OUTRAGEOUS

Comedy historian Nesteroff tackles the tangled story of how the performing arts have long been “dragged into the Culture War and used as a scapegoat.”

Put someone on stage or screen and let them speak a line or two, and someone is going to be offended. Take the much embattled Smothers Brothers, whose TV show often drew letters such as one that read, “I for one am fed up with looking at [N-word]s, [N-word]-lovers and long-haired fruits on your and every other show on TV.” Thus, it has always been: Vaudeville shows were hounded for presumed violations of Jim Crow segregation and obscenity; books of every sort were suppressed by the likes of Anthony J. Comstock, who believed that reading “breeds lust”; drag performers since time immemorial, not least the comedian Milton Berle, were censored and suppressed. If all this sounds depressingly familiar, it’s because the campaign has never really lifted. Right-wing leaders are busily hounding targets, but now, too, so is the left, a process that began in the 1990s. “Just as Democrat Tipper Gore had demonized heavy metal,” writes the author, “Republican politicians like Oliver North and Dan Quayle demonized rap music as part of a greater political strategy.” Nesteroff paints a broad picture, and his narrative is often little more than a shallow recitation of incidents: The Girl Scouts are tarred as Soviet stooges, the Dixie Chicks are pilloried for denouncing George W. Bush, and so forth. There’s also a lot of repetition, especially of the complaint, voiced by Groucho Marx half a century ago and reiterated by Sam Kinison, Dave Chappelle, and even the anodyne Jerry Seinfeld, that comedy is impossible in the face of all the delicate sensibilities arrayed against it.

The parts are better than the whole, but the message is clear: Loosen up and enjoy the show.