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| Review by Guy Benoit |
One of the main criticisms of political correctness is that it insists that the offended be allowed to dictate the intention and extent of his or her perceived injury. It works under the supposition that all insult emerges from ignorance; that the offending party was unintelligent or unsophisticated; and that re-education be implemented once proper apologies have been made.
The founders of National Lampoon, Douglas Clark Kenny and Henry Beard, were Harvard kids who, within two years of graduating, published Bored Of The Rings, a stinging parody of J.R.R. Tolkien that sold 750,000 copies.
They were smart guys who really liked make people laugh, and who didn’t give a fuck who it bothered. What set them apart from mere class clowns was their bracing, encompassing intellect and their view that satire was an innately hostile act.
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon describes how Kenney and Beard created a magazine whose raison d’être was to dispassionately observe how much bad taste a joke could bear before collapsing. Reverberating with arrogance and superiority, the brilliant staff at National Lampoon (Kenney, Beard, Anne Beatts, Michael O’Donoghue, Chris Miller, PJ O’Rourke, Michael Gross) savaged both The Vietnam War and the anti-war movement. They ran meticulously detailed Volkswagen ads built around Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick disaster (“If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he’d be president, today!” read the copy beneath the photo of a buoyant Bug.)
They were geniuses who were out to make people laugh or piss people off. Whichever side you were on was up to you.
The largely Catholic or WASP writers at National Lampoon looked to the brilliant Lenny Bruce’s smartass Jewish outsider’s perspective (particularly his bits like “How To Relax And Colored Friends At Parties” and “Let Me Explain Jewish and Goyish To You”) and scrupulously removed any sense of social righteousness. Bruce’s barbed underdog commentary was replaced by an equally revolutionary parody/evocation of a drunk millionaire complaining about the help at a cocktail party. The writers at Lampoon, at the outset of the anti-comedy tradition, inhabited outrageous humor and never broke character.
The film consists of plenty of interviews, all of which are entertaining. Surprises include a humble and visibly melancholy Chevy Chase discussing the talents of Kenney and his own arch-rival, John Belushi.
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon will be of interest to two possibly-overlapping groups of people: big fans of ‘underground comedy’ of the 1970s; and people who think that any subject is fair game for satire.
Figure out which group you’re in and give it a look.
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