Topic: Performing Arts
Performers & Heckler
There is a big hullabaloo on the news about a Stage Comic, Michael Richards’, insulting the hecklers in the audience, and I for one think the blame is being placed on the wrong person.
Let us look at the situation that existed. There is the audience of say one or two hundred people. These people paid good money to come to this theater or club to be entertained by the performers on stage. Then we have the performer(s) who have written and practiced their routine so they can entertain the audience. Then we have the management who provide the building and furnishings to a comfortable locale to provide the paying customers a place to sit and enjoy the show, and the performers to have a safe and well-lit place to put on their act.
And the way it is supposed to happen is the audience has paid good money to be entertained, the performers have been paid to provide the entertainment, and the Management has been well paid to provide the location for the entertainment to take place, and everyone benefits.
But now we add a different quotient to the setting, Hecklers. The people who came to heckle did not come to enjoy the show, but came to interrupt the show and heckle and cajole the performer and do everything they can think of, if in fact they are capable of thinking at all, to interfere and ruin the performance. The hecklers are by nature Rude, Crude, Inconsiderate, and insensitive of other peoples ability and enjoyment of the entertainment being provided. The Hecklers quite often think of themselves as better entertainers than those on stage, but in my estimation only demonstrate their lack of education, and show their level of stupidity and their lack of consideration of the rights of others.
My question is why didn’t the paying audience tell the heckler(s) to quiet down so the show could go on? Why didn’t the Ushers or Bouncers go to the area and tell the interrupters to be quiet? Why didn’t the Management go to the heckler and demand they either be quiet or leave? Why didn’t the Management escort the interrupters of the show out the door and refund their admission?
My other problem is with the news commentators blaming the Stand-Up Comic rather than the instigators of the problem, the Hecklers. I would like to know how well those High and Mighty News protractors would do with someone heckling them, and well over a hundred people were watching with no one supporting them and no one taking their side? Why is it that none of these news pundits are not putting the blame where it belongs, with the rude, crude, arrogant, insensitive jerks who interrupted everyone else’s enjoyment of the show? I wonder how well these thoughtful intelligent well spoken purveyors of news and insightful commentary would accept it if I were to start testing my brand new Pneumatic Jack Hammer right behind them as they started to give their broadcast, so not a word they uttered could be heard? You can bet your Bippy that none of their comments directed toward me would ever be heard in any Church Sermon, and would be broadcast on TV as about a continuous steady twenty-two minute Beeeeep
I wish the many people who are blaming Mr. Richards, would put themselves in the place of Mr. Richards, and reflect on how they would react in a similar situation, before casting stones at him and blaming him for other people’s rude behavior and indiscretions.
