"[Gilbert] I'd like to apologize if I hurt anyone with anything I'm going to say or if it's an opposing viewpoint to one you might have." "And if I look like I'm thinking about something that might be offensive, please, I apologize for hurting you." "[music]" "And I'm very sorry that I bothered you or upset any of you." "[music]" "I genuinely... am deeply sorry to anyone who's ever been affected by that term." "I'm sorry I did that." "I want to apologize for a comment that I made on last night's Fashion Police about Zendaya's hair." "I'm embarrassed that I did that." "I've learned it is not my intent that matters, it's the result." "And the result is that people are offended." "I did a bad thing." "I cannot spend every night apologizing." "I'm here to apologize." "I'm sorry." "I hope you'll accept my apology." "Are you ready?" "[all] Yeah." "Then light your torches and go." "[narrator] Itdoesn'ttakemuch torileup  theoutragemobthesedays ." "Ifyou'reacomedian, theremightbe calls foryourshow tobecancelled ifsomeonetakesoffense atyourjoke." "Youmighthave tokissyourbig , newgiggood-bye." "Youcouldgetfired orgetdeaththreats." "Youmighteven getattackedon stage." "Mostpeoplejustgive intothemob'sdemands, butsomecomicsare brave orstupidenough tofightback." "I think people like to be offended because there's like a really weird sense of empowerment with being offended." "I think it's an attention-seeking device." "If you think you have the right not to be offended, either change your parameters of what offends you or just realize you're wrong." "Those are your two choices." "[narrator] JimNortondevotes alotof hisact  toraging againstoutrage." "Why is comedy the only form of the arts where people think that they have to agree with or approve the content?" "Why is that?" "You don't walk through a museum with a towel and throw it over paintings that you don't like." "[audience laughing]" "I don't want anybody else seeing this because I didn't quite enjoy it." "[laughing continues]" "Someone will find something about every jokes down to the most benign subject till we're all like five year olds and can't say anything." "If comedians avoided every topic that might offend someone, there's nothing to talk about." "Pressuring the person to make a fake apology over whatever it is that he's said that got your panties in a bunch." "I don't know why we look at this as progress." "If you're easily offended, please don't come to a comedy show." "When people are outraged by something, they're also patting themselves on the back, like, "Hey," "I'm a good person, I was outraged."" "People just love to be offended and they love to talk about it." "[narrator] Moreandmorecomedians aregettingfedup withoutrage." "Theysayit 'stime forthemob tolearn howtotakeajoke ." "[Penn] We don't have a legal right to not be offended, but you have a social right to avoid things that offend you." "So, your feelings got hurt, it's not the end of the world." "I've always refused to apologize for a joke." "There's a lot of people out there whose job is to be offended for other people." "It's almost like people have gotten soft." "The Marx brothers were rebellious." "Nowadays, you'd watch them and you go," ""Oh, he's advocating smoking and the other guy is anti-Italian and that guy is making fun of people" "who can't speak."" "I get offended." "And we're getting to the point where outrage is a powerful political tool." "There's plenty of things that have offended me, but that's where it begins and ends." "I'm offended, who gives a fuck?" "But people, like, wanna take it a step further and go," ""I want you to know I'm offended and I'd like something done."" "[woman] Comedy'slovablequeen ofmean," "LisaLampanelli." "[cheers and applause]" "[Lisa] Contextincomedy isthebe alland end all ." "IfI 'mmakingfun ofeverysinglenationality, race,height,weight, etceteraduringmyshow , thecontextis that we'reallthesame, we'reallgonna getmadefunof." "Thank you homos for skipping a night of watching Bravo TV." "[audience laughing]" "Oh, my God, that one who jumped up, this big queen right here." "Oh!" "He is so gay, he jerks off to Antique Roadshow." "By the end of the show the white guy who got made fun of for being gay or being, you know, blind, or--I had a deaf guy a couple of weeks ago who was amazing." "He suddenly goes," ""Oh, that's what black people feel like." "That's what the Asian people feel like."" "So, I think that's what brings people together going," ""We all the same in this bitch."" "My only line has ever been, if I can't make it funny" "I'm not gonna do it." "Rape can't be taken off the table, AIDS, everything." "Every time I do an AIDS and a rape joke, it kills and you know what, it's because we're scared of it." "And if you're running away from it and you're not confronting it, you're a pussy and you're not standing up to it." "So, I think that's why you have to make fun of those subjects." "I think it's very hot that we have such sexy blacks and spics at this show." "[imitates cat's meow]" "If I can't get raped by the end of this night," "I want my money back." "No, I mean, come on, man, if this guy jumps me after the show, that ain't a felony, that is lawful entry." "[audience laughing] [narrator] LisaLampanelli marketsherself asaninsultcomic, butevenshecan 'tescape theoutragemob." "[Lisa] If we as comics steered clear of every topic that might offend someone, we would never open our mouth," "I mean, literally, because I have made a joke about the band Journey once and a guy almost stormed the stage." "What the fuck is wrong with you?" "[crowd cheering]" "Look up the funny and sue, you ugly fuck." "[cheers and applause]" "[Lisa] I'm like, "Really?" "You didn't mind spic, chink, kike," "Jew bastard, cocksucker, but Journey?"" "That's Steve Perry, motherfucker." "[narrator] So,what'sacomedian supposedtodo thesedays, playitsafe?" "[Gilbert] George Carlin once said it's the duty of a comedian to find out where the line is drawn and deliberately cross over it." "I, of course, always like that line because he says duty." "There so many times that, you know, we get the wool pulled over our eyes in society by, you know, certain powers that be who wanna get away with stuff." "And I see the role of comedians as the torch bearer." "You know, we shine the light on what's really going on." "It's an amazing lineage of people who've taken on that responsibility." "[narrator] RichardPryortookon thatresponsibility." "Andbeforehim, GeorgeCarlin." "Buttoday's stand-upcomedians tracetheirlineage backtoLennyBruce." "[Steve Allen] Now, ladies and gentlemen here is a very shocking comedian, the most shocking comedian of our time, a young man who is skyrocketing to fame," "Lenny Bruce." "Here he is." "[cheers and applause]" "There are words that offend me." "Let's see." "Governor Faubus, segregation offend me, nighttime television offends me, some nighttime television." "He's honest, he's--he's smart, he's funny, and he's a hero." "[narrator] PennJilletteis thetaller, louderhalfof thecomedy andmagicduoPennTeller." "HesaysLennyBruce wasanearly showbizinspiration." "[Penn] It was like nothing I'd ever seen on TV or in situation comedies." "[narrator] TheBeverlyHillbillies wasAmerica's favoritesitcom whenLennywastrying tomakeaname forhimself." "Itwastheearly'60s , andba-da-boompjokes werealltherage." "Anyway, I'm back in television again," "I was on television about four weeks ago." "I received two offers for plastic surgery." "[audience laughing] [narrator] Lennyturnedcomedy ina differentdirection." "The personal quality of Lenny talking about his real life was just mind-blowing." "That changed comedy forever." "[laughing]" "You listen to Lenny Bruce and nothing is surprising and that's because everyone ripped him off." "The whole world changed to come around to him." "[Ron] When I think of Lenny Bruce, one of the words that comes to mind is risk." "He never saw a taboo he wasn't willing to bust." "He never saw a line he wasn't willing to cross." "[audience laughing]" "[Ron] And where did he bust out?" "Did he bust out on