Dennis Miller and what National Lampoon hath wrought...

This morning, friend Dennis Perrin forwarded me this link about Dennis Miller making fun of the torture victims at Abu Ghraib.



I asked Mr. Perrin--who is the author of an excellent biography of Michael O'Donoghue--if he thought that the work of O'Donoghue and others at the National Lampoon in the early 70s hadn't opened a Pandora's Box. Generally, Lampoon is considered a wholly good influence on American entertainment, giving comedy an injection of honesty, as well as plenty of new grist for its mill. But Dennis Miller making jokes about torture..."If nothing is sacred," I wrote DP, "then everything is equivalent--which Reality tells us isn't true. Do you think we'd be better off with this type of humor still underground, rather than mainstream? Surely there were a lot of water-cooler slurs about the torture photos, but when it's being disseminated by the mainstream media, doesn't it simply qualify as idiotic and coarsening? I'm often struck by how people always perceive the license of the early National Lampoon, but almost never the humanistic stance it usually took (before O'Rourke flattened it out)."



Here was Dennis' response, which he has very kindly allowed me to share:

"Well, this type of humor was in the air before the Lampoon appeared -- I'm thinking of Lenny Bruce primarily -- but it was the Lampoon that took it in newer and bolder directions. Of course, O'Donoghue's influence here cannot be understated -- he was the cutting edge of the mag and of his generation. He set the tone. And while there was more than a hint of sadism in O'Donoghue's work, it always seemed connected to a real sense of outrage, of despair. "The Vietnamese Baby Book" and "Kill The Children Federation" come to mind. Also, "Children's Letters To The Gestapo." On the surface, these pieces appear as a string of dead baby jokes (and I'm sure many giddy teens and young adults saw them just that way), but it's obvious that O'Donoghue was aiming for larger targets, namely the justifications for war and mass murder offered by states and those who support them. He reflected this in the eyes of the most vulnerable -- children. As we see in Iraq (and in those grisly shots from "Fahrenheit 9/11"), nothing has changed. In fact, in some ways, it's gotten worse.



Dennis Miller has never been on O'Donoghue's level. [That's an understatement!--MG] Those bits he's done about tortured Iraqis are pure sadism, nothing more. And it's based in ignorance and blind hatred. When Miller nodded at that gruesome photo, he said, "Screw him. Bad guy." Now how the fuck would he know? According to the Red Cross, some 70-90% of those held at Abu Ghraib were not charged with any serious crime, or any crime at all. Most were swept up in house invasions by US troops. Most were later released. So unless Miller has some inside info about that hooded prisoner, all he's saying is "Kill The Sand Nigger!" That's not satire. It's a rank expression of Miller's hatred.



Did the Lampoon set the stage for Miller's "bit"? I'd have to say yes. But as you pointed out to me, there's a difference between the O'Donoghue/Kenney Lampoon, and the P.J. O'Rourke Lampoon. The former may have left blood on the floor, but it was the blood of those with power who wished to kill or control us. The latter merely dabbled in what O'Rourke called at the time "Screw You, Humor." We're better than you and we'll destroy you. And who's "you"? Blacks, gays, women, Arabs (read some of O'Rourke's stuff around the time of the Iranian hostage crisis), poor whites -- in fact, pretty much anyone who O'Rourke thought beneath him and his pals, John Hughes and Denis Boyles (the "Pants Down Republicans"). As Sean Kelly put it, O'Rourke was hammering society's victims, not those at the top. And this, I'm afraid, is the version of the Lampoon that has exerted the most influence. Sure, there's The Onion and "The Daily Show," but these are exceptions. Screw You Humor is easier to do, more satisfying and self-congratulatory. And while O'Rourke is not solely to blame, he was the first to truly express this form of humor on a glossy, corporate stage. Miller's torture routines would be at home in O'Rourke's Lampoon."



Eloquently put, DP. And I would also add that even The Daily Show--like the rest of the mainstream media--shies away from picking good guys and bad guys in the name of "objectivity." Being an equal-opportunity satirist is considered to be the worthiest goal. But there ARE good guys and bad guys in the world, and I would argue that the whole point of satire is to identify who's who.



Another thing that Dennis only touched on is this: standup is one thing, but when access to your audience is controlled by corporations, you're going to have more status quo-enforcing "Screw You Humor" (which I think might've been coined by Garry Trudeau). Change is bad for the stock market. So while O'Rourke was just the first creep that combined supposed "outrageousness" with a desire to stick his nose up the ass of the country club set, he's been far from the only one. You could make an argument that he, and NOT O'Donoghue or Kenney, blazed the trail American humor has followed. More's the pity. (Recently, I've been told that PJO is a very nice man, so I feel obliged to add: nothing personal, P.J., but I do wish you'd stopped with Modern Manners. Afflicting the already uncomfortable may be good career-wise, but it's beneath a writer of your ability.)