There’s a scene in THE KOMINSKY METHOD in an acting class where a white student does a black monologue from an August Wilson play. It’s actually a hilarious scene. But one of the other young students stops him in the middle saying she’s not comfortable with this. Quick aside: Is it okay to do that now? I mean, if someone is uncomfortable they can certainly leave the room, but is it okay to actually stop the performer because of your discomfort? Just askin’.
But the point is she found it offensive for a white person to perform a monologue obviously meant for a black person.
In a recent discussion of THE HONEYMOONERS I received a comment from a college professor. He observed that kids today are almost looking to be offended by things. They find something objectionable in almost everything.
Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and a lot of comics won’t play colleges anymore because the audiences’ are too PC.
This is all very surprising to me because when I went to college (back in the Pleistocene Era) my generation was at its most rebellious. We scoffed at anything PC. The comedy we gravitated towards was the most irreverent and outrageous it could be. Richard Pryor, THE CREDIBILITY GAP, THE FIRESIGN THEATRE, the Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks. Imagine college kids today seeing BLAZING SADDLES.
Some legitimate theatres now will post trigger warnings of the things in the play they’re showing that might be offensive. Have we become that sheltered? And the next step of course is that these theatres will not produce plays they think might offend some portion of their audience.
We need to lighten up, people. We can still be good caring human beings and be amused at the absurdity of a young white guy trying to do an August Wilson monologue. We can still enjoy CHEERS even though there’s not a lot of diversity (or FRIENDS or SEINFELD or FRASIER). We can still marvel at Richard Pryor even though the language is raw to say the least.
It’s COMEDY.
It’s supposed to be offensive.
LAUGH.
from By Ken Levine
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