Rude Pundit Appreciation Thread

[deutsey]

150. I agree

The mid-'70s, when I was growing up, was a much different time than today.

It was far from a perfect world, but I think the race, gender, and even class divisions of that time were much weaker than they are today. They still existed, of course, but the alternative to living according to those divisions was more pervasive and viable. I lived on the East Coast and in California during this time and it was true in both areas.

I think it was because of the work of Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and others (along with the movements of that era, of course) that for a brief time many of the fill-in-the-blank words lost a lot of their power.

People condemn "Blazing Saddles" today for its alleged racist/sexist humor, but when it came out I think it was so popular because it reflected a much more liberated sensibility prevailing in our culture that gleefully mocked racism and sexism without dancing around them using PC euphemisms.

I remember I brought a copy of the Saturday Night Live album I had for an assignment in my freshman English class in high school. As a way to demonstrate satire (which was our assignment), I played the skit between Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor called "Word Association," which had Chevy interviewing Pryor for a job and using word association as part of the interview. It rapidly devolves into racist name-calling between the two and culminates with Chase saying "Nigger" and Pryor saying "Dead honky."

Not only did that air on national television (in which the live audience erupted in a tidal wave of laughter at the "Dead honky" part), but when I played the skit in our racially mixed class (about 50-50 black/white), everyone in the class laughed at it. I got an A.

Today, I probably would've been suspended.