It’s not just the rock’n’roll stylings that seem quaint. It’s the things that got Hicks wound up: advertising, marketing, capitalism, and how they captured and sullied all things good. A generation later, advertising is the air we breathe, our selves are our product. It’s harder – for comedians and everyone else – to imagine how life could ever be otherwise. Bob seems to be understating things when she says: “Selling out has evolved in meaning.” You're telling me it has, lady.
To Petts, who is the co-founder of queer comedy collective The Lol Word, Hicks is “like mansplaining from start to finish. And we’re a bit bored nowadays of that.”
Give me strength. Hicks did get a bit preachy, especially when he knew he was seriously ill, but this is just ####ing drivel.
That’s not just Petts’ and Bob’s take: some straight white guys think the same. Rob Oldham’s debut show Worm’s Lament was well received at the Edinburgh fringe last year. Anachronisms apart, Petts and Bob both admire Hicks’s comedy, considering him, in Bob’s words, “a nice dude”. Not so Oldham, who sees Hicks as unpleasant, hypocritical – and not as radical as he’s cracked up to be.
“He kicks down an awful lot. The fall people are always women, gay people, Iraqis. His routines deliver devastating one-liners to members of the hospitality industry.” Take the famous “What are you reading for?” routine, in which Hicks recalls being asked this question by a waffle waitress, who becomes the butt of the joke. The problem, says Oldham, is that Hicks is quick to criticise Americans, society, the government, but seldom himself. “Something that’s truly radical needs to take a look at itself.”
Yeh, that Bill Hicks always punching down. What a pile of "I'm so woke" bollocks.
“And there’s no one way to do comedy any more. Most people I know get their funny fix from Instagram.
“The idea that we might be prophets and philosophers is ridiculed now. The prevailing idea is we’re nothing but clowns. Audiences still look to comedy to address serious stuff, but on a routine by routine basis.” He cites a recent viral clip of Daily Show host Trevor Noah addressing the Liam Neeson row. “Not a comic by comic basis. No one puts comedians on a pedestal.”
Clowns is right, but not in a good way. Citing Trevor Noah tells you just about all you need to know, but it's ok because "his dad one performed wiht Hicks"
I admit Hicks tends to get over-romanticised by comics of that generation and the Stuart Lee line about "being famous for half an hour of material" has a (very) little truth to it, but to quote the great man himself, "I don't mean to sound cruel and vicious, but I am so that's how it comes out"....I dare you to go and find some bits of these hacks on line and listen to their mewling shit and wonder if they are going to be stirring up an entire generation and changing their art form for ever. I don't ####ing think so.