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In olden days, a glimpse of stocking

Was looked on as something shocking

But now, God knows

Anything goes

Cole Porter

America is a tough room. You cant joke about anything anymore.

Or so were told. Were in this place where everyones like, You cant say this, you cant say that, Whitney Cummings told Matt Wilstein on The Last Laugh podcast. I think its particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where youre not checking everything you say critically before you move on, legendary Monty Pythons Flying Circus member John Cleese told an interviewer.

Kliph Nesteroff has heard all this before. As he chronicles in his new book, Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars, the comedy historian and author of the essential book, The Comedians, maintains that America has not suddenly lost its sense of humor. The so-called culture wars have been waged for centuries.

In the colonial era, he writes, the Continental Congress passed a law decreeing the closure of all places of public entertainment. In the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, dance shows were raided if too much leg was shown. Decades before Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, a female audience member attacked Welsh comedian Ossie Morris after he uttered two profanities. In the 1950s, when Desi Arnaz wanted to work his wife Lucille Balls pregnancy into I Love Lucy, sponsor Philip Morris told him, You cannot show a pregnant woman on television. (You couldnt even say the word; the episode itself was titled, Lucy Is Enceinte.)

The idea you that cant say anything anymore is hyperbolic, Nesteroff says in a phone interview. Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor were each arrested for the language they used onstage. Mae West went to jail. Today, even if a comedian caused outrage, nobody would be arrested. Its disrespectful to those who came before and blazed this path when you really couldnt say certain things.

As a complement to his book, Nesteroff has recently been posting on X (formerly Twitter) contemporaneous letters to the editor from irate TV viewers who were shocked and offended by what they were seeing in prime time. Like viewer Bernie Splim, who protested the food fight on a 1986 Thanksgiving episode of Cheers: Couldnt they have had Sam [Malone] open the bar to feed the homeless? he complained.

Nesteroff believes that social media is fueling the misperception that we are overly sensitive these days. In the days before the Internet, peoples reactions to show business was very similar to the reaction we see on social media, he says. The difference was if 100 people wrote 100 letters to the editor, only one or two would be published. Today, letters to the editor exist without the editor. They are sent out as tweets or Instagram posts and all 100 are posted. I dont believe this conceit that people are more sensitive or easily offended today. Its just now there is no filter. In reality, people were probably much more sensitive in the past because we had far greater taboos when it came to sex, religion, politics, and language.

Today, at least five of George Carlins Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, can be heard in prime time. There is more freedom of speech and freedom of expression today, Nesteroff maintains. But were being told the opposite.

For example, Nesteroff points to controversial films in cinema. While D.W. Griffiths Birth of a Nation advanced cinema as an art form, it also glorifies the Ku Klux Klan. Gone With the Wind may be one of the most honored and beloved films of all time, yet it presents a benign view of the antebellum South. But as Nesteroff writes, America did not just suddenly get more sensitive toward these controversial films (HBO Max temporarily pulled Wind in 2020). They were banned or protested at the time of release in 1915 and 1939, respectively.

Outrageous is not officially dedicated to comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who died last April, but some stories in the book were absolutely included with Gottfried in heart and mind, Nesteroff says. For instance, Nesteroff writes in Outrageous about game show fans being repulsed by Family Feud host Richard Dawsons penchant for kissing female contestants on the mouth. In response, the show instituted a policy by which male and female contestants had to undergo a mouth test for herpes and other diseases.

Part of including that is the spirit of Gilbert Gottfried and what would make him laugh or make his jaw drop on the floor, Nesteroff says. The Richard Dawson herpes test is one I never got to share with him. I guarantee that if he were alive, I would lead with that on my next podcast appearance. (Nesteroff was a popular guest on Gilbert Gottfrieds Amazing Colossal Podcast, which was devoted to old school show business with eager digressions into entertainers behaving badly.)

Gottfried himself had multiple controversies throughout his career, Nesteroff says, and I wanted to have at least one Gilbert story in the book. That story is Gottfrieds 1991, well, outrageous, appearance on the Emmy Awards, which coincided with Paul Reubens arrest in an adult movie theater (in comedy, timing is everything). Gilbert was supposed to read material off the teleprompter, but he went rogue and did a series of jokes about masturbation, Nesteroff says. He got huge laughs, but the shows writers said they were disgusted by his performance. Michael Medved singled out Gilbert as an example of what he called Hollywoods contempt for middle America.

That seems to be a recurring line of attack in the culture wars: us vs. them. Perhaps one of the key lines in Outrageous is Nesteroffs observation that While the showbiz of a hundred years ago may seem remote, it is remarkable how similar the issues of the past are to the concerns of today. For example, theres this quote: We must take our country backcleaning up what I think is the dismal swamp, draining that swamp. Donald Trump in 2016? No, presidential candidate Pat Buchanan in 2000.

The culture wars rage on. Nesteroff hopes people can chill out a bit. I do not care for these doomsday prophecies that the world is coming to an end, he says. People used to say this in reference to the tango, the jitterbug, rock and roll, and comic books. You hear the same thing today when people refer to drag queen story time, The 1619 Project, or a comedian making a joke you dont like. Every generation thinks that everything happening in their day is unprecedented. You feel the hysteria that is sent to us intentionally and unintentionally on the Internet. But controversies quickly dissipate as the years pass. Were still here.

Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars is now available from Bookshop and other retailers.

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Outrageous: The History of Comedy, Culture Wars, and Kissing Contestants - The Saturday Evening Post