In America, we have the right to protest anything we want. The First Amendment, in its infinite wisdom, gives all Americans the right to peaceable assembly. If you feel that something is unjust or unfair or unfunny, you most certainly have the right to assemble and show your disdain.
There is however, an inherent problem in this, because, when you get down to it, protests don't actually work.
My personal favorite example of this occurred in 1921, when a bunch of coal miners from West Virginia crawled out of the mines and demanded that they get things like money and safe tunnels that didn't collapse and entomb them. After several days of standing outside, holding signs, the U.S. Army showed up and shot them until the miners realized they had a better chance for survival in the mines.
Later, in 1981, 85 percent of America's air traffic controllers went on strike. Subsequently, Ronald Reagan got pissed (because there was nobody to land the planes) so the pilots just kept circling and circling, until they eventually ran out of fuel and landed in a field, which upset the passengers and several cows. Reagan then gave the air traffic controllers an ultimatum: get back to work in 72 hours or you're fired. Only 1,200 of the 13,000 strikers returned to work, and hence, the rest were fired.
Last weekend, our campus was graced with a visit from Larry the Cable Guy, who performed his second show at Emens Auditorium within the last three years. One would assume that because he had been asked back to Muncie so soon that he is considered quite popular here, but this is not the case.
On the night of Larry the Cable guy's show, several protestors, holding homemade signs, stood at the scramble light outside of Emens and protested "unfunniness." They held these signs that said things like, "Don't Get R Done" and "Shut Up Larry" and stood out in the cold, trying to convince patrons of the show that what they were about to see was not worth the price of the ticket.
I'm not saying that the U.S. Army should have shown up and shot at the protestors until they stopped, but it would have made a little more sense for the picketers to have picked a better battle. Everybody walking into that show was willing to spend forty dollars on a ticket to see Larry the Cable Guy - they obviously thought that he was a funny comedian. Trying to convince this audience otherwise is a futile effort.
It's like standing outside Wal-Mart with signs trying to convince people walking in that Wal-Mart is overrunning our country like a plague. It wouldn't do any good, because everyone knows that Wal-Mart is innately evil, but until someone else starts selling hot dogs for less, we're going to keep shopping there.
I agree with the protestors on a basic level: Larry the Cable Guy really isn't that funny. He's one of those passing fads that we have to put up with for about five years, like snap-bracelets or Paul Reiser.
Larry the Cable Guy doesn't need a bunch of students helping along the demise of his career; he can do that himself. Protesting Larry's unfunniness is easy: Don't watch his show; don't see his movies; don't go to his shows - it's that simple.
Mitch Hedberg, who, unlike Larry the Cable Guy, is a funny comedian, used to tell a joke that went, "I'm against protesting, but I don't know how to show it." And Mitch was right: there're better things to do than to stand outside in the snow and berate people.
Write to Paul at pjmetz@bsu.edu
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