15 Nov Fight for Your Right to Laugh
It’s been a long couple of weeks, and most of it has involved discussions of the election results, their causes, and their ramifications. My American Greatness column tomorrow addresses yet another aspect of the Democrats’ collective blindness, the long-term effects that blindness has had on the nation and its cities, and its relevance to the election. In brief, “Make America Great Again” means something much different to average voters than it does to political and media elites.
Given the relentless seriousness of this subject matter, I thought I’d use this space today to reinforce a recurring theme in my work (and in Mark’s and my work before that): the importance of laughter.
Many of you – all except the long-timers, we’d guess – are likely unaware that the publications of The Political Forum used to be funny.
So…they weren’t always funny, but they were funnier than they are now.
A big part of the reason that they aren’t especially funny any longer is that Melcher no longer writes any of our material. Again, as the long-timers know, Mark is a funny guy. (Just ask him!) “Laughing” he’s always said, “is like taking a little vacation.” By contrast, I am, at best, “occasionally witty.” But Mark…Mark is funny.
A second reason that we aren’t especially funny is that politics has changed. Once upon a time, we could write a serious story, making a serious point about a serious subject but could do so with levity. Today, levity no longer exists. It’s no longer tolerated. The world, you see, is a super serious place these days, and jokes are simply not appreciated. How can one joke when there are literal Nazis literally everywhere?
A big part of the problem is that Donald Trump broke a lot of people. Those who saw/see Trump as a threat to the Republic undoubtedly see it as perfectly sensible and reasonable to be super-serious about politics. We get that. At the same time, it’s also understandable why those who dislike hyperbole and resent the mass demonization of 60-plus million people would find it necessary to be super-serious in response. It’s a vicious circle of super-seriousness.
This is not, however, exclusively the result of Donald Trump’s political presence. American politics was trending toward super-seriousness for a long time before the guy even considered running for president.
I could probably write an entire book on the causes and implications of this change in American politics. And it’s possible, I suppose, that one or two of you might read it. But I don’t want to do that, and nor do you really want me to. Instead, I’ll do two other things.
First, I’ll note that American politics would be a lot more tolerable if it wasn’t so serious. Fewer liberal white women (and a handful of others) would be making fools of themselves, screaming into their phones and posting it online, if we, as a people, didn’t take politics so seriously. People crave levity in their lives and in their politics. Donald Trump won, in part, because he’s funny. People like to laugh and be entertained.
Likewise, it is no coincidence that one of the fastest-growing accounts on X/Twitter in the wake of the election is Justine Bateman’s. As you may know, Justine is the sister of the former child actor Jason Bateman, who has revived his career quite remarkably over the last several years. Justine is also a former child actor (as well as a current actor and a movie director) in her own right. She played the hilariously dimwitted Mallory on the 1980s sitcom “Family Ties.”
Bateman has spent the last few days offering filmmaking “critiques” of the liberal-white-women-screaming-at-their-phones videos, and her comments are generally quite astute and quite funny. She is not your typical Hollywood liberal, and she is having a very good time at the expense of the super-serious screamers. Good for her, and good for us.
The second thing I want to do is to celebrate the anniversary of one of the funniest events in the last half-century. Today, November 15, is the 38th anniversary of the release of “Licensed to Ill,” the debut album of the iconic rap/hip-hop group The Beastie Boys.
Now, I look every day at the “estimated demographics” that MailChimp puts together for the analytics reports on my notes. I know, in other words, that roughly 70% of my audience is presumed to be over 60 years old or older. So, I also know, in turn, that the hilariousness of the Beastie Boys might escape a significant percentage of you. But you’ll just have to trust me on this. If it doesn’t tickle you that three Jewish kids from Brooklyn could, on a whim, turn their punk band into a rap act and, as a result, define an entire genre of “urban” music, then perhaps you’ll appreciate that their first hit “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” was more than just a song to them. It was a defining anthem:
The Beastie Boys made a whole career out of having fun. Everything they set out to do not only had to be successful, it also had to have a punchline. As Ad-Rock described it, “The big goal was to make people laugh.”…
“(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” was a satirical song that got out of hand. Originally it was written as a joke song by Yauch’s side band Brooklyn, making fun of frat bro culture. It was a massive hit when the Beastie Boys took it on, getting a huge amount of traction on MTV with their homemade video – and ironically gained them a big fanbase of party bros (the exact audience they were making fun of). As they relentlessly toured, off the back of their debut album Licensed To Ill, the band also started to act like frat boys, drinking relentlessly and bringing out a “dick in a box”, which, well, you get the picture. After leaving Rubin and Simmonds (who wouldn’t allow them royalties from the album), they went to Capitol Records….
After the success of “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” they were asked for their future stage requests. Jokingly, they asked for a go-go dancer in a cage and it was delivered….
Whether ringing the members of the band at 4.30am to make them listen to pigeon recordings, jumping out of helicopters with a snowboard or trekking in Tibet, [Adam] Yauch had a lust for life. He also campaigned heavily for the freedom of Tibet, putting on the Tibetan Freedom Concert in San Francisco in 1996, which alongside the Beastie Boys had Bjork, A Tribe Called Quest, Red Hot Chili Peppers and more. When asked what drew him to the Dalai Lama, Yauch replied that, among other reasons, he was a funny dude.
The Beastie Boys were crude and vile and offensive. But they were crude and vile and offensive intentionally. They wanted to poke their fingers in everyone’s eyes and they did so, but affectionately, entertainingly.
Adam Yauch died twelve years ago from cancer that started in a salivary gland. Even so, the Beastie Boys remain the biggest-selling rap band of all time. Rap fans, it turns out, are just like the rest of the country. They need to laugh.
