So in choosing not to honor what I also felt were arbitrary demarcations, I risked winding up with people thinking I was a complete anti-this or anti-that or I was phobic about this, or whatever. In my own experience, I used words that people who didn’t know me or my work well enough could falsely interpret as indications of who I was. Carlin’s attitude was that there’s no foundation for language in this context to be harmful in any way, if one ignores those rude-to-some-and-not-others barriers. Not dirty language, “but rhetorical flourishes, things that have rhythm to them and have kind of a value of their own in just the way they sound.” Of course, the first obligation is to be funny. You’re building on a foundation of ideas, or at least smart observations, with language that George Carlin said could be, “stunning or spectacular.” He used those words advisedly. But for the most part, if something didn’t work, 90% of the time, I believed it was my fault. This is because I believe a comic should be angry about something, even if it’s something very trivial. To a degree however, I do look at stand-up as a relatively combative artform, hence all the violent language among comics regarding success (killing, slaying) or failure (bombing, dying) on stage. This contributes to a mistaken idea people get about stand-up that hinders its capacity for respect and recognition as an artform. That would tell the audience that I have a combative motivation in how I speak to them. I would never scream, “oh, take a joke!” in people’s faces or anything like that. When those walls get broken, that’s the surprise. It was my observation that people who constrict themselves, who have walls built around themselves - morally, patriotically, or due to just plain old conformity or whatever - are, in a way, living in little prisons. A shock at its core is just a form of surprise, of which there are only varying degrees. What’s shocking depends on who’s receiving the shock. To never have to encounter speech that makes us uncomfortable is a right we don’t have. You have a right to be offended.īut in another way, you don’t have a right to never be offended. After all, I’d joked about something that made them uncomfortable. But I never bothered too much if someone was offended. If I didn’t get the results I wanted, then I didn’t articulate my point well enough. If I didn't make the people laugh, then I had a bad day at work. The Eddie Murphy Raw DVD Menu.As a performer, I had no time for other people’s arbitrary standards about speech. He's not the best at voices, but he does get the attitude right, and his facial expressions are second to none. T, Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor are priceless. Decked out in blue patterned leather, boots, a long scarf and racing gloves with a huge gold ring on one finger, Murphy strolls back and forth across a dark stage, occasionally taking a seat on a stool, and lets fly with a stream of consciousness that can cause pain. Raw was filmed in 1987 at the Felt Forum in New York. Maybe this is a toe in the water to set the stage for Delirious and Comedian some time down the road. It says it right on the cover, an Eddie Murphy Production. How Raw managed to sneak out is a bit of a mystery, since he owned the rights. Some day, his kids will see their dad in red leather, swearing like mad and making rude jokes. With Murphy's career reimaging, he doesn't want his old works out there, which is a shame. That honor belongs to Delirious, which will never see the light of day from what I've heard. As I said, Raw isn't his funniest stand-up show. So hearing the then-single Murphy rant about marriage when he's been married for 11 years and counting, with five children, makes it all the funnier. There's a lengthy rant against marriage and divorce and women getting half of everything in the marriage, even with a celebrity breadwinner. While Eddie Murphy Raw wasn't his best stand-up routine, it has both genuine and unintentionally funny moments. Fatherhood is about as good an excuse as any.
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