On June 4th, average citizen and comedy enthusiast Kevin Rogers wrote a note on Facebook about an anti-gay rant he had seen from Tracy Morgan at what was supposed to be a comedy show. The note has gotten world-wide media attention and has led to public outrage, prompting an apology from Morgan and statements from his coworkers and NBC, all without even seeing a video. While I personally am not a fan of Tracy Morgan’s comedy and I think what he said was incredibly ignorant and unfunny, for me this whole incident highlights what is wrong with society more than it exposes the shocking truth about Tracy Morgan.
To me it seems like this rant was probably a bit that he hadn’t developed yet and threw it out there anyway in its rawest form. When it wasn’t working he probably panicked and got angry and decided to heighten the shock value instead of abandoning the bit. This is purely conjecture of course because again, I haven't seen a video. Comedians see this kind of thing a lot at open mics so they’re probably a little more desensitized to it than non-comedians; that’s why you save that kind of shit for the open mics and you don’t go throw it out to civilians who don’t understand that it’s not necessarily that you’re a hateful person, it’s that you’re a horrible comedian who hasn’t yet learned that shock value has to be balanced by wit and good writing. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take risks, I’m just saying you should choose your risks carefully in this day and age. George Carlin is quoted as having said, “I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately”. In 2011, you’re better off finding out where the line is drawn, drawing another line two feet behind it, and crossing that line. Sorry George. The revolution is over.
In this day and age, free speech isn’t really free. Free speech is free if it is free of hate. And that’s fine I guess. Freedom of speech has to have restrictions because people are too stupid to not be incited by a powerful speaker who uses hate to unite like-minded and weak-minded people. We have to protect society from messages of hate, because society is mostly made up of sheep and savages who will act on them, too dumb to think on their own and too weak to break away from their immediate sphere of influence. Human beings need censorship for the same reason they need religion: because common sense and common decency are not that common and not enough to keep people in line.
Everyone is fucked up. The people complaining about bullying are just as bad as the bullies, and hate is fought with hate. Over the past couple of days I have seen several people condemn Tracy’s rant, calling it bullying and anti-this and that, and then saying things like “He must be mad because he has a girl’s name”. So you’re outraged about bullying and homophobia but you still resort to making fun of a person’s name because it is traditionally used for the opposite sex? I bet when Tracy was in elementary school, it was the kids like you who were bullying him. Kids like you, who would torment a boy for having a “girl’s name” are what create this kind of monster. Many of these same people accuse Tracy of being a closeted homosexual, which I agree he probably is, but I bet if people hadn’t been making fun of his “girl name” and calling him a homosexual all his life he wouldn’t feel the need to be closeted. He wouldn’t be so afraid and ashamed of it.
The rant as it’s described is not even really hateful towards the gay community per-say. He said being gay is a choice. That is an opinion and, in and of itself, not hateful I don’t think. Personally I don’t agree with it but I don’t think there is any conclusive scientific evidence to prove otherwise. He also didn’t say he would like to kill all gays. He didn’t say he would, or you should, kill a gay on the street. He said he would kill his own son if he was gay. Again, ignorant and unfunny, but I don’t think society as a whole would mind so much if he killed his son. America would be obsessed with the scandal and the subsequent trial (please see Casey Anthony). You’d eat that shit up. You would repost it a thousand times on Facebook and use it as an example to support your particular agenda; black-on-black crime, homophobia, self-destructiveness in comedy, whatever it may be. You’d write a blog about it and it would get you lots of attention and accolades. A comedian that very night would go up on stage and tell a joke about it and get an applause break. America loves celebrity scandal and horror more than apple pie with a scoop of vanilla. No one is even that horrified that he said he would kill his own son. They are too preoccupied with the reason why and the fact that it is not politically correct.
NBC released a statement regarding the incident that urged Tracy to educate himself on “why such words have no place in our culture today”, but clearly they do have a place. The blog written by Kevin Rogers that originally brough this to light describes the crowd during Tracy’s rant as responding with “thunderous cheer and ‘You go Tracys’.” So there is an audience for it. The “God don’t make mistakes” thing is a pretty common hardcore Christian belief. There are a lot of people who truly feel this way. Maybe it’s not so much that Tracy Morgan is fucked up, maybe it’s this whole society that’s fucked up. Maybe today, it’s not so much the comedian’s duty to cross that line that was drawn so long ago, it’s the comedian’s duty to hold up a mirror to society and show it just how ugly it has become. And if that’s true, Tracy’s work here is done.
