Because some dipshit Dutch comedian apparently had started whinging about how there’s no more edgy comedy because everybody’s getting CaNcElLeD, here’s that clip from James Acaster again:
What makes it even better is he’s doing it — accidentally or deliberately — decked out in the trans colours. He perfectly nails the attitude as well. The only thing missing from it is the self inflicted martyrdom.
That’s what annoys me the most, actually. “You cannot say anything anymore without being cancelled”, says the edgy comedian as he hosts his fifth comedy special on Netflix. People like Ricky Gervais, like Dave Chappelle want to do their lazy, racist, sexist, transphobic material and want to be praised for it. They want to be called brave but suffer no consequences for their ‘bravery’. Fearless speakers of truth, but the least criticism has them sobbing in the newspapers how unfair it all is.
For contrast, let’s look at a few relevant pages of Lenny Bruce’s Wikipedia page:
On October 4, 1961, Bruce was arrested for obscenity[45] at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, where he had used the word “cocksucker”, and said that “to is a preposition, come is a verb”; that the sexual context of ‘come’ was so common that it bore no weight; and that if someone hearing it became upset, he “probably can’t come”.[46] Although the jury acquitted him, other law enforcement agencies began monitoring his appearances, resulting in frequent arrests under obscenity charges.
[…]
On December 5, 1962, Bruce was arrested on stage at the Gate of Horn folk club in Chicago.[48] That year, he played at Peter Cook’s The Establishment club in London, and in April the next year he was barred from entering the United Kingdom by the Home Office as an “undesirable alien”.[49]In April 1964, he appeared twice at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village, with undercover police detectives in the audience. He was arrested along with club owners Howard and Elly Solomon, who were arrested for allowing an obscene performance. On both occasions, Bruce was arrested after leaving the stage.[46]
A three-judge panel presided over his widely publicized six-month trial, prosecuted by Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Richard Kuh, with Ephraim London and Martin Garbus as the defense attorneys. Bruce and Howard Solomon were found guilty of obscenity on November 4, 1964. The conviction was announced despite positive testimony and petitions of support from—among other artists, writers and educators—Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Jules Feiffer, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, William Styron, and James Baldwin, and Manhattan journalist and television personality Dorothy Kilgallen and sociologist Herbert Gans.[50] Bruce was sentenced on December 21, 1964, to four months in a workhouse; he was set free on bail during the appeals process and died before the appeal was decided. Solomon, the owner of the club where Lenny was arrested, later saw Bruce’s conviction overturned.[51]
Now there’s a real edgy comedian.