brian Logan missed that as Herring discusses it in most podcasts and on his webste at length.
Now maybe we could ujst put this down to extremely poor research and breathtakingly low journalistic competence by Brian Logan… or could it be that he is simply reflecting what his editors want? Just as the BNP sees immigrants taking our jobs, and Polish crime everywhere they look, does the Guardian simply want to see racism everywhere it looks? Is it as guilty of pandering to its own entrenched beliefs as the far right groups it criticises?
In psychology this is known as confirmation bias - the tendency to interpret results or information according to personally held preconceptions and beliefs. The arrogance of this article is staggering, and how patronising it is to a mythical audience of racist, sexist homophobes (that’s what Brian Logan, and maybe by inference the Guardian thinks about you and me).
But ironically, has the Guardian article actually made Richard Herring’s point as clearly as any negative reaction from the BNP could have? Could his tour be becoming more culturally significant than he could have imagined as an equal analysis of the destructive preconceptions held by both the far right and the far left? Or any ideologically extreme position that becomes blinded by the arrogance of its own beliefs?
When you deliberately demonise the innocent by attributing false actions/opinions to them does it matter where you stand politically?
On the plus side for Richard Herring, as the old saying goes… If your pissing everybody off, maybe you’re doing something right.
