The Aristocrats & A Proposal

I first learned of The Aristocrats [movie] through Radley Balko's post here. He has a link to the production notes within that same post. After skimming through the notes, I came across the Q&A section with Penn Jillette. Let me just say it's a delight to read his answers. He is a libertarian through and through, and he seems to always manage to find ways of infusing his passion for freedom into his work. Whether it's making the hit series Bullshit on Showtime, or now this, I believe he's helped increase the potential for libertarian ideas to come into fruition. Please read on after the quotes below, as I have some ideas to throw around. Without further ado, I give you some highlights...

Q: The film deals with decency and censorship. In fact, in ‘The Aristocrats’ the joke is so called because they were the class originally leading the call to censor public works and speech in the name of decency. Do you invite discussions of the film that include commentary about the current activities of the FCC? Were you trying to make such commentary in making the film?

PENN: Everyone in this movie is in love with language and comedy. It’s not a political statement, it’s a celebration. Everything in this movie would bother the FCC, people who don’t love language and people having fun will hate this movie. That’s fine. We don’t want them to come. Michael Moore seems to want everyone to see his movies, he seems to think they’re important. This movie is a celebration of life, humanity, language and freedom. And freedom includes the freedom to not watch other people having fun if you’re not. I don’t want anyone to see this movie who doesn’t enjoy being offended. I don’t want to surprise anyone. This movie is too fun to be forced on people. People will bitch about this movie and hate it, but I hope they enjoy that too. I have lots of fun complaining about things I don’t like. It’s part of our service. The idea of freedom of speech is just great. It was created to protect freedom of speech for the serious discussion of ideas, but a perquisite of that, is people can talk really dirty and say offensive stuff if it makes them laugh. This movie is more about the pursuit of happiness than it is about freedom of speech. It’s mostly people laughing and there’s nothing more beautiful in the world no matter how ugly what they’re laughing at is. And there will never be a stronger political statement than this movie. The pursuit of happiness is freedom; it’s the only reason to live.

Q: In the section of the film that deals with Gilbert Gottfried’s telling of the joke at the Friar’s Roast of Hugh Heffner just 3 weeks after September 11, several people comment on the fact that his telling of the joke and the audience’s reaction felt cathartic. Do you think that extreme vulgarity and crude humor can have redeeming social value? Under what circumstances, if so?

PENN: Yes, always. It reminds us we’re human and that we’re alive. As I said, I don’t care very much what people are laughing at, I love to see them laugh. Yup, after the real horror on September 11th, it’s more important than ever to remember that shock that doesn’t matter is fun. If we’re not going to laugh our asses off, then who cares if we get them blown off?

PAUL: There is a sufficient argument for its redeeming social value when anyone can find this joke shocking, as tens of thousands of human beings are being killed around the world for any excuse anyone can concoct to make that fact ok. At its very least, the ridiculous ongoing rhetoric about ‘bad’ words is a f**kin’ reality check. “Vulgar” and “crude” are pretty subjective words. I’m sure my idea of them is very different from yours, whoever you are reading this. Which is as it should be. When we stub our toes, we curse before we can stop ourselves. There’s a reason for that. Let’s not confuse social conventions and politeness with any kind of truth. Those are simply a construct to help us all get along. I think there’s an organic need to take a sh*t in the punchbowl once in a while.

With Cato's recent event talking about Libertarianism in Contemporary Pop Culture, The Aristocrats, and another movie I'll talk about in my next blog entry...my hopes for significant change in our political climate have only increased.

All of this as of late has inspired me to do some political brainstorming. While the Advocates for Self Government have merely identified "libertarian celebrities", I'm thinking we should be doing much more than just listing friends of freedom. We need to reach out to those that are actively a part of our popular culture and those that can reach mass audiences. I’m not shooting for the stars just yet obviously, but what about just starting with comedians for instance.

I think we’re definitely seeing more “mainstream” comedians now than ever. Despite this though, I believe it’s the one form of entertainment that’s more or less stayed true to its underlying objective. Make people laugh, and don’t take life too seriously. That seems pretty libertarian to me. That’s one of the reasons why we hate current politics so much isn’t it? If all we were to do as a society is to believe all the negative depressing crap mainstream media throws at us, we’d constantly stay indoors. If all we were to do as a society is to accept, hook-line-and-sinker, everything that comes out of the mouths of our politicians, we would all be at their subjective mercy.

However true that some of that mentality still pervades a good portion of society, there's an untapped market we've just begun to embrace. Let’s stem the tide of this seemingly endless growth of government. Let’s invoke a healthy dose of reason and bluntness into the mix. Let’s bring out those people that naturally have faith in freedom because they see it work everyday, and let’s make the Libertarian Party the party they flock to.

Just so that you know I’m not talking out of my ass, I will be contacting Doug Stanhope via email soon to throw some ideas his way. Whether he’ll respond or not is another question, but at least I will know that I tried something. Just imagine, a Freedom Fest including those that we also actually see on TV (Stanhope, Joe Rogan, Penn Jillette, etc., etc.)

Note - I’m not naïve to think that all comedians are libertarians. Of course comedians can fill all parts of the political spectrum. You have to start somewhere though right? Let me know in the comments section if what I envision is worth pursuing, or if I’m in over my friggin’ head.