television?" "No." "Did he bust out on radio?" "No, not really." "He busted out in comedy clubs." "[audience laughing]" "[Ron] Nobody ever complained to the authorities about Lenny Bruce's act." "I mean, if you're worried about that, you don't go to a venue after midnight, you know, with a bunch of, you know, bearded, beaded, drunk, inebriated stoned people." "So, nobody ever complained, but the cops were there." "[narrator] Itgotto thepoint whereLennyexpectedcops toattendhisshows." "And Lenny Bruce would do things like, you know, he'd go through a whole show and no dirty words, and then come on, let's, you know, do an encore and the police are right there and said," ""You know, I'm sorry I disappointed you, men in blue, by not saying cocksucker."" "Boom." "[narrator] And that's what" "Lennygotarrestedfor  inSanFrancisco." "Hewouldlatertalk aboutthebust duringhisact, tapdancingaround theforbiddenword." "[Ron] Jokes about controversial issues." "Jokes about race, jokes about religion." "The Jews killed Christ." "I can't tell you how long I've had to listen to this stuff." "Okay, let's set the record straight." "It's true." "We killed him and if he comes back, we'll kill him again." "Well, funny to the people, you know, in the audience, not so funny to the Irish cops there." "[narrator] PolicearrestedLenny inChicago, inLosAngeles, inSanFrancisco." "Lennyhadto worryaboutcops  athisshows, butnobodyelse complained." "Today,it'sthereverse." "Copsnolonger arrestcomedians atclubs,butthe people arecomplaining." "It'salmost asifwe 'vebeentaught tolovecensorship." "[music]" "[narrator] Oh,college." "It'swhereyoucan finally liveonyourown ." "Befree." "Beyourself." "♪Andwe 'rebanned♪" "♪ From Argo, everyone ♪" "♪ Banned from Argo just for having a little fun ♪" "♪ We spend... ♪ -[narrator] Just be careful ifyou'retrying tobefunny." "We were accused of sexual harassment for an April Fool's article." "[narrator] She'stheeditor ofa studentnewspaper attheUniversity ofAlaska,Fairbanks." "Andheroffense wasrunningan article about avagina-shapedbuilding." "[woman] Because it was a joke." "I was poking fun at the culture that we live in." "[narrator] Andwhatabout thegoodthingsHitlerdid?" "RutgersUniversity thoughtthis" "Aprilfool'sarticle wasanti-Semitic." "So,whatif theauthor isJewish." "ThisSyracuseUniversity lawstudent almostgot kickedoutof school becausesomepeoplesaid hissatiricalblog wasoffensive." "Members oftheTuftsUniversity rowingteamweresuspended forwearingthisshirt asincoxswain, asinthisguy ." "Thesedaysmostcolleges enforcestrictspeechcodes thatpunishstudents foreverything fromtellingjokes tocommittingthecrime ofinappropriately directedlaughter." "[Norton] Yeah, they're very uptight." "You know, we interviewed Carlin in 2007 and he said that, "I've been bashing colleges for years for that."" "And Carlin goes, "Man, I hate to say it, but all the censorship is coming from the left and it's coming from the college campuses."" "We all got to understand that we could expect censorship from the right wing, but to expect it from the left wing, from the politically correct people in the campuses, that caught me by surprise." "[Noam] Good evening everybody, welcome to the Comedy Cellar Show here on Channel 99, SiriusXM world of comedy hits." "We have a very special guest here." "So, this man has devoted his life," "I'd say to free speech and he's quite an intersection with comedian." "[narrator] GregLukianoff isthepresidentofFIRE , theFoundation forIndividualRights inEducation, anationalnonprofit thatfights forfreespeech oncollegecampuses." "I interned at the ACLU of Northern California." "I studied the history of censorship, you know, going back to, like, the 16th century, and nothing prepared me for how easy it is to get in trouble on the modern college campus." "I think there is a direct line between the stuff that's going on in campuses and the idiots who I get angry emails from." "[narrator] NewYorkCity's legendaryComedyCellar haslongbeenatthecenter ofthestand-upworld." "Beforeperformances, ownerNoamDworman hostshisSiriusXM ComedyCellarShow." "Everybody feels they have a right to be insulated from whatever it is they decide offends them, and we're getting emails all the time from customers and it-- and it boggles my mind." "[man] But those customers have the right." "If you--yeah, those customers have the right to send you emails" "and they have the right to be offended." "They should also fucking stay home if they don't wanna hear this kind of humor." "[Chris] I've gone on the Klu Klux Klan site to see some of their greatest jokes and I'd say about 10% of them are winners." "Absolutely have me rolling." "90%, a little harsh." "My name is Christopher Lee." "I'm from Washington State University." "I wrote a play called Passion of the Musical, which was about satire about the last two days of Jesus." "[narrator] Leecasthimselfintherole ofa cross-dressingSatan." "[Chris] This play was specifically designed to offend everyone." "I went for the gold from whatever religion you were to whatever you believed in, to this country I love so dearly." "I wanna write something that makes people go," ""Yeah, that was hilarious,"" "or they're so mad that they go," ""I'll tell you why my religion is important, why women's rights is important."" "[Greg] Nobody could've done a better job of saying," ""Hey, guys, if you don't wanna see an offensive comedy, don't come to this comedy musical because I wrote it with the intention of actually offending people."" "Everyone had to sign a contract coming into the show, knowing it would be offensive." "On the door, there was all the words that I said including a giant banner that said," ""A song contains the word cunt 24 times."" "[man] I'm offended." "[audience laughing]" "[Chris] I had people who enjoyed certain parts." "They liked the Latino sweeping the floor across the stage and taking a siesta." "But when I have giant letters that spell out AIDS or cunt come across stage, you know, and then people going, "Well, that's not funny."" "And I was like, "I see so." "As long as it doesn't touch home base on you, it's funny, but then as soon as it does, that's the most offensive outrageous things" "I've ever heard and you have no right" "to ever say it."" "He was a sociology student so he was kind of saying, "I'm gonna do this experiment." "It's gonna show, like, we're all way too uptight." "Everyone's gonna be getting along, it's gonna be fun, and it didn't quite work out that way."" "[all chattering]" "[Chris] The university has contacted me and said," ""We have 40 people who'd like to see the show."" "As soon as the show started off, they started-- they handed out little fliers saying," ""If they say something you don't like, stand up and say 'I'm offended'."" "And so, once the first song starts happening, people started saying, "I'm offended." "I'm offended." "I'm offended."" "And then the "I'm offended"" "changed into "You're gonna die." "We're gonna get you."" "[Chris] The crowd had weapons." "I actually lost two cast members." "They ran outside." "We had to call the police halfway through the show, and when we called the police they're offended by the topics." "So, the cops stopped my show and let me know that if I proceeded and the crowd got up and attacked, they would not help because they said" "I would be kind of riling them up." "If I get attacked, the police would sit there, and I was like, I guess watch me get assaulted or whatever." "[Karith] College is supposed to be this place where you go to grow, to explore, to learn, to express yourself." "[narrator] KarithFosterperforms atmanytopclubs, likeTheLaughFactory inHollywood andtheGothamComedyClub  inNewYork." "I used to be able to describe myself in one word," "I could tell you, people, I was a Huxtable, right?" "And people got it." "Like, a year ago, people were like, "Oh, yeah." "Sure." "She comes from--in a fluent African-American family." "Her parents are professionals."" "Now, I say that and people think my dad was feeding my Girl Scout troop." "[audience laughing] [narrator] She'salsoon