"The enigma of Lenny Bruce"

Comedian Lenny Bruce has always been something of an enigma. Some compared him to the famous satirist Jonathan Swift, who was a moralist and who endeavoured to uncover the hypocrisy of various situations arising out of society. His defence attorneys even pointed out "he was not a mad man writing dirty words on the walls of a public toilet. He was an original social critic with an unconventional vocabulary."

Others, however, including some well known journalists, perceived him as a "sick comedian" with a foul mouth, whose commentaries using filthy, obnoxious, depraved and obscene language pertaining to religion, race, sex, and government were of no social value.

The dilemma-was he not protected under the First Amendment of the American Constitution pertaining to freedom of speech, notwithstanding his shocking language?

Authors Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover, two attorneys and experts on the First Amendment, have authored a book entitled The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon. This is the first comprehensive and carefully documented account of Lenny Bruce's career and free speech struggles.

Bruce had been involved in at least eight obscenity arrests, and had been subjected to six-obscenity court cases conducted in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York over a span of four years involving some 3,500 pages of trial transcripts.

For the most part, they all focused on so called "word crimes" concentrating on the following principal legal issues:

-Were his routines steeped in "bitter social criticism" of unquestionable value?

-Was his use of course language sexually arousing to the audience?

-If the words were non-erotic, how could they have been obscene? As mentioned, something is not necessarily obscene merely because it is in bad taste, shocking, disgusting, stupid, vulgar, embarrassing, immoral or offensive?

-Does the dominant appeal of the material used, taken as a whole, have a substantial tendency to deprave or corrupt the average person by inciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desires?

-Did his use of "dirty words" corrupt the morals of youth or others, when you consider that under age persons were not permitted to attend the performances?

-Should an artist's use of word-taboos be judged, at least in significant part, by community standards?

To better understand the power of Bruce's performances and all of the above legal questions, the authors have cleverly included a CD narrated by one of Bruce's most adamant supporters, Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, highlighting some of his performances and trials. The CD also contains interviews with some of his ardent defenders, George Carlin, Hugh Hefner and Margaret Cho, and as a contrast, interviews with some of his prosecutors.

Lenny Bruce died a tragic figure. He never lived to see the day where the courts recognized that comedians should not be imprisoned for their words. As the authors state, "the life of Lenny Bruce is a great cautionary tale about why First Amendment freedom must be the rule rather than the exception."

This is a must read book for defenders of the First Amendment, who will not be disappointed with its meticulous research and easy to understand analysis of the pertinent legal issues.

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Courtesy Bookpleasures
Posted January 16, 2003