life

For starters, both words have “demon” in them. Money and censorship go hand in hand, like— um. Ok, most censors don’t want any handholding going on. What would the children say? Or Sister Prudish? And when you get corporations involved, that’s when late show monologues lose their teeth. God forbid a Shamwow sits on the shelves due to someone’s potty mouth. 

While I had only read about the demonetization reamer, I’ve experienced it recently. I was beyond ecstatic when Tall Tale TV accepted my short story to narrate on their channel. To be able to include it on his channel, voice actor Christopher  Herron was willing to throw monetization out the window completely, just to be able to include it, since swears trigger Youtube’s big brother algorithm. The short story in question involves military personnel. Having worked with Navy veterans when I was working at an incinerator, I included their colorful vernacular to keep it real. So, Chris had to choose between making something he enjoyed or bending the knee to get paid for his hard work. Do all creators listen to their soul instead of their wallet? Doubtful. I got lucky. 

When it comes to censorship, the powers that be like to pick on comedians first. It’s hard to keep a population down when they keep laughing off your oppression. Just ask Seth Meyers or Jimmy Kimmel. George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Works” led Saint George to the Supreme Court. Even fellow artists like to get in the censorship action, figuring if they have to work clean, then everyone does. A pre-rape trial Bill Cosby famously rebuked Eddie Murphey for being blue on stage.

“Bill thought that when I go on stage, I just walk out and go:

‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’” (waves and grins)

“‘Good night!’”

-Eddie Murphey

It’s like the late great Gilbert Godfrey said, “if you like a joke, laugh; if you don’t like it, don’t laugh.”

Here is Gilbert performing the greatest literary critique in history. 

Silence corrects a comedian’s behavior a lot faster than censorship. And if people are laughing, then maybe the joke has some truth to it, even if it stings.

Television is also notorious for censorship. Poor Lucille Ball couldn’t even say she was pregnant on the show bearing her name. So, you could love Lucy until you’ve knocked her up. Fine art was no better, giving Robert Maplethorp a hard time for shoving a bull whip up his cornhole and snapping a picture. Sure, it was shocking at the time, but today that’s just Saturday night for some folks. 

And don’t even get me started on music. Proving that the left is just as bad as the right, Tipper Gore headed the PMRC warning label sticker initiative that inspired the Danzig song “Mother.” The Ed Sullivan show wouldn’t shoot Elvis from the waist down. Pop music was so heavily censored in Russia that music lovers risked arrest from duplicating rock records using old x-rays, called bone records among collectors. It’s not all about words either. Link Wray’s instrumental classic “Rumble” was censored, the excuse being that all the greasers would rumble when it was played.

“Taking offense is a great way to avoid taking responsibility.”

— Ricky Gervais

Of course writers often find themselves at the forefront of the war against censorship, ever since the first match touched the first banned book. Whenever someone burns a book, Satan’s spiked tale wags. Dorothy Parker had a hard time getting “Big Blonde” published, because she portrayed a female alcoholic. That’s not very lady-like! Her screenwriting career ended when the bastards at the McCarthy trial blacklisted her for not putting up with their crap.

Someone has to be offensive because if you don’t use it you lose it. Even if you don’t appreciate the art behind it, at least they are pushing boundaries so they don’t close. I know that if I continue to be a contrarian, I’ll keep getting the same results. Maybe I should just be content with making the censor’s lives a little bit more difficult, like sand in an oyster, forming a pearl. Because, quite frankly Scarlett, I don’t give a darn. 

Keep writing,

Steve