amission togetcolleges toloosenup ." "[cheers and applause]" "[Karith] I started a humorous diversity program that I take to colleges with a fellow comedian, a friend of mine, Adam Lehman, he's a gay comic." "It's called Stereotype 101." "The idea is to use humor to broach the sensitive topics." "There were 1,200 people in my graduating class from high school, 12 of us were black." "That's 1%." "I had to import my prom date because I wanted a brown one." "[narrator] Now,ofcourse, ittakesmanyyears tolearnhowtomake  audienceslaugh, andthat'swhyFoster saysschools shouldcut studentcomedians lotsofslack." "[Karith] Now, college is where you go to find out who you are." "It's also where you find your voice." "And, you know, that's a term we use in comedy as well," ""Finding your voice," when you figure out, you know, your style." "[narrator] SalvadorRodriguez isa studentcomedian atReedCollege inPortland,Oregon." "Fromthelushcampus tothemostlywhite studentbody, theenvironmentis quite achangeforRodriguez." "[Salvador] My father came to the United States illegally from Mexico." "I went to high school in South Los Angeles at a high school that was 70% black." "Reed isn't very easy to make jokes about it because the people here, they have a lot of hang-ups about a lot of words." "[Sean] Sal's style of humor is fairly confrontational." "He likes to push buttons." "[audience laughing] [narrator] Thecampuscomedians enjoyperforming risqueroutines, andtheywarnpeople whoareeasilyoffended tostayfaraway" "fromtheirshows." "[Sean]Pleasewelcome" "SalRodriguez." "[cheers and applause]" "[audience laughing] [narrator] Thisshowincluded somethings youprobablywon'tsee  atyourlocalcomedyclub ." "[Salvador] The performer before me got naked and performed his entire act completely nude." "[narrator] Theshowchuggedalong throughthenudity andRodriguez's bluematerial, butwhen hestartedtalkingabout themajorswomenchoose, anaudiencemember beganhecklinghim." "[narrator] Thehecklingcontinued andRodriguez kindoflosthis patience." "[Salvador] You fucking loudmouthed cunt." "Keep your mouth shut." "And it was at that point that she stormed the stage and she grabbed the mic away." "[narrator] Thefollowingweek, theschoolpaper rana piece thatRodriguezsays gothisactall wrong." "Whethertheyhadseenit ornot, lotsofstudents wereoffended." "Well, he got a lot of lash back." "The outcry at Reed was very much against the speech that happened." "He's definitely gained a reputation as an asshole on campus." "And I think that there should be some sort of check on whether that sort of thing should be allowed to happen again." "[Salvador] I yelled back at a--at a heckler." "In comedy clubs it's well established that if you're a heckler you can be yelled at." "[narrator] Buttheadministration launchedaninvestigation, accusinghimof offenses likedirecting ahostilecomment ata femalestudent, andtheFeminist StudentUnion helda supportgroup forthosetraumatized byhisact." "There's a support group." "Well, I hope that whoever ran the support group for those students told them to get over it, told them that this guy, whatever he said, if it upset them, then he was being a jackass" "and don't go to any more of his shows." "I actually went to the second oldest women's college in the country, Stephens." "And one of the things that I appreciated about that school is that it was so not about being a victim, it was so about being powerful." "As a mother of two daughters," "I don't want anyone's words to affect who they become as adults." "I want them to be confident and strong in who they are, and not be deterred by other people's stereotypes, other people's ignorance." "[narrator] BackatWashingtonState University," "ChrisLeediscovered alittlesomethingnew  abouttheaudiencemembers whoshouteddownhis musical." "[Chris] I didn't know it at the time, but later we figured out that the university paid these people to come into my show and shout it down." "They came in there to shut down my show." "[narrator] It'sactuallyprettycommon toseestudents shoutingdownspeakers." "[woman] Shut your mouth!" "[cheers and applause]" "[Noam] Shouting someone down" "Shouting someone down." "Yeah- ...is not freedom of speech." "No, it's mob censorship." "And it's kind of like students going," ""Hey, there's two sides to each story?" "I don't want to hear the other side."" "[Lisa] When I hear a story about this Chris Lee, it's just clear bullying and threats to a comic." "[narrator] Today,manystudents holdtheirtongues becausetheydon'twant toangertheoutragemob." "[Greg] In a 2010 study, they asked 25,000 students, "Is it safe to merely hold unpopular points of view on campus?"" "This is the kind of question you ask when you want a hundred percent of people saying, "Well, yeah, sure, it's safe to hold them."" "Only 40% of students strongly agreed with the statement that it's safe to merely hold unpopular points of view on campus." "But guess what?" "Every single year, that number went down." "By senior year, only 30% strongly agreed with the statement that it's safe to hold unpopular points of view on campus." "[Chris] They were calling me Black Hitler because the Jews weren't safe, the blacks weren't safe, no one--no women weren't safe." "They said I was so outrageous that they were willing to compare me to someone who did such atrocities." "[Chris] I'd let them know when I arrived on campus." "They'd come." "They'd make sure I got to class, but they were like, "People are just expressing themselves." "They were kind of outraged with you." "They're not going to do anything."" "I was like, "Well, why do I have security?"" "It's like they literally endangered the kids' life, you know?" "And it's just evil, and it's manipulative, and awful, and I hope they get AIDS." "No, I do." "If you're listening, hi, AIDS." "Go attack those people." "[narrator] Lennyhadbecomesoconsumed withhislegaltroubles thathebegantoread  courttranscripts fromhiscases duringperformances." "And it--here it is." "Oh, yeah." "[narrator] Hefiguredthecourtsystem wouldn'tgranthim afairhearing, sohepledhis case toaudiencesinstead." "[Ron] He'd been busted in San Francisco." "He's busted in Los Angeles." "He's busted in Chicago." "So, by the time he gets to New York, you know, his reputation has spread and the police are there that night at the Cafe au Go-Go." "[narrator] NewYorkprosecutor, RichardKuh, hadbeenexpectingLenny." "[Ron] He was absolutely determined to send Lenny Bruce to jail." "[narrator] BobDylan,WoodyAllen," "JamesBaldwin, andotherfamousartists testifiedonhisbehalf, duringa trial thatwouldlast forsixmonths." "It's amazing." "I mean, for a few dirty words," "I mean, you know, all sorts of expert witnesses, three judges, three." "[narrator] Thelongtrial hadtakenamentaltoll  onLenny." "Hebecame increasinglyobsessed withvindicatinghimself andhiscomedy." "Hegrewdesperate, firedhislawyers, anddelivered theclosingarguments himself." "[Ron] The trial was both comic and tragic." "[narrator] OnNovember4th,1964," "LennyBrucewasfoundguilty ofobscenity." "Hewassentenced tofourmonthsbehindbars ." "Butbeforebeingtaken intocustody, hefledto LosAngeles inanattempttopreserve hisfreedom." "[Ron] He was convicted for using four letter words in a comedy club in Greenwich Village after midnight." "A, B, and C, and we're gonna enforce a rule because..." "[Ron] Lenny Bruce is at the end of his rope." "They're about to foreclose on his home." "He doesn't have any money." "He can't get a job anywhere because of all these obscenity prosecutions." "[Ron] He's got a pretty serious drug problem and a pretty serious depression problem." "You mix them all together, you know what happens." "[narrator] LennyBrucedied ofa drugoverdose onAugust3rd,1966." "Hewas40 yearsold ." "♪ All alone ♪" "♪ All alone ♪" "♪ I'll be rich ♪" "♪ But so ♪" "♪ All alone ♪" "[Ron] But within a year after his death, this great Phoenix rises." "There was a movie about Lenny Bruce with Dustin Hoffman." "[man] Hewasacomic." "Acynic." "Asatirist." "Acriminal." "Agenius." "[Dustin] Have you ever seen so much blue in