Provocation and Transgression

National Post ^ | 30 Jan 2015 | Joseph Brean

[Rummyfan]

Edgy humour is not just getting easier, it is getting worse.

Mark Steyn, the conservative writer, made this observation as he toured the Art Gallery of Ontario’s exhibit on the cartoonist Art Spiegelman, who is a comic defender of free speech from the political left, as Mr. Steyn is from the right.

From The Interview, which cashes in on the diminishing returns of gross-out humour, to The Vagina Monologues, which was edgy in the ’90s but is now seen as insensitive to transgender women, the counterculture has been so effective at “hollowing out” the real culture that there is barely anything left to counter, he said.

“The boundaries are narrower than they were,” Mr. Steyn said, citing for example two recent scandals that would have barely registered 20 years ago: Benedict Cumberbatch’s use of the word “coloured” for “black,” and Billy Crystal’s thought that gay love scenes on television are “pushing it.”

“Now everybody cares about everything,” Mr. Steyn said. “In that kind of world, I think being transgressive is actually easier.”