Here’s a name many readers haven’t heard for a while, if ever: Jack Benny.
Benny was a star of vaudeville, radio and television, with a few movies thrown in for good measure. During a career that spanned decades, he was listened to and watched by millions of people. He and his writers helped to create the template for the modern sitcom.
Benny’s traits were so well known that they easily generated laughs. His character was cheap, played the violin poorly, and wore a bad toupee. Variations on situations involving these flaws were endless.
Similarly, Benny’s supporting cast had foibles, real and purported, that could be mined for comedy gold. Mary Livingstone, the female lead, often read letters from her less-sophisticated mother and sister. His announcer, Don Wilson, was overweight and often disparaged his boss. The orchestra members never passed a bar they didn’t lean against, leading to hundreds of drunken-musician riffs. His valet, Rochester, played by Eddie Anderson (the first Black actor to have a recurring role on a national radio show), was a long-suffering commentator on Benny’s stinginess.
The program’s central conceit was that Jack and his cast were rehearsing for their show. The actors played themselves, but with differences: Benny’s character was single, for example, because it led to more gags about dating, even though he and Livingstone were married in real life. The show was meta before meta was a thing.
Today, Benny’s star has dimmed. While reruns are available on satellite radio (where I listen) and the internet, fewer and fewer people recognize the situations, the skits and the genius as the years between his heyday and our time grow.
The same is true for many once-famous actors, singers, writers, athletes and politicians who may once have been household names but whose reputations, through no fault of their own, did not survive successive generations.
Where legacy and fame are concerned, most celebrities and creative folks have a shelf-life slightly longer than powdered milk. (Which is about 18 months, by the way).
All of which is a long-winded way of saying this: Cancel culture, which has become a political flashpoint in the last few months, isn’t worth the consideration we give it. Time cancels most people and works, with or without our help. Who is to say that what is popular today will merit more than a footnote in the history books 100 years from now?
It might sound ridiculous, but there is no guarantee that future music aficionados will recall Elvis with much fondness. Millions upon millions of copies of James Patterson’s novels are headed for landfills, along with smaller quantities of works by writers far more profound. Even the brilliance of a Shakespeare, a Bach, an O'Keeffe or a Morrison will not survive the sun’s supernova, which is too damn depressing to think about for too long.
The fickle and happenstance nature of fame and reputation is a point I make with my students (too often, as it is something of an idée fixe with me). Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote for a popular audience in the 1800s and died under a cloud of scandal and mystery, somehow transcended his era and is still read today. Herman Melville found popular acclaim, yet it wasn’t until he wrote “Moby Dick,” a novel that was ignored during his lifetime (except by readers who used it as an example of why he should return to writing travel memoirs), that he achieved literary immortality.
Most of these writers’ contemporaries, justly or unjustly, more talented or less talented, are forgotten.
When conservatives worry about the Far Left canceling some of Dr. Seuss’ racially insensitive work (nevermind that it was the writer’s literary executors who made that call) or municipalities pulling down statues of Confederate heroes (an oxymoron, that), they forget that time has a way of making its own harsh judgments.
It’s a valuable lesson for progressives, too. Percy Shelly’s sonnet “Ozymandias'' captures the sentiment — the “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” and a shattered head are the only remnants of a narcissistic world-builder's statue. The rest of his great works have been swallowed by the desert.
While Jack Benny was no Ozymandias, he was in his own way a cultural force to be reckoned with. Today, he’s just one more reminder that we have no control over, as the musical “Hamilton” puts it, “who lives, who dies, who tells your story.”
Or even how long that story is remembered.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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