all your life?" "[man] Newsweekdescribed hiscauseof death asanoverdoseofpolice." "[Ron] And he becomes this great American icon." "♪ Lenny Bruce was trying to tell you ♪" "♪ Many things before he died ♪" "♪ All that was covered by Lenny Bruce ♪" "♪ Back in the day ♪" "♪LennyBruce declaresa truce♪" "♪ Lenny Bruce is gone ♪" "♪ But his spirit's living on ♪" "♪ And on ♪" "Your heroes can only be as good as your villains, right?" "So, Lenny Bruce had the United States government to go up against." "To keep going with a bit knowing where you're about to go." "He didn't care." "He did--he still did his bit, like, that's outrageously awesome to me." "I'm ashamed of my country for doing that." "I am" "I am disgusted that that happened." "My sympathy and my empathy and my heart is with Lenny that he had to go through that, but motherfucker is that cool." "Doing your show with cops on the side of the stage?" "Fucking beat that anybody ever!" "[man] Itisnowmypleasure tointroduceto you Mr.LennyBruce." "[applause]" "[Ron] The last routine Lenny did, it was at UCLA." "I will tell you this, there was any number of Lenny Bruce's routines though totally protected by the First Amendment that if he did them on a number campuses today, they would shut it down." "I don't think any college would allow Lenny Bruce to come" "and perform there." "They would hate him." "Lenny Bruce would not last a minute on the modern college campus." "[Norton] Because they had become what they hated." "You know, they had become the speech repressors." "They had become the free thought policers." "[Greg] And he also ended up being a great figure in the fight against obscenity laws, against the idea that we-- that the government should be policing speech." "So, he really ended up being a very influential figure, not just for every comedian that's come after him, but for a generation of First Amendment lawyers too." "[narrator] LukianoffsaysLenny wasn'tjustfighting fortheFirstAmendment, hewasfighting forsomethingmore." "Hewasfighting forfreespeech." "Free speech and the First Amendment are not the same thing." "And actually, the bigger, more beautiful, bolder, braver concept is free speech." "And it requires a certain amount of tolerance and a recognition that you almost certainly don't know everything and that you can still learn from hearing people out." "The problem is that as a society, we haven't really learned deeply that the solution to bad speech is more speech." "You know, you have to go to Jonathan Rauch." "[Jonathan] The First Amendment, although it's necessary, it's not sufficient." "It has to rest on a social foundation of First Amendment values." "That is people who understand, who get the idea, the critical exchange of speech, often hurtful speech, wrongheaded speech, even hateful speech." "Airing those ideas strengthen society in the long run." "If people don't have that idea in their hearts, then having it in the law is not enough." "I'm the author of a book called" "KindlyInquisitors:" "TheNewAttacks onFreeThought." "And I'm a senior fellow at a think tank called the Brookings Institution." "[man] Because the Americans" "love democracy and..." "[man] Oh, I see." "That's one reason." "Also..." "[Jonathan] In any society that is free enough to produce open debate, it's also going to be free enough so that some of us at any given time are going to feel really upset." "[bleep] this [bleep] and their [bleep] yachts." "They aren't in here and they are not in our country!" "[Jonathan] And no, that's not a great thing." "It's a necessary thing." "Get the [bleep] out of here." "Get the [bleep] out of here." "This is ours." "[Jonathan] Being hurt by words is part of how we build knowledge and it's our duty to, I think, accept that in a free society." "You parasite socialists!" "[narrator] Free speech isn'talwayspretty, butitmakeslifebetter." "Ideasclash andtheworstones gettossedaside." "Manyadvancements aretheresult ofheateddebates, debatesthatoffended" "lotsofpeople." "[Jonathan] I grew up asa gayAmerican inthe'60sand '70s ata time wherejustsaying youweregay orbeingforgay rights couldcostyouyourjob." "We were actually considered mentally disordered and thrown into asylums." "[man] Oneneverknows whenthehomosexual isabout." "Hemayappearnormal anditmaybetoolate whenyoudiscover heismentallyill ." "[Jonathan] We dealt with terrorism and violence on the streets." "If you called the police, they wouldn't help you because, you know, you were a queer, you were a faggot." "We didn't have votes." "We didn't have support." "We were hiding in the closet." "The one thing we had, the only thing we had was our voices." "[narrator] Activistsspokeup ." "Theypersuaded moreandmorepeople thatlawsshouldprotect everyoneequally." "Thegayrightsmovement hascomealongway sincethe'60s, butgays stillfacehostility." "Do I like that the Westboro Baptist Church is allowed to say, "God hates fags,"" "and "God hates the military," and blah, blah, blah?" "The Episcopal church is a fag church." "[narrator] Membersofthetiny" "WestboroBaptistChurch getlotsof publicity fortheir outlandishprotests." "Thiskindof hatespeech islegalandRauchsays" "that'sactuallygood forgays." "[man] And there it says," ""Fags are the--are beasts." -[man] Okay." "[Jonathan] There is only one way to counter bad ideas and it is with good ideas and you cannot do that unless you're able to confront the bad ideas." "And it kind of makes me mad." "We have free speech and I go," ""But wait a minute, we have to have it."" "[Jonathan] The society that tries to bury under the rug bad ideas is condemning itself to live in a future with these bad ideas." "[crowd] We're here, we're queer," "we take it in the rear!" "[Lisa] Hey!" "[narrator] Whenthechurchthreatened toprotest oneofLisa'sshows, shesaid,"Bringiton."" "Promisingtodonate athousandbucks toa pro-gaycharity foreachprotester whoshowedup ." "[Lisa] These assholes have contributed to the Gay Men's Health Crisis." "[narrator] Turns out 50protestersshowed, soLisacutacheck for50grand." "[crowd cheering]" "[Lisa] They have their own special sign for me by the way, "God hates Lisa."" "And has a picture of a gorilla in a dress with a wig which is fantastic." "I always-- I think you made it when the WBC makes you a hate-filled sign." "Hi, fag haters!" "Everybody wave bye the fag haters!" "[cheering]" "[Jonathan] I am actually grateful that the Westboro Baptist Church exists to be complete idiots because every day they do that, they use their voices to demonstrate how pitiable they are and why gay people are making the better argument." "[Penn] The most important thing to a society, what makes a society, is the-- is the exchange of ideas." "Free speech is important, I think, because, like, that's the thing that makes us who we are." "I think free speech is important for society because that's the only way change happens." "Free speech is extremely important because me being a Jew," "I don't want to have to pay for speech." "I want free speech." "I want the kind of speech where not only do you get free speech, but they throw in a limerick and a witty remark with it." "I want a whole bargain package." "[laughs]" "[Heather] You know, the whole point is if you're easily offended, please don't come to a comedy show." "Like, this is not the thing for you." "When the other moms invite you, please pass." "[applause]" "I also have a beautiful stepdaughter and she's beautiful, she's actually half Vietnamese, so yes, I do enjoy the free foot massages every other weekend." "Thank you." "[audience laughing]" "Now I get them all the time because she lives with us full-time and." "Um... and, you know, even though she lives with us, her mom will still call and leave me a million messages about how to feed her and I'll have--in, like, two days, I'll get six messages" "that goes something like this," ""Hi, I'm McKinsey mom," "I'm just calling to make sure that you give McKinsey broccoli." "She like a healthy food." "She like a healthy broccoli." "Don't you just give a hotdog and popcorn like you give to your boy." "And you can