jason stives looks at the documentary on the late, great standup comedian …
A comedian’s story is a tried and true one. You start out small, gain a following, and then get that one big break where you are entertaining an idol. Then comes the first HBO special, but then after cracking up a crowd of a couple thousand in Las Vegas, you are back on the road in dive clubs trying to push an appearance on late night TV. This story is no truer than for that of the late Bill Hicks, a man too ahead of the curve to be leading a pack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fifayd7rIwY
Hicks was the originator of onstage semantics, and I don’t mean the yelling, the props, or the profanity. No, that comes greatly before him, but he is the originator of profound comedic social commentary, easily capable of spatting vial insults towards the rest of the world that he felt was greatly shunning his traditionalist American views. Yet, the man that many claimed was Satan incarnated in a comedian’s body was a gentile soul from deep in the heart of Texas. His onstage antics versus his graceful upbringing and stance on life don’t really seem to add up to those reading the above description, but maybe that is why Bill Hicks was a man not of his time or his place in the world. Probably fitting that he left the world as quick as he did after a short battle with pancreatic cancer in 1994. While many believe that he is one of the greatest comedians of all time, his work is still greatly under-appreciated which, considering his messiah like following, it’s surprising that American: the Bill Hicks Story didn’t materialize sooner.
The documentary’s title is relatively fitting, as many of Hicks family and friends viewed him as a model American for the latter 20th century. It’s not too hard to believe especially within a radically different time period when the boundaries of patriotism were sorely stretched on credibility. Hicks was in many ways as American as a Norman Rockwell painting, but with the radical spirit of Hunter Thompson, another Neo-American who left the earth at a time when he felt the credibility of American life had been greatly devastated.
The documentary greatly displays Hicks’ slow dissolve of American culture between his sudden burst of fame in the United Kingdom as well as his shell shocked awakening after seeing the events of the Branch Davidian chaos in Waco, Texas, in 1993. The death of the American Dream, one might say in his mind, and in a way this is what sets American apart from most documentaries on the life and times of an out of control comedian.
The documentary chooses to focus very little on the drug and alcohol addiction battles that Hicks suffered from in the late 1980s. In its place is a documentary that doesn’t go for cheap stereotypes but falls flat on really engaging the audiences’ strand of emotions. With a character like Bill Hicks, we want to feel like we know him despite his unknown presence to many who knew nothing of his jokes outside of what Dennis Leary supposedly pillaged. Topics like Hicks’ alcohol dependency, his cancer diagnosis, and his eventual death are handled haphazardly and almost in passing, just like Hicks himself who chose to see what he saw then leave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1CvW38cHA
Regardless, American is unprecedented for being very truthful and too mild mannered when documentaries on similar rabid comics like Sam Kinison would have made them into their own private rock stars. Bill Hicks was a rock star obviously to those who knew him well, and without the input of people he has since influenced or personal or more famous friends and colleagues, he is no more a comedian than he is an every man icon. The irony of his disillusion with American society and his own documentary’s title is the real laugh riot of being a comedian, and exactly the kind of correlation between fame and life that has made Bill Hicks legendary after all these years.
Final Verdict: 8 out of 10
The reason why his “cancer” wasn’t touched on much, in this, is because Hicks knew his schtick wasn’t going to be around much longer as a standup comic, with censorship and not being able to -seriously- reach the masses – he became Alex Jones. The proof is in the pudding. AJ has no history before 1994. Bill Hicks supposedly died in 1994. No record of it, and not proper public funeral. He was buried in his parents’ yard, as the line goes. They are one in the same, though. Alex got the tip of his nose done, and has blue contacts, and has changed his voice through chain smoking and voice acting. He really is a character. Why else do you think Alex Jones and Hicks have the same network of friends? It just makes sense, Hicks was 34 when he died, and AJ came onto the scene right after, with a southern accent. They are UNCANNY. Either Alex has a twin brother he hasn’t told us about, or he IS Bill Hicks. Doesn’t change the impact of what he is saying, but he should be forthcoming with his audience, as it is deceitful.