It's hard to say George Carlin was subversive when he was flat out aggressive with pretty much no attempt to sneak through any sort of idea that he could, inste

It's hard to say George Carlin was subversive when he was flat out aggressive with pretty much no attempt to sneak through any sort of idea that he could, instead, thwack you with. Late in his life, he went full rantsona, for instance his American Dream content. "There's a special club, and you ain't in it!" He wasn't joking, and wasn't wrong. I don't think it counts as subversive anymore when you're just going that hard. Nobody's gonna be fooled, they'll sign up or they'll peace out. To my mind, being properly subversive means getting over with the people… you can't really flip the table unless your feet are under it. Yeah, Richard Pryor was utterly subversive. He could seduce anybody with the openness of his comedy, but it meant something and the real target might not have been what it looked like it was.