afford it." "You can afford it." "You tell Peter he can afford it."" "[audience laughing] [narrator] HeatherMcDonald didthatbit ata differentperformance andlearned shehadoffended anaudiencemember." "[Heather] And this woman came up to me after and she goes, "I think you're so funny." "I just really find the accent really offensive."" "And she was white." "I said, "Well, I'm sorry you feel that way." "It's based on a real person." "That's exactly how she sounds." "I'm imitating a person to tell a true story better."" "[narrator] Sometimes, nervousshowproducers sanitizeperformances beforeaudiencesseethem." "McDonaldremembersonetime whenshewasperforming withanimprovgroup." "[Heather] I wanted to do this girl that I had seen on a talk show who was clearly white, but spoke like she was a Latina gang member and I just thought it was a funny character," "like a Jerry Springer type character." "[narrator] Butthatcharactermade theproduceruncomfortable." "[Heather] And she said, "Well, if you're going to do an accent or ethnicity, make it be somebody that's not finan-- economically beneath a white person."" "So, make fun of the French." "I'm like, "I don't find the French funny."" "[narrator] AndasNoamDworman's co-host," "DanNaturmanknows changingyouract isnoguarantee thatyou'llavoid offendingsomeone." "Dan was on America's Got Talent and he told a joke that had the word German in it." "It was not a joke at anybody German's expense." "He had to pick a country." "Actually, at the club, he doesn't even use German, he uses Mexican, but they told him don't say Mexican on TV, so they made him use German because it was considered more innocuous." "[Dan] In America, we don't speak different languages in America." "We speak English." "Other countries, they speak different languages." "I got a friend Jurgen, he's from-- he's a countryman of Heidi's actually." "He lives in Berlin." "He's speak-- do you know him?" "He speaks four languages." "He said to me, "Dan, how come you Americans don't learn other languages?"" "I'm like, "I don't know." "Probably the same reason people that can see don't learn Braille." "That's probably why." -[audience laughing]" "[Noam] Heidi Klum is a judge" "and she gets offended at his joke." "[Greg] Nice." "And I got news for you," "Braille would be more practical, right?" "Because you might go blind one day, that could happen." "But you ain't gonna go German, chances are." "[audience laughing]" "Thank you, America, vote Naturman!" "How'd he do?" "Did you laugh?" "Well, not really." "It is impressive, though, that you managed to offend almost every type of person on the planet including the Germans." "[Noam] And she attacks him and may very well have led to ending his run at the championship of America's Got Talent." "[Dan] Oh, but I think it was going to go down anyway," "but maybe." "So this exact phenomenon that we're talking about, he had a bitter firsthand experience with it." "[Gilbert] Nowadays, there's people who might want to play it safe." "Me being an idiot, I don't." "[narrator] Comedycanhelpus getthroughtoughtimes, butdoingcomedy aftera tragedy isone ofthebiggesttaboos." "Thenagain, GilbertGottfried lovessinking hiscoldfangsintotaboos." "It'skindof histhing." "I used to do a voice for a certain insurance company" "[duck] Aflac!" "[Gilbert] The tsunami was hitting then." "So, I had handled that the way" "I handle every big news item." "I was doing jokes about it on the Internet." "Mostly, if you're going to get offended, you could get offended by how dumb most of them were." "Like, I asked my Japanese real estate agent," ""Is there a school in the neighborhood?"" "And she said, "No, but there will be one in five minutes."" "[man] A horrible thing to say inthemidstofthis tragedy." "[woman] Disgusting." "Icouldn'tbelieve hesaidthat." "A well-known comedian is no longer the voice of Aflac's duck today because of a not-so-funny joke about Japan's tragedy." "They basically dropped me like shit out of a duck's ass." "[woman] Aflacsays, "There'snoplace foranythingbutcompassion andconcern."" "[narrator] Buthowsurprised couldAflachavebeen?" "Afterall,thefamously raunchyComedyCentralroasts oftenshowcase GilbertGottfried andhisjackhammertongue." "Donald always says money can't buy happiness, but it can buy the best" "Eastern European whores New York City has to offer." "[crowd cheering] [narrator] Andthetsunami wasn'tthefirsttime Gottfriedmadejokes inthewakeofa tragedy." "Hedidsomethingsimilar rightafter theSeptember11thattacks." "[Gilbert] I was at the Hugh Hefner's fryer's roast." "And I said, "Well I have to leave early tonight." "I couldn't get a direct flight, we have to make a stop at the Empire State Building."" "And the crowd was booing and hissing." "One guy yelled, "Too soon."" "Which I thought meant I didn't take a long enough pause between the set up and the punch line." "[narrator] Buthis9/ 11joke didn'tleave theworld throbbingwithoutrage likehistsunamijokes did." "Maybeit'sbecause in2001, therewasno Facebook, noTwitter, noYouTube,no iPhone." "Buttoday's superchargedInternet blastsoutrage allovertheworld asfastas youcan type 140characters." "[Gilbert] The Internet makes me feel sentimental about old-time lynch mobs." "Back then, you actually had to put your jacket on, go outside, get your hands dirty, and deal with other people." "You know, not everything is funny." "Right." "And there's not a time to joke about everything, but apparently, Gilbert Gottfried" "is learning that the hard way." "Didn't get the memo." "[Gilbert] And then when I go outside my house, news cameras would appear out of nowhere, like they were cornering someone who was sending poisoned baby food." "[narrator] HowdidGottfried eventuallyescape theoutragemob?" "Afarmoreimportantstory tookhisplace." "[Gilbert] Chris Brown was backstage and he got mad and threw a chair." "[man] Thereheis shirtless stormingoutof thestudio." "[woman] Brownreportedlyusedachair tosmashawindow inhisdressingroom." "And that became the big news item." "See, I think nowadays, there's the villain of the week." "And, like, at any given time, there's the one guy we all hate and then quickly, it turns around to something else." "[Jon] People are getting destroyed, like, every day." "Sometimes, a number of times a day all over the world." "[narrator] Inhisbook," "So You've Been Publicly Shamed, authorJonRonsontells thetaleof JustineSacco, ayoungwoman livinginNewYork." "Andwithonly 170Twitterfollowers, she'sprettymuch unknown." "[Jon] So, she's on vacation Christmas 2013, heading from New York to Heathrow to Cape Town." "And when she gets to Heathrow, she tweets what she sees as a kind of funny acerbic joke to her 170 Twitter followers that said..." "She tweeted that joke from Heathrow Airport, wandered around the terminal, sporadically checking Twitter, got no replies, and found that sad too." "That sad feeling we all feel when the Internet doesn't tell us," ""Well done." "That was funny."" "And then she got on the plane, turned off her phone, flew for 11 hours, slept, woke up, turned on her phone, and there was a text from somebody she hadn't spoken to since high school" "that said, "I am so sorry to see what's happening to you."" "The woman at the center of a digital uproar." "[man] Atthecenter ofa digitalfirestorm." "The woman who sparked a Twitter backlash over an offensive tweet that joked about AIDS in South Africa." "BuzzFeed tweeted it as the worst tweet of all time." "[man] Anincrediblyoffensivetweet aboutAIDSandrace." "[Jon] And the shaming came in waves." "First, there were the philanthropists saying, "I am donating to aid to Africa."" "But then it got darker, then it was like," ""Everybody go report this cunt."" "There were people all over the world, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who decided we must get this woman fired." "Most people didn't realize at this point that she was on a plane and oblivious to all of this." "But then her employers got involved." "[man] Quicklyissuedastatement callingthecomment outrageousandoffensive." "And said, "This is an