Comedy smiles --and bites back
"You know the government's been after me," he said to President Clinton's musician brother, Roger, when brother Clinton called Stern's show last month. "When you see Bill, would you explain to him that we all believe in free speech and that the country's gotten way out of control. I think your brother has more problems to worry about than me. I'm being persecuted. There's all kinds of TV shows with sex. If you talk about sex, it's not gonna kill anyone."
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Al Westcott, who initiated the complaints leading to the fines, is busy taping more shows to send to the FCC as evidence of more broadcasting violations.
Beyond Stern's graphic on-air sexual remarks, Westcott said his ire was raised by skits like "Guess Who's the Jew," in which callers pick out Jews from lists of famous names supplied by a Kurt Waldheim Jr. character, and such antics as mailing a listener "soiled" underwear that he said was worn by Robin Quivers, Stern's on-air sidekick. To press the point, the underwear had been smeared with chocolate and soaked in salmon oil.
"I'm a product of the '60s and very liberal in my outlook, and I still found those things objectionable," says Westcott, a studio musician who sports long gray hair. "Stern talks about comedic value, but I don't get it. By the same token, I don't get Andrew Dice Clay. I don't get a lot of comedians out there who just use dirty words and vulgarities to get a laugh."
It is the essence of comedy to surprise and provoke. As restrictions on the art form relax, performers take more liberties. And as comedic extremes pack a stronger punch, so, too, does the opposition.
But Stern and Clay (who declined to be interviewed for this article) aren't the only ones underfire. In a time of political correctness, Fox Broadcasting's "In Living Color,""Married...WithChildren" and "Studs," and HBO's "Def Comedy Jam," have been accused of sending the wrong messages to youngsters, fostering prejudice and perpetuating stereotypes.
Conversely, the country's increasing racism, sexism and homophobia is causing mounting opposition to the growing amount of comedy voicing the views of minorities, women and homo-sexuals.
"Humor establishes a license to say what you can't say directly," according to Lawrence E. Mintz, an American Studies professor at the University of Maryland and the author of "Humor in America.""Our culture's earliest humor ridiculed women and by the early 19th century, you certainly could find racist humor. Homophobic humor came about later, in the 20th century. You could argue that if there is more of this type of humor, it's because of a compensation for the increased suppression of racism, sexism and homophobia in non-humorous discourse," Mintz says. "Now,you're starting to not really get away with it--even in humor."
Added Danny Robinson, who heads the comedy division at the Agency for the Performing Arts: "If you try to suppress comedy, you're not only doing a disservice to the art form, but it will only push harder against the suppression."
And so goes the cycle. Terry Rakolta, who founded Americans for Responsible Broadcasting (formerly Americans for Responsible Television), a four-year-old media watchdog agency in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., has publicly challenged Fox Broadcasting for what she says is a cavalier take on sex and violence.
Her examples include an "In Living Color" skit featuring an unruly sports fan who shoots two policemen to avoid eviction from a game, and a "Married...With Children" episode in which teen-age boys bound, gagged and stripped a girl for refusing to date their friend.
"The only thing she did was say 'no' and for that she gets stripped and gagged," says Rakolta. "It gives out the wrong message as to what's acceptable behavior. It's not that there isn't room for this kind of comedy, but when it's being broadcast to a susceptible audience, like children, I believe it begins a desensitizing process."
But David Grant, Fox Broadcasting's executive VP, gives a very different account. While he missed the "Married" episode, he says the "Living Color" sketch involved an interview between reporter and coach, both oblivious to a crazed fan unable to grab the camera's attention even after shooting a guard. "It was a satire on the typical football interview and had nothing to do with violence," he says. "I never dreamt that it would be read any other way.
"Compared to movies and novels, television is surprisingly moralistic in that the people you root for eventually win," Grant adds. "Too much sex and violence on TV can desensitize you, but outrageous parody and satire is not the same animal. The more outrageous your comedy is, the less likely you are to read it as reality, or become desensitized by it. But, the Terry Rakoltas of the world see what they want to see."
Steve Harvey, who handles co-hosting with Mark Curry of "Showtime At the Apollo," believes Rakolta has reversed the problem. Between comedy stints, Harvey works with inner-city children, whom he feels enable him to gauge the impact of such television.
"Comedy has taken a harder edge because it's reflecting society, which has taken on a harder edge," he says. "There are more drugs, violence, sex, political scan-dals, AIDS and deceit, so when you sit down to write jokes, you can only reflect the world we live in.
"I've actually seen this type of comedy help people. I hear kids all the time say, 'Did you hear what 'Living Color' did? I wasn't aware that was going on in real life.' And they bring it up in class."
Others believe that dissenters may more closely scrutinize television comedies than other programming formats. "I get so tired of critics saying 'Studs' is the vanguard of the decline of civilization," says host Mark DeCarlo.
