Last year I came across an article in The Quietus (you can read it here) besmirching the great Bill Hicks. I don’t expect everyone to like or agree with him, or me, but I was interested in the arguments, however the way the piece was written pissed me off. I know, surprising, right?… As such I wrote a response to it and posted it to the comments section.
My response is below, but you can also read the original article https://thequietus.com/articles/11439-why-i-hate-the-cult-of-bill-hicks.
Why I hate the ‘Why I hate the cult of Bill Hicks’ article by John Doran
I don’t just like Bill Hicks, I fucking love him, but I’m not going to go into why, as many other acclaimed and respected comics and writers have made their views on his work, attitude and life already, and more emphatically than I. However, I was quite interested to see what the issues brought up in this critique of him were. Unfortunately, the article is weak, bitter, and not well-constructed. But why do I hate it?
It’s not Doran’s consistent use of cheap, derogatory language such as ‘pot head’, ‘imbecilic’, ‘driveling thunder-cunt’ or ‘vacuous bullshit’. It isn’t that he doesn’t bother having a position on any of these points, or that these words are not valid, supported criticism. They’re just expressions of his bilious hatred. Which is acceptable, in itself. The fact that Doran would expect any critique of him to focus on ‘fat, ugly and bearded’ possibly reflects the level of name-calling that this article sets for itself.
It isn’t Doran’s somewhat scurrilous outrage at ‘latent paedophilia’. Inflammatory language and subject aside, Hicks was not a Jimmy Saville, and to paedo-paint him in this way is somewhat distasteful. It isn’t that Doran keeps returning to the subject of misogyny to curry support for his perspective, stating that perhaps people ‘didn’t take to him because they weren’t as keen on jokes painting working class women having babies out of wedlock as stupid, venal sluts who couldn’t keep their legs closed.’ Hicks spoke specifically of people he didn’t like in his country, some groups of women included, but generally focusing on many American’s willful and societally debilitating ignorance and conservatism.
It isn’t that Doran tried to devalue Hicks reputation by likening it to the reverent adulation afforded to Princess Di. It isn’t that Doran claims Hicks primarily picked on ‘working class women, mothers, young children and the very old’, but only after stating (in brackets, because it’s isn’t important) that this is apart from his attacks on the ‘absolutely deserving Christian right and Republicans, etc’. Et cetera is doing a lot of work here…
It isn’t Doran’s seemingly Daily Mail stance on this ‘disgusting hippy’, the consistent use of conservative rhetoric which he uses to describe Hicks’s ‘weak and cowardly misanthropy’. Hicks did indeed rage against society, but Doran has spent a large part of the article criticising Hicks’s aggressive methods; does that example his weakness? He attacked huge American institutions such as the government, the NRA and the religious fundamentalists, and this was back in the 80’s, bearing all of his misanthropy on a public stage. Does that equate to cowardice? Perhaps all complaints against society are ‘weak and cowardly misanthropy’? It’s not easy to tell, as Doran uses it so carelessly.
It isn’t that Doran doesn’t seem to understand the concept of liberty. John Stewart Mill stated in ‘On Liberty’ that ‘the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’ so no, ‘smoking cigarettes in public buildings and on planes’ are not acceptable, liberal activities today. Hicks, who Doran describes as a ‘fucking horrific libertarian’ wasn’t saying they were and he certainly didn’t say that his liberal views should allow him to smoke wherever he liked, but the laws of those times were actually on his side, if changing. He never espoused ‘taking drugs no matter the ill effect they had on anyone else using.’ This point is just utterly spurious, Hicks merely promoted YOUR right to YOUR rational, legal choice. And ‘having access to hardcore pornography and violent movies or anything else his venality craved’ is a right we all have. Have you turned on the television at any point over the last twenty years?
It isn’t that Doran doesn’t seem to understand the use of generalisations or care if they are at all accurate. ‘Too many people on this side of the Atlantic had such a skewed view of the US’, I’m sorry, what was our/their/his ‘skewed view’? The ‘slightly risible bias against Americans’ is a world phenomenon, and not a laughable one at all. The conflicts and wars that Hicks was railing against then were forerunners of and equivalent to the wars and conflicts American is involved in now. And after twenty years of this continued foreign policy, it would be hard to argue that America is not seen as one of the most despised countries in the world nowadays. This sentiment amounts to a bit more than a simple bias.
It isn’t even all of those unsubstantiated ‘It isn’t that…’ paragraphs Doran uses, which hold no substance but just give the impression of a valid attack by stating a defamatory opinion and dressing it up by simply pasting a lengthy quote that appears to justify it at the end. It isn’t that repeatedly using ‘it isn’t that’ is a pretty feeble device for disguising badly supported rancour.
It isn’t that… No, wait, hang on…
It is all of those points.
Bravo!
I came across this idiot Doran’s lazy, shoddy, shit-I-mean-HIT-piece on Hicks and it almost pissed me off. If it had been written with any level of flair or distinction, or if it had come within a five block radius of landing any of its pathetically flailing punches, it might have succeeded!
But no. It’s just another misguided attempt to… but what, exactly, is it that Doran is trying to do?
I despise the so-called alt-right and believe that the anti-SJW crowd are more annoying than the SJW crowd (and in pretty much exactly the same way, ironically). I mean, i despise the term “virtue signalling” (and believe that accusing someone of virtue signaling is, in and of itself, a prime example of virtue signaling), so it pains me to say this, but Doran’s screed reeks of a self-righteous piety that quite frankly feels forced, and even somewhat regretful, as though he doesn’t quite believe what he’s writing, but feels he has no choice but to write it.
For instance, when he complains about how extreme Hicks’ vulgarity can be… talk about missing the point as it goes flying over his overly inflated noggin!
Hicks was the poet laureate of taking things too far. Even when taken out of context, as Doran does with every single quote from Hicks in his article, his words are still memorable and occasionally magnificent.
Here’s one example. The whole pink, quivering rabbit nostril/cotton candy framing a paper cut spiel is (in my opinion) brutally hilarious on its own, but when experienced in the context that it was delivered – mainly, Hicks attempting to physically HURT a hostile, restive audience merely with the power of his perversity – it comes damn close to genius, no matter its effects on Doran’s metaphorical “sides”.
Anyway, I’ve written too much already. Just wanted to thank you for writing this rebuttal (great title!) so I ultimately don’t have to.
Yours,
Jerky LeBoeuf, Esq.
http://www.dailydirtdiaspora.blogspot.com
Thank you for reading, and for your comments. It’s good to know I’m not alone in getting angry about these cheap, revisionist hatchet-job merchants.
Also, my apologies for the delayed response, I’d lost access to my blogs for a while and am getting caught up and active again.
Liam