outrageous comment." "Employee currently unreachable on an international flight."" "And that's when the anger turned to excitement, that we knew something that Justine didn't." "We knew that she was oblivious to her destruction." "[man] Saccoposted thetweetFriday, justbefore anearly12-hourflight fromLondonto CapeTown, SouthAfrica." "Whileshewasapparently offlineinmidair, millionswereonline, anxiouslywaiting forherto land andseetheuproar hertweetcaused." "The... becameaninstanttrend." "First, you have children dying, you have children being born with AIDS." "It's really nothing to joke about." "[Jon] I was on Twitter that night and I thought what everyone else thought," ""Wow!" "Somebody's fucked!"" "And I kind of, you know, sat up in bed and propped the pillow up behind my, you know, and then I thought, "Well maybe the-- maybe it wasn't intended to be racist."" "[narrator] Toolate!" "Theoutragemob hadalreadymadeupitsmind." "I think she's basically got a race problem and she deserved to be fired." "[narrator] Saccowasfiredinmidair." "[narrator] Meanwhile, thesocialmediaresponse wasgettingviolent." "[Jon] "Somebody HIV positive should rape this bitch so then we'll find out if her skin color protects her from AIDS."" "The anger, the vitriol directed at her such that even the company that fired her had to ask people to go easy on her, what about that part?" "[narrator] Eventuallythebacklash becamesoderanged thatthemediagrewhorrified whattheyhadhelpedcreate." "Even some death threats seen on Tweeter toward her and she hadn't had a chance to tell her side of the story yet." "Somebody went and live tweeted her arrival and "photographed" her." "[narrator] WhenSaccolanded shewasunemployed andTwitter'snumberone  worldwidetrendingtopic." "Thesatisfiedoutragemob  lookedforanew target todestroy, butRonsonwasdetermined tofindoutwhatbecame ofJustineSacco." "[Jon] So, I met her in a bar in downtown New York and, you know, she was just broken and she just kept crying and it was like the Night of the Living Dead, because she was this kind of spectral figure." "I asked her to explain the joke and she said "Living in America puts us in a bubble when it comes to what is going on in the Third World," "I was making fun of that bubble."" "[narrator] Sacco'sfamily isfromSouthAfrica andshewasbornthere." "Herfathertookthe family totheUnitedStates, becausehedidn'twant hischildrento be raised insucharacistculture." "Justine thought that she was being a social justice person like the rest of us." "She thought she was making fun of the bubble of privilege." "You know, there's a-- there's a comedic tradition of mocking privilege by doing an extreme exaggerated version of it." "Niggers, Jews, homosexuals, Mexicans, Arabs, and all kinds of different Chinks stink!" "[narrator] DaveChappelledoesasketch abouta blindblackman  whohappensto be  awhitesupremacist." "Chappelleusesracistlanguage tomakefunofracists." "[Dave] Let's talk about Chinese people." "What they're Kung Fu and all that silly ching ching, chong, chong." "Oh, you come here, you kiss my tea make her sweet." "I no need no sugar when you around." "[narrator] StephenColbert wasdoingthesamething andtheoutragedmob  calledhimaracist anddemanded hisshowbe canceled." "Naturally,therewas anofficialhashtag." "The hashtag, "CANCELCOLBERT" is trending." "[woman] Cancel Colbert." "[man] Cancel Colbert." "[woman] Cancel Colbert." "[narrator] Colbert weathered thestorm,buthumorcanbe moredangerousforamateurs." "[Jon] She lost her job, she couldn't get another job." "Newspapers were following her to the gym, she couldn't sleep, she couldn't date because you Google everybody you date and she was just the racist AIDS tweet woman." "[narrator] We'realljustone  clumsyjokeaway fromsharing JustineSacco'sfate." "[Jon] We're all a mix of clever and stupid, you know, we're not these one dimensional things." "We fuck up." "And we don't fuck up." "We're wise and we're idiots." "So, many watching her demise online while she was offline on a plane." "[Jon] Don't leap in on somebody and destroy somebody for this drama." "For this fake social justice." "Let's not frighten people into being voiceless." "[narrator] TheAdamCarollashow isoneof theworld's mostpopularcomedypodcasts, anditshostisknown forhisno-holds-barred political andculturalrants." "[narrator] Atthislivetaping," "Carollawasfuming abouta recentexchange withCalifornia Lt.Gov.GavinNewsom, whobroughtup  economicchallenges facingblack andLatinofamilies." "[Gavin] HalfofAfricanAmericans inthestateofCalifornia androughlyhalf ofLatinofamilies havenoaccess toa checkingaccount oranATM, thingswetakefor granted." "Theydon'thave acheckingaccount." "What'swrongwiththem?" "Do Asians have this problem?" "I mean, a lot of communities have this problem." "A lot of whites have these problems, but I just..." "Oh, so it's not just black and Hispanic." "No, but it- but I'm giving you" "Then why did you bring up" "black and Hispanic?" "Because the magnitude" "is ominous." "[narrator] Agree with him ornot, butCarollaprideshimself onspeaking theunspeakable andheoften raisesissues thatpoliticians aretooafraidtotouch." "HereheasksNewsom whyAsians" "performsowellinschool." "[Gavin] I'm not a sociologist," "perhapsyoucould explainwhy." "[Adam] Okay." "Well,I toldyouwhy ." "Why?" "[Adam] Theyhaveafamilythat puts  anemphasison education." "[Gavin] Whichisanoblething." "Anda lotof Latinos havefamilieshaveput" "emphasisoneducation." "Alot,butnot enough." "AfricanAmericans haveemphasison education." "Alot,butnot enough." "[Adam] Theirfamiliesarebrokenup." "Okay,Gavin." "Iget it." "When a white straight guy seems to..." "White?" "What's white have to do with it?" "What's white have to do with it?" "Well, you've been accused of being racist." "[Adam] Youhavetheracistfinger outallthetime." "Butthefingeryou use  forpersonalresponsibility, thatstaysup yourass !" "And they misquote you or they quote you out of context." "There's a weird, sort of mob, witch hunt mentality." "[narrator] Carollasayssomereporters recentlyconfrontedhim withaudioproof ofhissupposedracism." "♪I gotalittlepenis, Idon'tcare♪" "♪Itcanwork ifithasnohair ♪ [woman laughs]" "♪Youseeitrightthere ♪" "♪It'sin yourface...♪" "They think it's me doing a Jackie Chan voice." "They're doing the gotcha moment, except for they're not smart enough to do their research and realize that's Jo Koy who's an Asian American comedian, he's doing all the talking and making fun of the Asian American stereotype." "[Jo] Youcanjustbequiet fora second," "you'reinterrupting." "[Adam] I can't, sir, I'mtellingyou." "[Jo] Youknowwhy?" "You'repissingme off." "Youknowwhy?" " I told them, the guy who was doing the voice was Asian and they were like..." ""Well, that helps."" "[Karith] You can say whatever you want to say, but the rule in comedy is that it just has to be funny." "[narrator] Butthesedays there'sa prettybiglist oftopics thatareofflimits, topicsthatcomedians areavoiding." "Topics comedians are avoiding, it seems like you don't know what to avoid." "Racial ones are a big one for people to avoid, sexual orientation jokes, people have always avoided religion jokes," "Islam especially." "Christianity is kind of safe now." "A big taboo in the comic world would be like, gun topics because so, you know, so many school shootings and this and that, but school shootings have been happening forever, it's just they've been happening" "in bad neighborhoods first and no one cared and now that it happens in good neighborhoods, everyone is like, "Oh, you can't joke about that."" "[narrator] Andit'snotjustjokes." "Theoutragemob isalsoscaringpeopleaway  fromseriousdebate abouttabootopics." "We cannot discuss legislation on rape in this country." "We cannot discuss sex crimes on college campuses." "You can't discuss that." "[protestors shouting] [narrator] Hereprotestersshoutdown apaneldiscussion" "thataddressessexcrimes." "[woman] Get the fuck outofhere." "[narrator] Be careful discussingsuicide." "Aftershowbizlegend RobinWilliams committedsuicide, punkrocker HenryRollinswrote thatparents shouldn'tkillthemselves