This New York Times article by Alex Williams about the history and psychology of the heckler from Shakespeare’s time to the present was sent in by Scott Pellegrino. Both artists and their critics are grappling with First Amendment freedom of speech issues… and bad manners.
Rise of the Takedown
by Alex Williams
The New York Times
April 8, 2007
To Alicia Estrada, a professor of Central American studies who was ejected from a screening of Mel Gibson”s “Apocalypto” last month after grilling him about the historical accuracy of that Maya epic, which he directed, she was not a “heckler,” as Mr. Gibson”s representatives called her, but a dutiful academic asking of him what she asks of students in her classroom.
To Kyle Doss, an audience member who helped spark Michael Richards”s tirade at a Los Angeles comedy club last November by yelling “You”re not funny” following a racially charged joke, he was not a heckler, but a champion of tolerance. “I think freedom of speech should have some kind of limit,” Mr. Doss later told a reporter.
To Jean Sara Rohe, one of the students who assailed Senator John McCain about Iraq at his commencement address at the New School last May, she was not a heckler, as newspapers later called her, but a crusader for peace, doing what her “conscience called for.”
For decades, hecklers who railed at entertainers, politicians and athletes were confined to the margins “” Continue reading “The times they are a’changin’?”
