Elayne Riggs (who has a wonderful weblog, by the way) writes to suggest I write a response to the article Christopher Hitchens wrote for Slate, which says little more than that Bob Hope was never very funny. I don't think I will, and for two reasons…
1. Hitchens, like many authors of all stripes, has never struck me as particularly ingenuous. I think he writes that which he thinks is outrageous enough to get attention. His well-known hit piece on Mother Teresa was amazingly bald on substance, but it helped to cut Hitchens away from the herd. He sure never convinced me it had any other purpose. Coming out now and saying "Bob Hope wasn't a good comedian" is easy and irreverent and largely meaningless. So Christopher Hitchens — a man of no known credentials in the fields of comedy or entertainment criticism — didn't find the guy funny. So what? A gutsier, more substantive dance on Mr. Hope's grave is presently being performed by Bill Maher, who is now mentioning on talk shows what was well-rumored in Hollywood for years; that Hope's posture as a good husband and symbol of family values was, by and large, a fiction that the press helped him maintain. That the media does this for some and not others is a topic of some importance. But Hitchens' piece isn't important at all. It's just an article that claims he has better taste than the millions of people who laughed at Bob Hope.
2. Some criticisms aren't worth writing, let alone rebutting, and I've always felt "he isn't funny" is usually one of them. If a guy's on stage and people are laughing at what he's saying, he's funny. End of argument. It's like you measure two people, find that one is 6'1" and the other is 6'5" and then go on insisting that the first guy is taller. In terms of comedy, you can certainly criticize something as tasteless, derivative, plagiarized, condescending or cowardly…and Hitchens' assertions that Hope's moves were "safe and antique" are correct, but only with regard to recent years. Hope's early moves weren't safe. Breaking the fourth wall, mentioning the competition, riffing on his sponsor and other brazen things he did in radio and movies were anything but safe. By and large, they became safe about the time Hope reached Legend Status, but he didn't change his act. Everyone else just caught up with him.
Thereafter, sure, he did safe, offend-no-one material. That was what audiences wanted from him. They didn't want innovative and edgy, anymore than they want Tony Bennett to bag that San Francisco song and become a rapmaster.
I have never believed that success equals quality or even that it doesn't. But long-term success clearly counts for something, and it counts especially in comedy, where failure is painfully obvious. When no one laughs, you've failed. And when audiences laugh as much as they laughed at Hope, it's kind of pointless to dismiss him as "an unfunny man," which is why I don't want to take Elayne up on her suggestion.
Oh, wait. I guess I just did.