Who's to Say What's Obscene?
Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today
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- $31.99
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- $31.99
Publisher Description
Fans of The Daily Show will appreciate this timely collection of satirical essays by counterculture icon Paul Krassner.
With irreverence and an often X-rated wit, Krassner writes with a unique perspective on comedy and obscenity in politics and culture, from "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banners to scenes cut out of movies including Borat and Milk.
In his essay "Don Imus Meets Michael Richards," Krassner examines racism in comdey, from Lenny Bruce to Dave Chapelle, on The Sarah Silverman Snow and Curb Your Enthusiasm and in controversial comic strips like The Bookdocks. In his piece "The Great Muhammad Cartoon Controversy," he looks at free speech and self-censorship in the face of threats—real and perceived—from religious fundamentalists. Throughout, Krassner riffs about busted public figures, counterculture, free speech, late-night talk shows, censorship, sex and the current state of satire.
"These are times of repression," says Krassner, "and the more repression there is, the more there is for irreverence toward those in authority."
Paul Krassner is an author, journalist, stand-up comedian and founder of the freethought magazine the Realist, which he published from 1958 to 2001. He was a co-founder of the Yippies and a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters. He received an Upton Sinclair Award for dedication to freedom of expression. Krassner was a close friend of Lenny Bruce and the editor of Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. A prolific writer, his articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, Playboy and many other venues. He has been a guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and writes regularly for High Times, Adult Video News and Huffington Post.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Krassner (Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut), publisher of the Realist magazine, ruminates on American social and political hypocrisy in these essays that drift between current events and the heyday of the 1960s counterculture when the author dropped acid with the Merry Pranksters and palled around with Abbie Hoffman. Krassner weighs in on the last election cycle, the decriminalization of marijuana, and racism, with a stated (and largely achieved) goal of illuminating the gulf between what society says and what it does. The essays focus mostly on other humorists, and while he points out that today "sarcasm passes for irony," he's far from a curmudgeon and praises such current comics as Sacha Baron Cohen and Sarah Silverman. Krassner says, "It doesn't have to get a belly laugh, it just has to be valid criticism, which is the classic definition of satire," and while this book lingers too long on nostalgic remembrances and tackles serious issues too directly to get constant laughs, it makes a convincing case for the importance and political necessity of irreverence.
