Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A mother and her son walk into a toy store. The boy, 11, learns a new word–“horny”– from a doll. So the mother, get this, goes national with her outrage.
(Rim shot.)
What about this? How many kids can legally see a new animated film about a group of 8-year-olds? Zero!
(Spit take.)
Seriously, folks, with toy dolls chirping caddy phrases and cartoon characters spewing blue streaks several miles wide, comedy seems on the cusp of joining Marilyn Manson, Internet porn, gangsta rap, black trench coats and violent video games as a touchstone for parents and politicians eager to protect–or to appear to be protecting–youthful innocence.
Which got me thinking: Is comedy dangerous? Are newspaper comics simply gateway giggles? Will Bazooka Joe be the Joe Camel of the new century? And has the comedy that appeals to kids really become too crass?
Tamatha Brannon, who lives near Atlanta, made headlines late last month being shocked and upset at having to explain to her son, Marvin, what “horny” meant. He apparently learned the word from a talking Austin Powers doll.
“I’m appalled. I’m sick,” the appalled and sick mother, who got the toys pulled from shelves, was quoted as saying. “No parent should have to go through what I’ve just gone through.”
Wait until young Marvin gets a peek at “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.”
The R-rated movie, based on the popular Comedy Central series, giddily anticipates the all-but-inevitable reaction some parents will have when their kids (oh, they’ll find a way to see it) begin repeating the movie’s many memorable, though completely unprintable, uber crude catch phrases and scathingly scatological songs.
But are Dr. Evil and Eric Cartman a real threat to the fragile moral fiber of our nation’s young?
First off, I don’t have any children, so I’m coming at this solely as a former young person–more important, I was a member of the demographic most of this entertainment is aimed at: adolescent boys.
It was in the late-1970s, when I was about 9 years old, that, some would say, I was corrupted by comedy.
I routinely dodged bedtime curfews to watch Johnny Carson or catch a few minutes of the original, verboten for me, “Saturday Night Live.”
It was there, on late-night, pre-cable television, that I first saw him: an affable presence in a crisp white suit, a silver shock of hair and–what’s this?–bunny ears and an arrow through his head.
Steve Martin–back in his stand-up days a precursor to Mike Myers’ brand of wide-appeal, goof-ball humor–would soon make me pay a price for my youthful walk on the wild-and-crazy-guy side.
Months after seeing Martin sing “King Tut” on television, a comedy album mysteriously disappeared from a cousin’s collection.
I played the record over and over, devouring the comedy riffs, practicing the voice inflections, dissecting the timing, longing to play “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on a banjo . . . and completely failing to understand some of the language I was religiously mimicking.
Needless to say, Mrs. Brannon had nothing on my own mother in the way of stunned outrage (though I distinctly recall some stifled mirth).
The album disappeared, but the taste of soap lingered. I got a short and vague explanation about contraception that made me squirm much more than my parents did. And I learned a lesson: Save it for your peers.
A couple years later, my stepfather took me to one of the first R-rated movies I ever saw, Mel Brooks’ classic western send up “Blazing Saddles.”
Anyone who has seen the film will remember a certain campfire scene that makes the South Park kids’ favorite performers, Terrance and Phillip, seem down-right tame, gastrointestinally speaking.
We laughed until we cried, and it was one of the best times we’ve ever had together. I learned another lesson: Know your audience.
Comedy may not be pretty, but it’s not a danger to the morals of children. They can handle the bad words and rude noises. Humor, even the sharpest or crudest, binds different people together by what they find funny.
It’s about propriety. A good sense of humor will help teach kids what is appropriate and–in this overly PC society–how to read people.
Of course, if you don’t agree . . . Well, EXCUUUUUUUSEEEE MEEEEEEEE!