becauseittraumatizes theirchildren." "Henry Rollins said that Robin was selfish for doing it and blah, blah, blah, and people went after him and he had to apologize." "[Norton] We have punk rockers now fucking apologizing." "And it's like you don't owe an apology, Henry." "Even if what you said was wrong." "Even if Robin was suffering and it wasn't selfish." "I don't think you're out of line to say," ""Is this a selfish fucking thing?"" "[narrator] Ifyouchallenge society'staboos, youmightbe looking tostartadiscussion, butdon'tbe surprised ifyougetcalled namesinstead." "[Carolla] All they're gonna do is try to make you look like a bigoted, sexist, xenophobic whatever..." "You're just a privileged, white feminist bitch-- [narrator] That'showTwitterresponded toa Britishwriter, oneofthefew people whoquestioned whether JustineSacco'stweet wasreallymeant toberacist." "And she said to her shame she shut up and watched Justine's life get ripped apart." "We have to learn you can't have the exchange of ideas if there's a chilling effect." "[narrator] Achillingeffect." "It'swhenyousee others gettingshouteddown forvoicing controversialopinions andyoudecide tojustshutupyourself." "Because,whybother?" "It's like, "Hey these are opinions that people disagree with."" "Like, "Hey, United States there, buddy." "We're just one big pile historically of opinions that people disagreed with and that's fine."" "[Jon] If this climate of fear continues, what it will create is a cold conservative conformist world." "Where what we're doing is tearing apart the people who step out of line." "[narrator] MSNBC'sMartinBashir madepointedcomments aboutformerAlaskaGovernor SarahPalin." "HarvardPresident LawrenceSummersspeculated aboutwhytherearen'tmore  femalescienceprofessors." "NPR'sJuanWilliams admittedtofeelingnervous whenhesawpeopledressed inMuslimgarbonairplanes." "Theyallsteppedout ofline  anditcostthemtheirjobs." "All we're doing is training each other to lie." "Training each other to toe the company line and then sitting around like a bunch of fucking dummies going, "How come no one is honest anymore?"" "I don't know, stupid, because the last time someone told the truth, you jumped on them and tried to get them fired." "That's not more debate, more speech, more thought." "That's a form of private censorship." "And it may be legal, but it's still usually" "a dangerous bad idea." "Here." "[narrator] Thethingis  taboosarealwayschanging." "Talkingrace canbediceytoday, yearsagoit wassex  thatputeveryoneonedge ." "In1851, GynecologistJamesPlatt gotkickedout oftheAmerican MedicalAssociation afterallowing studentstowatch aconsentingwoman givebirth." "Inthe1970s, researcherVernBullough landedontheFBI 'slist ofdangerousAmericans becausehesupportedthings likelegalizingoralsex ." "Today,childbirth hasbecomealot safer because we'veopenedup aboutit andadults arenolongerarrested fororalsex." "Inotherwords, thecensorsgotitwrong." "If you're on the side of censorship, you're on the side of an arrogant idea that essentially you know where wisdom will come from and you don't know where wisdom will come from." "Gavin Newsom can come back on my show tomorrow if he likes." "The only way that we find truth in any society is through public debate." "He will never show up again because he does not wanna fucking lock antlers with someone in a long-form discussion on his policies." "Once you get into the business of saying you're going to prohibit things that people find offensive or wrongheaded, that's where the most sensitive person in society gets to determine what all the rest of us can hear." "Cars, technology, cellphones, like everything's this." "And then free speech, we're pulling it back to the '40s." "[Ron] After Lenny Bruce died something remarkable happened." "Was it a landmark Supreme Court opinion?" "No." "Was it a major act passed by the Congress?" "No." "The American culture basically came to the conclusion that never again will this or should this happen." "After Lenny Bruce died, no comedian, not a single comedian in any of the states was ever again prosecuted for obscenity in a comedy club." "That's a remarkable feat." "And I think that's why so many comedians today revere Lenny Bruce." "Guys like Pryor and Carlin acknowledged," "Lenny is the guy that kicked the fucking door open for everybody." "So, we all owe him a tremendous debt." "He was arrested for what he said." "I can't imagine that." "I can't imagine that." "But we fixed a lot of that." "Oh, my God, yeah." "We don't get arrested anymore." "Our punishment is now corporate and you lose your gig on Comedy Central or you have to apologize because you lose a movie opportunity." "When Lenny did it, it was a real penalty." "It was fucking-- it was going to jail." "Lenny Bruce was sentenced to prison 'cause people didn't like his jokes." "I should be hung." "[narrator] Theculturechangedsomuch  thateventually eventhestateofNewYork admittedhowstupid ithadbeen tobustLennyBruce." "RonCollinspartnered withfellow" "FirstAmendmentAttorney BobCorn-Revere topetition GovernorGeorgePataki toclearLenny'sname." "[Ron] I never thought there was... any chance at all that the governor would pardon Lenny." "[narrator] Itseemedimpossible." "Butthenit happened." "[Bob] This is a copy of the pardon itself." ""Therefore, know ye that I have pardoned, remised, and released and by these presents do pardon, remise and release the said Leonard Alfred Schneider aka Lenny Bruce."" "Archaic legal language that basically says" "Lenny Bruce has been pardoned." "[Ron] It was just a wonderful feeling." "I really felt that for just a pinpoint in time," "the Earth shook, just a little bit." "[narrator] Thepardoncame37years afterLenny'sdeath." "MakesyouwonderwhatLenny wouldthinkof today'sworld." "[Bob] I think he would hear people using language that he was afraid he was going to go to jail over and he would think, "My gosh, things are freer than they've ever been,"" "but at the same time he would probably be confronted with attitudes that... he wouldn't be able to get his mind around the idea that if he said something offensive that people would turn him in." "[narrator] It'sa weird,terrifying, andexhilaratingtime tobeacomedian." "Youdon'thave toworryaboutcops arrestingyouat clubs, andnewtechnology likepodcasts letsyouavoidcorporate andgovernmentauthorities." "Smartphones andsocialmedia allowyou toconnectwithfans andbuildafollowing." "Butit'sthatsame liberatingtechnology that'sfueling theoutragemob." "[Noam] We had thousands of people tweeting against us." "[narrator] TheydemandedNoamDworman stopgivingstagetime toArtieLange becausetheywereoffended byoneof hisjokes." ""New York Comedy Cellar if you don't stop using Artie Lange we're gonna bring" "the protest to you." -[Greg] Wow." "And this began to bubble up to the point where I got scared and actually pulled down all our podcasts off the-- off the air because I didn't want anybody to start researching what other kinds of jokes we might have made." "[gunshots] [narrator] Timesareespeciallytough forcomedy outsidetheU.S." "OnJanuary7th,2015 terrorists offendedbycartoons depicting theMuslimprophetMuhammad shotandkilled 11staffmembers ofthesatiricalmagazine" "CharlieHebdo attheirofficeinParis." "[Greg] The Charlie Hebdo massacre should've been a wakeup call to everyone who believes in free speech all over the world." "That you can't have a right not to be offended without it backfiring, without it being a terrible disaster." "And there was a moment when it looked like France and the European Union have learned this lesson." "[Jonathan] Hundreds of thousands of citizens of France in the streets for free speech." "You know, it's like we all take a bullet." "They killed people, but all French people take a bullet." "[Greg] But within a week of the massacre they were arresting people for cracking jokes." "They go after a comedian who kind of condones the terrorism or makes fun of it." "Now, I think that comedian's opinion stinks, but you--hey, dummies, do you want free speech or don't you?" "[narrator] AcomediancalledDieudonné