Posted by
T. C. Owen on Saturday, July 19, 2008 11:30:26 PM
L. Brent Bozell, III, wrote an appreciation of George Carlin the other day and came to the conclusion that, as the years passed, Mr. Carlin became less and less funny ("Remembering George Carlin"). As a fan of Mr. Carlin, I disagree. However, before I get into the reason I disagree, an exegesis of humor and humorists might be in order.
Mr. Carlin was often quoted as saying that his job was to find where to draw the line between good and bad taste and then deliberately cross it. Since one of the functions of good, if not great, humor is social commentary, the idea that Mr. Carlin may have lost his "funny bone" over the years seems quaint at best. One of the cardinal rules of humor/comedy is to discover and reveal the inconsistencies and absurdities in the lives of the characters under the microscope, with perhaps the goal of amelioration. Moliere did the same thing as Mr. Carlin in The Misanthrope by exposing the inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and absurdities of his characters, as did the Greeks in their comedies. Much more recently, the late Richard Jeni, Blake Clarke, Rita Rudner, and others, including the greats, such as Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl, looked at the world from a jaundiced point of view in order to show ourselves, and themselves, in a true light.
Comedy is as much a search for truth as it is a search for the silliness of modern life, regardless of the area, and era, in which that search takes place. In 1992, in "Jammin' in New York," Mr. Carlin, at the pinnacle of his perceptive and creative powers, noted the full scale absurdity of war, modern day language usage, our overly sympathetic responses to certain diseases, homelessness, and environmentalists--all in just over one hour. On each of these subjects, he showed us truths that we did not ask for and reported those truths in a format which made us laugh at the objects of his scorn, and ourselves, while making us learn something as well. What we learned may not have been what we expected or desired to learn about the human condition, and we may not have agreed with him on all points, but learning isn't about what we like or want to learn: it's about truth. I didn't always agree with everything he said, but what he did, through the magic, his magic, of comedy, was to make us think, to make us hear, and perhaps make us understand what our lives consist of, and maybe, just maybe, to think how to achieve better lives for ourselves and those who come after us.
The old cliche that "life is hard; comedy is harder" is better understood when judging the life's work of a master comic. Politically/socially oriented comedy is like a slap in the face: it stings for a moment and then leads to realization. The audience may laugh; they may not. But, if, for just a brief time, through laughter, we can learn who we are and how we have failed in living the lives we have been gifted with, the "sprayed comic acid" is worth it. Mr. Carlin may have been acidic, but a bitter pill, at times, is more beneficial than a sweet one. Horatian satire/humor may be just the ticket for a small, open audience, but Juvenalian satire/humor makes a mass audience sit up and take notice of what's being said.
All of my cliches aside, George Carlin, in the manner in which he conducted his business as a poet-philosopher, accomplished more for the benefit of the people in his lifetime than all the philosophers, statesmen, politicians, and pundits could ever hope to accomplish if they had all the time in the world. Mr. Bozell may have found him unfunny, but those of us who listened with an open mind and an open heart found him funny and, more important, inspiring. For that, we owe him more than we can ever repay--he showed us the way to think about ourselves and made us look at ourselves and our world with laughter, and perhaps a little bit of hope.
George Carlin. Rest in peace, and thank you.
Work Cited
Bozell, L. Brent, III. "Remembering George Carlin." Human Events Online.