Incident Mar’s Maher

Incident Mar’s Maher
By David Glenn Cox

There’s the edge and then there’s the edge and then there’s the corporate edge. Bill Maher has made a name for himself in television with his edgy late night program Politically Incorrect but due to nervous network executives and fears of sponsor’s blowback the show was canceled. Then it was resurrected in a later time slot and with a different network. But again the show was hobbled by the network execs and quietly folded.

But Maher returned on HBO with a live incarnation of the vehicle called Real Time with Bill Maher. I’ve been a fan of the show since the beginning but the more I watch the more I begin to notice things, troubling things. It seems certain areas are fair game while others are verboten. Maher attempts to present an edgy hip program for a sophisticated audience and casts himself in the role of Hef. But Maher comes off closer to Leno than Cavett closer to Couric than Colbert.

While it is freely acceptable to lampoon conservatives, evangelicals and the old patter about pedophilic Catholic priests. When it come to Israel it becomes a very corporate show. All issues are framed around the defense of Israel and thorny issues of dropping cluster bombs in Lebanese civilian areas are ignored. We can tell jokes about Michael Vick or Larry Craig but the Israelis had every right to bulldoze that Palestinian house and if the man didn’t like it he should have got in his wheel chair and left before that wall fell on him.

But there are some funny moments as well with guests such as George Carlin and Robin Williams neither of whom I have seen this season. Maybe they were too funny? Maybe they out shone the star? What would you expect with Carlin and Williams? But this season the guests are down to B and C list, for example Chris Matthew’s? But Barney Frank was hysterical when he attempted to explain to the audience how hard Congress works and as the audience roared with laughter Frank attempted again to explain, “No really, we do work hard.” Frank didn’t get the humor but to the boys from the foundry it was a hoot.

I think the unseen corporate boundary taints the show and Maher’s Hollywood comedy schtick as well. The Godfathers of modern stand up comedy lampooned everyone including themselves. Lenny Bruce said the most outrageous things twenty years before it was cool to do so but always included himself. Richard Pryor spoke volumes about white people sometimes with a hard-bitten edge but hit just as hard about black people.

The incident with the protestors in Maher’s audience last week brought that to a head. Maher had made statements to the effect that those who believe theories of government involvement in 9-11 are idiotic, morons and assholes. Here in lies the problem, is that hip or edgy or just arrogant?

On the one hand I completely agree with Maher, that this was his program and his microphone and the protestors were rude to interrupt. But at the same time the protestors were there because of what Maher had called them in prior episodes. Maybe they resented being called idiotic and morons by someone trying to be hip and edgy but sounding more like Bill O’Rielly than Bill Moyers.

Maher’s reaction to the protest was to again call them names. Then once security was in place to fly off the stage with threats of kicking someone’s ass. In all probably, his worst piece of acting since Maher guest starred as a repentant villain on Murder She Wrote. Maher returned to the stage saying, “If this stage were a microcosm of America I’d vote for Rudy Guilianni right now.” But had that stage been the real world someone would have mopped up the floor with a Hollywood comic.

In the real world I saw a bouncer try a stunt like that once, jumping over the top of a bar to break up a fight. The brawler saw him coming and decked him with a right hand in mid air. The bouncer hit the ground unconscious and the fight continued rather than Maher showing us how tough he was he showed me how weak he was. It looked like what it was, a stunt much like landing on an aircraft carrier with an oversized codpiece.

Want to look tough and edgy? Challenge that guy to defend his position do a show about the controversy? Get the best guests you can get from both sides and let the chips fall where they may. Then Maher could say I gave you your spot light now go away. But maybe that won’t be popular enough after all movies portraying the government’s side of the 9-11 story were box office losers yet films such as loose change were wildly successful on the internet. But Maher can handle it; he’s hip and edgy right? He is the king of label pin humor anyway.

But listen to Maher talk about Iran he’s ready to launch the missiles himself. The issue is discussed right down the corporate line. Not why do we have to attack Iran but why we have to attack Iran. Maher has learned well, the third times the charm, there are acceptable groups to offend. Say, if you don’t believe in evolution then you’re a Neanderthal and an idiot if you don’t believe in media consolidation well no one really cares about that. Maher has learned to be corporate edgy and Hollywood hip.

I believe in evolution but I don’t call people who disagree with me names. I might think they are stupid but I don’t say it because that’s not hip or edgy that’s what Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Rielly do. Rather than discuss issues they call people names. I admit to calling George Bush George Herbert Hoover Bush because his policies so closely mimic Hoover that enough money dumped in at the top will filter down to the poor. But given the names he could be called I feel I’ve been lenient.

I feel certain that by calling out my problems with Maher I shall be attacked by the truth squads of the complicit. But I calls them as I sees them, left or right and Maher isn’t left he’s corporate media left. He’s corporate fair and balanced with a hip and edgy feel. He’s free to throw all the rocks he wants just not at the bosses’ house. I’ll still watch his show but his star won’t shine as bright to me any more. Please don’t tell me he’s just trying to be funny because rude isn’t funny Ann Coulter taught us that.