wasfoundguilty ofcondoningterrorism andreceivedasuspended two-monthjailterm fora Facebookpost." "Hewrotethathefelt  "likeCharlieCoulibaly,"" "aplayon thepopular "IamCharlieHebdo"slogan thatincorporatedthename ofone oftheParisattackers." "[speaking French] [narrator] Hehasbeenrepeatedlyfined foranti-Semiticspeech andlocalauthorities havebannedhisshows inseveraltowns becausetheyseehis act  asa threatto publicorder." "I mean, yeah, you're not shooting people like the Islamic militants did, but you are arresting people." "You are penalizing people for saying shit you don't like." "France, like... all developed countries in the world except the United States has hate speech laws." "France's free speech stinks." "Canada is not great with free speech." "They have a whole human rights commission that penalizes people." "Britain kind of stinks for certain reasons." "You can get in big trouble for saying things." "[narrator] Britainjailspeople whomakecomments officialsdeem tobeoffensive, andanaccountant namedPaulChambers wasarrested fora Twitterjoke authoritiesmisconstrued asa terroristthreat." "InFrance, Dieudonné'sclashes withauthorities havefueledhispopularity andturnedhim intoa martyr." "Buttoday,moreAmericans supporthatespeechlaws thanopposethem." "Yes,thesamenation thatthinks itwasridiculous forcops toarrestLennyBruce forwords, supportslaws thatwouldallowcops toarrestpeople forwords." "[Ron] We must not be afraid to be free." "It's scary." "It really is." "And I think Lenny Bruce brought that point home in spades." "[Bob] The pardon obviously wasn't for Lenny Bruce even though it was done in his name." "The pardon was really for the rest of us to stand as sort of a public monument to the values that we protect." "We do protect the outcasts." "We do protect the people who are there and who will offend us." "If we can protect those people, then all of us can sleep a little safer at night because we know that we will be able to express our ideas, too." "At the end of the day it's not like we have all of the high cards when it comes to truth, morality, patriotism, what have you." "We need a few wild cards, we need a few code breakers, we need a few people that are willing if you will to jerk our chains, all right?" "In other words, we need more Lenny Bruces." "[Mel] Youfuckingoffendme." "Andyoudon'tcare aboutanyonebutyourself." "[Gilbert] I remember when all the news stories came out about Mel Gibson being arrested for drunk driving." "The police woman was Jewish and he started saying stuff about the Jews." "Then he started to say stuff calling her sugar tits." "Then he started saying like, that a group of African Americans, only he didn't use the term African Americans, should rape and kill his wife or he was going to kill her, hitting her with a shovel" "and burying her in the rose garden." "And after all that came out, all I could think is," ""Wait a minute, what did he say about the Jews?"" "So, I think people like to pick and choose what to get offended by." "I think being offended is a smorgasbord and you go, "Okay, I like this and this." "Oh, that I'm offended by, oh, this is good, no, that one I'm offended."" "Well, liberals are offended by certain things." "Blacks are offended by certain things." "Women are offended by certain things." "White Christian males are offended by certain things." "We're all offended by whatever violates our comfort zone." "[narrator] Ifcomedianssteeredclear ofanythingthatviolates someone'scomfortzone, imaginewhatthecomedyshows ofthefuturewouldbelike." "[Jonathan] One of the first things you know when a society is turning authoritarian is the comedians start to worry." "When they start going for the comedians everyone else needs to sweat." "Do you really want to live in a world where people have to think twice before they tell any kind of joke, or question someone else's religion, or question anybody at any level?" "Because if you're going to say one person, you know, who said something that you don't like, doesn't have the right to do that, then what about you?" "What if you say something that someone doesn't like?" "Along with the right to speak freely comes a responsibility to have a thick skin." "Words can be hurtful but they're not the same as violence and they can be countered with other words." "And that's our responsibility." "It's the responsibility to put up with being offended." "[narrator] So,whereareweheaded?" "Willweembrace freespeech orwillwe turn towardAmerica'spast andEurope'spresent andarrestpeople forwordcrimes?" "[Greg] The idea of a future in which we're all always walking on eggshells does not appeal to me." "When I look ahead I see America increasingly standing alone as committed to the First Amendment in law." "And I don't think we're ever gonna get better with it." "This whole thing, like, every time something big happens we're like," ""Oh, tide's about to turn."" "It's never going to change." "It's gonna keep going downhill." "[Greg] There was this huge study that's done every year and they ask citizens whether or not they think the First Amendment went too far." "47% of people between the ages of 18 and 30 said the First Amendment goes too far." "This is terrifying to those of us who care about free speech and the future of free speech." "Everybody says, "I love free speech." "I love free thought, I love free expression,"" "but deep down they're all going," ""Except for when, except for when."" "There's always that little asterisk, as to--it doesn't-- that doesn't apply here." "But you might be interested in how I became offensive." "[narrator] Youknow,acomedianchanged thecultureonce, maybecomedians willdoit again." "[Lisa] We're not backing down." "I mean, we're not gonna quit anytime soon." "And I think-- I think people are a little, like... sick of these politically correct folks." "I like to think that really the majority of people do have a brain in their heads and aren't getting offended if they hear a joke." "I used to not invite my friends that had herpes to this all girl stand-up show that I did because this one girl that I performed with had a really, really funny herpes joke." "I'm, like, so codependent that I thought," ""God, I'm just gonna see my friend in the audience and she's gonna talk about herpes and I know she has herpes." "And that'll really hurt her feelings."" "So, I didn't invite her to several shows." "And then all of a sudden she was at the show and here is the girl I'm performing with does the herpes stuff and I was like, "Oh, no!"" "And I look out and she's laughing harder than anyone." "My double D sister over there!" "[narrator] Karith Foster isstillusingcomedy tostart honestconversations oncampus andstudentsgeekout  onfreespeech atconferencesorganized byGregLukianoff's organization." "ChrisLeehasgraduated fromcollege andnowAIDS andcancercharitieshirehim totellfilthyjokes attheirevents." "[Chris] They don't go, "Ugh, that joke ruined my night."" "Because it can't." "They beat cancer." "[narrator] Theworldof comedy isoneof thefew places whereplaying theoutragecard doesn'tworktoowell." "Thankgoodness, plentyofus  canstillgetoffended withouthavingameltdown." "Andthankgoodness, somanyof us  canstilltakeajoke ." "To get all these emails saying," ""Oh, my God, we'll be the four gay guys in the front." "Please call us this or call us that."" "I have guys come up to me on the street and say," ""Hey, call my friend and call them this"" "or "Call my wife and call her the 'C' word." "She'll--she loves you."" "'Cause I've had handicapped people come up to me or write me letters saying," ""I think it's bullshit that you don't make fun of us." "Like, we can't take a joke?"" "The race to be the most outraged is really, really awful stuff, but you're not gonna be talking about this in 20 years." "Yeah, this will be completely fixed." "We have to scream at it and stand on the mountaintops and have no fear and yell," ""You cannot put a chilling effect on our freedom of speech." "But, oh, by the way, keep in mind while we're doing this that we're gonna win."" "[music]"