The monumental Gilbert Gottfried, a comic surrealist of the highest order and a onetime Hollywood Elsewhere follower (back in ’05, that is, when I was writing with great fervor about Gilbert’s astounding telling of the Aristocrats joke) has passed after a long illness.
The poor guy, whose stock in trade was elevating manic-bawdy tastelessness into a Picasso-level art form, was only 67.
The wokesters will never admit it, but they’re almost certainly delighted that Gottfried’s voice has been stilled. Gottfried in his heyday represented the kind of rude, ridiculous, no-holds-barred and totally brilliant humor that wokesters live to despise and suppress.
Posted on 9.14.17: The idea in this Gilbert Gottfried doc is that you can present an agreeable, relatively mellow front with your friends, pets, neighbors and family members, and then become (i.e., revert to) a somewhat more pointed and aggressive personality when you’re “on” — performing, writing, acting or what-have-you. To some extent all writers and/or performers understand this dynamic.
Gottfried’s “fag” jokes were delivered (I think) at the 2008 George Takei at the Friar’s Club. Note to fanatics: I’ve used the “f” word in this paragraph because 14 years ago Gottfried used it without reservation during his act. I myself would never use the “f” word — Matt Damon used it when he was a kid, and I suppose I might have also. But I haven’t used it in decades, and I’m very, very, very sorry that I used it at all back in the 20th Century.