NOTHINGS SHOCKING ANYMORE!

by meanhippie

Posted to Utterances on 2002-11-13 12:02:00

I have been doing a lot of reading regarding Lenny Bruce and censorship in America from the 40’s through the 60’s. Bruce was arrested over 15 times in 2 years, mainly for saying words like “cocksucker” and “motherfucker” and once for making cracks about the Pope – nothing all that shocking by today’s standards.

Today comedians regularly use “Motherfucker” as verbal exclamation points. Lyrics on the radio and MTV are extremely sexual in nature and women in the videos wear next to nothing. Books are chock full of profanity and sex and I can order porno movies to my TV set by picking up the phone. Marilyn Manson cruxifies himself on stage and Howard Stern spanks lesbian strippers on the radio with deli meat. Artists stick Jesus in a jar of urine and on NYPD Blue they love to show Sipowitz’s naked fat ass every other episode.

Middle american housewives in the 1950’s would think they had died and gone to hell if they were made to watch an episode of south park.

My question is this: whats shocking now? where do we go from here? is there a difference between pushing the envelope in the 1950’s and doing it today? And is something shocking necessarily good or artistic?

And finally, what is shocking today?

Of course you will find all sorts of groups in america protesting all sorts of stuff but for the most part, nothing is shocking anymore. everythings passe. Ginsberg would have been arrested for standing on the corner and reading HOWL. Now there is a guy who regurly stands on the corner outside my window and screams “Fuck this city!” at the top of his lungs for at least 2 hours a day and no one does a thing. We all just walk around him. I mean, thats good and all that people have the freedom to express themselves, but if no one cares if you stand on corner and scream “fuck” then whats the use of standing on the corner and screaming “fuck?”

Historically, I think, a lot of great art and great literature has been produced in oppressive societies. Sometimes oppression, it seems, is the fuel that artistic passions feed upon. America, for all its screwiness and such is, at least for now, a very free society in regards to freedom of experession. So where do we go from here?

Whats shocking now?