Roseanne, Samantha Bee, NOFX, and the Lenny Test

I hadn't heard Planet of the Apes used as a slur since Spike Lee's 1989 Do the Right Thing. 

Roseanne has apologized for the tweet that prompted ABC to (wrongly) cancel her show. And she's indicated the fan encouragement she's received has inspired her to continued television effort.

She did concede wrong, did apologize. Shouldn't that sort of turnaround be accepted, if not celebrated as a victory for the right thing?

Meanwhile, those howling about Roseanne while high-fiving liberal celebrities of foul tongue are selective moralists of a contemptible variety. There are great differences between Roseanne's case and others.

Roseanne made a vile comment on her own time, on her personal Twitter feed, and promptly apologized.

Nonetheless, ABC fired her.

During a recent segment of her TBS Full Frontal show, Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt."

Unlike Roseanne, Bee exclaimed her slur on channel time, on her cable-broadcast television platform, and apologized only after an uproar ensued.

TBS has remained silent.

I'm a longtime Lenny Bruce fan, so I always give such comments the Lenny Test: If he'd said it in the 1960s, would I find it funny, or at least acceptable as an edgy observation? 

In these cases, no. Roseanne's tweet had no redeeming value. There is a terrible historical record of linking blacks to apes. Roseanne surely is smart enough to understand such comparisons should be avoided, even if echoing odious precedent is not the speaker's intent.

The bratty Bee's potty-mouthed name-calling wasn't humorous even in a risky way. It just reeked.

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I've been a Ramones fan since their 1970s debut. Their songs about mental illness, pinheads, cretins, and shock treatment were outsider-funny, pop/punk gems. But they wouldn't find mainstream favor in prim PC circles.

And many psychobilly bands I follow deal in ghastly and grisly lyrical themes of cheap horror movie tenor. They are far more 'objectionable' than anything Roseanne ever tweeted.

When considering creative works, whether songs, books, films, or comedic monologues, it's crucial to remember that reality and fantasy are distinct. Merely because an author conceives of something doesn't mean that they in reality sympathize with it.

To raise an extreme example: Mary Shelley's having written Frankenstein didn't indicate that she thought digging up corpses and stitching them together was a good thing in real life.

This is why I find unconvincing conservatives critical of pro-gun control celebrities who star in ammo-flying action films. There is no conflict. Reality/fantasy. Al Gore circling the globe in private jets to speak at green events -- now, that's conflict. Reality/reality.

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The band NOFX just lost tour sponsorship after making onstage jokes about the Las Vegas massacre. They've learned that rebelliousness and domestic suitability are mutually exclusive. 

As I noted earlier, I'm a longtime fan of the Ramones, as well as many 1970s punk bands like the Dictators, Dead Boys, and Sex Pistols.

None of them were mainstream, or compromised toward mass acceptance. (Some might have, had that been a reasonable possibility, but that's another conversation.) They truly were bad boys, uncaring about propriety and mannerly standards.

NOFX apparently wanted to be both outside polite society and beneficiaries of its corporate patronage. They've now learned that's not possible.