"Other shows are far more sexy and scandalous. Take a look at 'Geraldo.' And what are the soaps but people cheating on and sleeping with each other? There's definitely a double standard when it comes to comedy," he says.
Another double standard may exist with alternative comedy that presents viewpoints differing from those of mainstream America. Such comedy braves both external and internal attacks, because it not only threatens existing social structure and mores, but often carries the added burden of having to educate, as well as entertain.
"Def Comedy Jam" has not only weathered criticism from the press and general comedy industry for its gratuitous use of explicit language, but also from members of the black comedy community as perpetuating negative ethnic stereotypes.
"I don't have a problem with the profanity," says the Dallas-based Harvey, who has appeared twice on the show. "There's a lot of anger and disappointment penned in black comedy.
"But that the word 'nigger' as an accepted term is not OK. New Jack hip-hop comics use that term too much. But they're too young to remember the death of Martin Luther King first-hand or sitting at separate lunch counters. Instead of 'nigger,' just use the word 'brother.' It doesn't lose the funniness of the joke."
Los Angeles comic Jedda Jones declined an invitation to appear on the program because she felt its presentation offers a limited view of African-American society. "I salute the show for showcasing talented black comics who otherwise might not be seen," she says.
"But that show to me represents one style of black comedy to the exclusion of all others. In so doing, it defines black comedy for the masses and that's what I object to. It perpetuates images of the angry, penis-holding, hip-talking homeboy preoccupied with sex. I want people to know that as a culture, we have more on our minds."
Bridget Potter, HBO's senior VP of original programming, countered: "We don't find these comics in any way stereotypical of anything--they're of different ages, sexes and come from different parts of the country. They just all happen to be black. If we did a show of all-white performers, would we be perpetuating a white stereotype?"
Fueling that argument is the fine line between using stereotypes to illuminate a culture or lifestyle versus pigeonholing one.
The Latino comedy trio Culture Clash, which has chastised TV for its dearth of positive Latino portrayals, caught flack last summer for using stereotypes in a skit that portrayed a Latino family that remained indoors after the Los Angeles riots, rather than deal with their black and Korean neighbors.
"In that case, we used stereotypes to address racism within our own community ," says Culture Clash member Richard Montoya. "It was a real shocker for more conservative Latino and Anglo audience members. It's not just looking at the white man as perpetrator, but at a lot of our own racism.
"So when I see Damon Wayans on Arsenio Hall making jokes like 'What were the Mexicans doing out there rioting?' to lots of audience response, I find it hurtful and wrong," he says. "You don't get into who's been brutalized more, but the system that is oppressing. So we're still trying to educate hip comedians." (Wayans could not be reached for comment.)
The same holds true for homosexual stereotypes. "I don't want to see portrayals of gay men swishing around with limp wrists," says Boston comic Lea DeLaria, who is openly lesbian in her act. "How would Eddie Murphy like it if I painted my face black and shuffled across the stage and ate a watermelon?
"I'm out there to educate and maybe, for some, be a role model," she added. "That's why it's important to me that straight people come to my show. I remember after one performance, two women told me, 'We came here to make fun of you, but we're leaving now with a totally different viewpoint."'
But humor incites as easily as it soothes. So mass-media stereotyping can potentially aggravate opposing views.
Scott Silverman, a gay SanFrancisco comic, has "felt watched" walking to his car after some gigs, while the New York-based Phil Nee speaks of heightened animosity toward Asians.
"When I started doing stand-up in the early '80s, being Asian was a plus," says Nee. "But the rising tension between the Korean and black communities and the country's anti-Japanese sentiment has made it more of a stigma."
So then, if an excluded group's expressed desire is mainstream acceptance, why do some acts purposely segregate themselves and risk alienating potential supporters? Such was the case with talk show host Jenny Jones, whose 1989-91 comedy tour, "Girls Night Out," banned men from the audience.
"She wanted to do her show at my club, but I refused, because it meant excluding other people from it," says Jamie Masada, who owns the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. "Comedy is supposed to bring people together, not separate them."
But Mo Gaffney, who hosts "Women Aloud," a women's issues comedy talk show on Comedy Central, sees another side. "I don't think being exclusive fosters anything and I wouldn't want to do it on my show," she says.
"But when you have been oppressed or excluded from society, I can understand wanting something of your own. It reinforces solidarity and helps the power structure understand what these groups have gone through. This is how it feels, O Powerful Straight White Male."
Ultimately, today's humor extremes may redefine a new mainstream. "When you have sharp differences that could lead to conflict, humor may create a less threatening arena in which to air them, making them seem less antagonistic," says Mintz. "Then people can begin to work back toward something moderate. If those differences were to worsen, we'd probably get to a point of not dealing with it in humorous terms at all and end in civil war. But I don't see that happening.
"I already see a trend emphasizing unity. If we continue that way, then humor will become less pointed and more bland, and even the sitcoms will become more generally accessible. And that will continue until one small group feels left out and it starts all over again."
