When you discover that our civilization has fallen so far that a magazine called Shecky is the articulate voice of logic, sanity and reason — putting many self-appointed “great thinkers” and elite, heavily-feted cultural watchdogs/village idiots like Bernie Farber and Co. to shame — you may either be depressed or elated.
If you picked “depressed”, that’s because your entire worldview is flawed, and likely has been for some time.
Perhaps this development will help correct that. Rather painfully, I expect, like braces on your teeth.
You’ll live.
Brian McKim & Traci Skene (please read the whole thing) take other comics to task for refusing to defend Guy Earle — that is, for being court jesters who are willingly and voluntarily siding with the court:
And in his offstage comments, Rhymer sought to make a distinction– that is, he sought to distinguish himself from Earle by inferring that Earle was not a real comedian and that therefore his speech was not worthy of protection.
(And for good measure, he sided with the BCHRC and classified Earle’s speech as “hate speech,” a worthless concept if there ever was one.)
Furthermore, the larger trouble with all this is that the BCHRC, like we said, made no such distinction. They went after Earle without regard for the artistic merit of his act. And we have no reason to believe that future decisions by the BCHRC (and similar bodies) to prosecute or not prosecute will be based on any kind of unquantifiable measurement of the aesthetic worth of a comedian’s act. And therein lies the danger of such a body as the BCHRC.
And therein lies the danger (and utter pointlessness) of seeking to disassociate yourself from a fellow comedian in the hopes that future such prosecutions might distinguish you from what you deem to be a “hack.”
If taken to a logical (and not so far-fetched) conclusion, such prosecution might just shut the door behind Fluke and Demers and Rhymer, effectively shutting down any new supply of talent and fresh comedians to a trickle.
Or perhaps that’s what Fluke and the others would prefer.
Earle’s opinion of us is irrelevant. As is our opinion of Earle. We are not the enemy. Guy Earle is not the enemy. The BCHRC is the enemy. The people who pore over transcripts don’t help any– the BCHRC is counting on that kind of pointless activity because the deeper folks go into the details, the less they pay attention to the “Big Picture” issues. The people who are more concerned about not being thought of as homophobic than they are about preserving artistic freedom do the bidding of the BCHRC.
