Have you ever watched South Park?
Have you seen any Friar’s Club roasts in the last five years? Anyway I don’t remember you restricting the question to jokes about gays.
I already gave you Lisa Lampanelli’s name, and Sarah Silverman (despite once getting in trouble over a joke about Asian people) is very popular.
The comparison to Imus is baloney, by the way. Imus didn’t get the heat he got just for being “politically incorrect” in a general way, but because he specifically insulted a group of real people who had done nothing to deserve it.
I actually think that Howard Stern gets away with worse stuff than Imus all the time (at least he used to before he went to satellite. I don’t know what he’s like now). I also think that Stern might genuinely be a racist. I think he’s definitely a misogynist.
Or “Larry the Cable Guy”, which I imagine is right up the OP’s alley.
-Joe
I honestly thought this thread was going to be about survivability of car wrecks now that air bags are common place. :dubious:
The bits I googled were almost exactly this, he’d spend half the act talking about his ex-wives and another half making fun of Jesus and preachers.
This is getting a little silly, we’ve had 20 odd people come in and say that they can’t see any reason why Kinison’s act wouldn’t fly today and the OP hasn’t yet given an example of why it wouldn’t. I think he’s misremembering what was in Kinison’s act.
I was young at the time, but were the early 90’s really wildly more permissive about racist talk then today? I seem to remember to people complaining about the “PC police” back then to. And it seems to me that TV and radio have become more permissive about just about everything over the last few decades, hell The Simpsons used to be contraversial back in the day.
Are there any acts that did well back then (late 80’s early 90’s) that wouldn’t do well today because of racist or mysogynistic content. We already mentioned Clay, but he got himself banned back then to.
I think there are ways to joke about race and sexuality without without being cruel or insulting. Dave Chappelle was brilliant at playing on racial differences and stereotypes without ever coming off as hurtful or hostile. If anything, he came off as affectionate.
Imus’s comments were just mean and gratuitous. I do think some of the response he got was a little overheated. I really don’t think Imus is racist, I think he was trying to sound hip and street and it REALLY didn’t work. When I first read the comments, I found them more sexist than racist (why should a women’s basketball team be demeaned for their looks?) but mostly they came off as cruel and mean and uncalled for.
Blech.
There are a great many comedians who get by on this material:
“Hey, how about those [people that don’t look like me and the majority of my audience]? What is UP with those people anyway? I mean, they all totally [broad generally-accepted stereotype]! I mean, you can’t go to [place where butt of joke stereotypically hangs out] without seeing all this [over-the-top visual impersonation of stereotype; voice impression of butt of joke speaking in stereotypical manner about subject presumed to be important to all members of butt of joke’s group]! I mean, SERIOUSLY! Can someone here please explain that to me? [wink at audience, repeat visual impersonation]”
Sam Kinison’s bit was women, sometimes “foreigners.”
Chris Rock’s is white people.
Carlos Mencia’s is white people (or, refreshingly, stereotypes of any people).
One of Bill Cosby’s was children.
Jeff Foxworthy’s is “rednecks.”
Sam Kinison would have found his outlet and his niche today, just like he did back then. It probably would have been about the same size today as it was then, which is to say, not very big, but with a rabid following.
I think you’re overestimating the success Kinison had and underestimating the level of resistance to him and its effect on his success. Kinison was about as popular as Mitch Hedberg.
It was kind of a vicious circle. Nobody protested Kinison much because he just wasn’t that mainstream popular. Had he become more so, he might have been protested more and that might have impacted his bookings, but your question is flawed because Kinison is not the best example, even in a vacuum, much less in comparison to Imus.
I’m not sure whether you want to make a free speech argument here, but, as others have eloquently pointed out, you don’t have one. Economics doomed Imus, not the government. Lack of traction with the general public doomed Kinison, not the government. Kinison was off the air then and Imus is off the air now for the same reason: advertisiers couldn’t make enough money to justify giving them a forum that big and expensive. The difference between the two is that people voted affirmatively against Imus and passively against Kinison.
I used to work with Sam Kinnison at the Comedy Store, I even stayed at his condo in San Diego, I can assure you, that if you magically transported Sam to the year 2007 at the beginning of his comedy career, as long as he had access to cocaine, he’d be as big a success today if not bigger.
Sure he could survive: Ralphie May
I laughed.
As an aside, I disagree with Diogenes about Howard Stern. I find him neither racist nor misogynistic. He definitely revels in stereotypes, but that’s not the same thing. Personally, I feel like he exhibits a lot of affection for women in general.
Would Sam Kinison survive today? Sure- but he’d never be hired to host a mass market morning radio program.
Kinison would still have an appreciative audience, one that came to is live performances, that knew the kind of humor it was going to hear, and wouldn’t be offended by it. He could still have success with pay-per-vew concerts, or on satellite radio.
But he’d never last on a mainstream AM or FM radio station, just as Imus no longer can.
Sarah Silverman sez even more outragous things that Kinison at his worst, and about some extremely taboo topics, and “gets away with it”. The difference is- do people think that is “all just an act” or “he/she really means it”. Silverman has a real knack for saying these things in such a way that no one with half a brain thinks she is being serious.
When Michael Richards went off on his rant, it was pretty clear those were his real feelings, and those feelings were racist.
As to Imus, I don’t know. He is perfectly capable of saying something that outragous just for the loads of press it will bring him- and note the dozen or so threads just here on the SDMB about this one remark. I think we have been “whooshed” by an expert. :smack:
Well, that’s the clincher, isn’t it? NOBODY in show business uses or has access to cocaine these days. 
As for Sarah Silverman, she not only gets away with it because she’s obviously not serious, but also because she’s red hot. Sam and Imus could say anything if they were that good looking. And both having big man boobs doesn’t count because they are, uh, MAN boobs.