Dueling with Depression: Offensive Comedy as a Remedy

Disclaimer:  I’ve been asked to censor some of the offensive verbiage, including George Carlin’s 7 dirty words.  The irony is so thick, I could make molasses.  

I worked as a night auditor at a downtown hotel to put myself through college. It was a great gig in some ways: I never had to worry about scheduling shifts around my classes; on slow nights I would read; and I didn’t have to get involved in the office politics during the day.

Conversely, I never really got any sleep during the week; I had to deal with a lot of drunk, antagonistic guests; and I was constantly on the sharp end of people’s hate.

I heard the words fagg*t, nigg*r, and all the other colorful pejoratives hurled around at the staff by drunk guests almost weekly — usually because we wouldn’t serve alcohol at 3am or (my favorite) because we refused a refund after a guest’s prostitute stole his wallet.

“It happened-d in your hotel-l,” one guest told me in drunk-speak. “It’s y-your responsibility.”

Many of these guests, mind you, traveled often, spending large sums of money with the hotel, which means they did this with impunity. I always joked that no matter how good I felt about life, my cynicism would be reinforced nightly by that job.

I’d usually just ignore the hateful banter of drunk guests, but one night someone at the front desk called me a fagg*t and I lost my cool. I walked around the desk, pointing at him and screaming, “This man hates homosexuals!” The other guests in the lobby just stared at their feet uncomfortably or walked away.

But it was only later that I realized I’d reacted exactly the way that man wanted me to. He was vomiting his hate to antagonize others, and succeeded. I allowed some stranger to take control of my behavior and disposition, allowed it to color my perspective and contribute to my own depression.

Since then, I’ve taught myself not to be so reactive (it takes work), which is why I’m confused and even concerned when I see others in an almost constant state of being offended by content that isn’t even meant to be hateful or mean — and comedy is a great example.

Louis C.K. has a wonderfully offensive bit about the use of the word fagg*t and how, when he was a kid, it was never used as a pejorative against gays. “I would never call a gay guy a fagg*t, unless he was being a fagg*t, but not because he’s gay. Like, if I saw two guys blowing each other, I would be respectful to them. I would, you know: ‘Hello, gentlemen.’ Whatever.”

Surely someone who hears that bit without any context or understanding of Louis’ intent would be offended. Even knowing his context and intent, some might still be upset. But for me, as a gay guy who’s been attacked on several occasions with that very same word, I laughed the first time I heard that bit. Still do.

Being in a constant mental state of “waiting-to-be-offended” by the word f*ggot (in any use) only contributes to my struggle with depression. When I learned to laugh at the absurdity regarding the importance we place on pejoratives, I rob that very verbiage of its power.

Yet we have college campuses trying to censor controversial speech of any kind, regardless of intent or context. I see comedians being banned from the very institutions where free thought and challenging ideas were once encouraged.

Jerry Seinfeld, who doesn’t even curse in his bits, has said in interviews he avoids performing at college campuses because they are too PC.  Chris Rock told New York magazine that colleges were too conservative, stating “you can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.”

And what kind of impact does this have on students struggling with depression?

“A campus culture devoted to policing speech and punishing speakers is likely to engender patterns of thought that are surprisingly similar to those long identified by cognitive behavioral therapists as causes of depression and anxiety,” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt write in The Atlantic. “The new protectiveness may be teaching students to think pathologically.”

The article argues that colleges are coddling students by trying to protect them from offensive language or controversial ideas to avoid so-called triggers. But for me, avoiding books like Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway because its “suicidal inclinations” only contributes to suicidal tendencies.

Censorship, regardless of whether the intent is to protect, only exacerbates the real problems of hate speech and in a way subsidizes depression, giving it more avenues to manifest itself.

And I refuse to allow my emotional well-being to be controlled by language (which isn’t always easy). I welcome the social commentary afforded by comedians who challenge what are essential socially-constructed policies (both on the left and the right), not moral absolutes.

For decades, comedians have used the antithesis of PC culture to deconstruct the zeitgeist regarding linguistics overall—one in particular taking that conversation all the way to the Supreme Court.

“There are some people who would have you not use certain words,” says George Carlin in his 1972 album, Class Clown.  “Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are 7 of them that you can’t say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They’d have to be outrageous, to be separated from a group that large.”

And what were those seven words?  Sh*t, piss, f*ck, c*nt, cocksucker, motherf*cker, and tits. *cue laugh track. “Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.”

Anti-PC humor is an excellent prescription for my mental health (with no side-effects), and not expecting to be livid every time I hear something I don’t agree with has to say has been incredibly liberating.

So the next time you see two guys blowing each other, be sure to be respectful and say, “Hello, gentleman.” And the next time you hear the word fagg*t, know that it only has the power to curve your spine and infect your soul if you allow it.