Lenny Bruce: Challenging the Status Quo

The term status quo is a Latin term meaning "the present state of affairs." To maintain the status quo is to keep things as they are.

Many of history’s most significant names were at odds with the status quo. Martin Luther was one of a long string of those who challenged Roman authority, resulting in the Reformation, which altered the balance of power in Europe. Kierkegaard passionately challenged people to awaken from their status quo stupor and choose “life.” Nietzsche raised his voice against the decadence that in his day was status quo as well as the church that in its acquiescence to things as they were had become an irrelevant voice for these present times. In point of fact, the Christian faith was founded by an anarchist who stood against the powers of his own era, both political and ecclesiastical.

I recently stumbled across a copy of Frank Kofsky’s bio of Lenny Bruce called Lenny Bruce: The Comedian as Social Critic. Comic Lenny Bruce could easily be characterized as an entertainer who was persecuted simply for pushing the boundaries and being ahead of his time. According to Kofsky, he was much more than that. His troubles came from upsetting the status quo.

Though often in line with the liberal causes of the day, his fight was not against conservatives. In point of fact he frequently pulled up liberals’ skirts to show their dirty undergarments as well. Liberal Dems might wish to claim him, but his real stance was against all of them. “I don’t get involved with politics… because I know that to be a [successful] politician you must be what all politicians have always been: chameleonlike.”
For Lenny, who was repeatedly prosecuted on obscenity charges, “Better Dead Than Red” and similar ultra-patriotic slogans were the real obscenities. He was appalled when ultra-Right ideologues condemned U-2 pilot Gary Powers for not taking his own life when his plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Talk is cheap when it’s someone else’s life on the line.

Lenny’s life, Kofsky asserts, was “a wholesale assault, as opposed to a piecemeal reformist modification, on the status quo.” But this posture carried a heavy price. Harassed and prosecuted till he could no longer find work, punched down to the gutter, victimized by trumped up charges, perpetually in court, anathema to the establishment… because he dared to speak, to challenge the status quo. In the end, bankrupt. In the end, Lenny Bruce was dead.

What’s status quo that Lenny might attack were he alive today? I think the continued machinations of our political parties would remain under his microscope. Political Correctness would give him offense. The Religious Right, though it has in recent years taken a hit as witnessed by the nomination of McCain in the GOP, would be in the crosshairs. Then there’s that weirdness in the religious TV evangelist wilderness that would certainly take a hit. Check out the digs on some of our mega-famous Christian leaders and it’s hard to imagine them giving it all up for a camel’s hair garment or locust treats.

Here’s another Lenny bit.

First convict: I’m a strung out junkie. I started smoking pot, that’s the way I started. By the way, cellmate, how did you get to be a murderer of eighteen people and the horrible gambler that you are?
Second convict: I started gambling with bingo in the Catholic church.
First convict: I see.

And how about this political jab? Change the name and the same story could be on last night's news.

“I grew up in New York, and I was hip as a kid that I was corrupt and that the mayor was corrupt. I have no illusions. You believe politicians, what they say? It’s a device to get elected. If you were to follow Stevenson from New York to Alabama you would s*&% from the changes. It’s like two syndicates, man… but morals don’t enter into it.”
Oh well. Another election coming. There’s still no third party candidate with a ghost of a chance. The power brokers have seen to that.

Dylan wrote a tribute to Lenny that begins, “Lenny Bruce is dead" noting that "he fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurt."

I can’t say I agree with everything Lenny said or stood for, but I do agree with his stance. He challenged peoples’ thinking and made them uncomfortable, not for the cheap laugh or to score points, but to help them see their own inconsistencies and their failure to get serious about this serious business called life.