Plenty wrong with the public schools in our country but they aren't to blame for Bill Maher not becoming multilingual. Shocking as it will sound to Maher, responsibility for this rests squarely with him.
On his HBO show Friday night, Maher was chatting it up with angry liberal (yeah, it's redundant) comedian Lewis Black about their experiences performing stand-up in Europe.
After talking about Black being cast for a voice-over in the new Pixar movie Inside Out, and Black's comedic shtick as the guy rendered volcanic when recounting the news, the ever-so-sensitive Maher said he makes a point of wringing his hands apologetically before European audiences at the start of every show --
MAHER: And are you OK with being so associated with this one em(otion), I guess you are now that you got a big part in a big movie.
BLACK: Well, you know, it's, I tour the country as a comic, I've made a really good living off of it.
MAHER: I was just in Europe touring and I heard that you were there a lot.
BLACK: Yeah, I was there last summer.
MAHER: And you love it. They're great, right?
BLACK: It was really great.
MAHER: The audience, I started every show by saying, first of all, I apologize. I'm speaking my language in your country 'cause I'm a victim of American education. (tepid laughter and applause from audience). It's amazing that not only can they all speak perfect English, I mean, I did shows in Amsterdam, I did them in Oslo, I did them in Stockholm, but they get every nuance. You don't have to tailor your act. You don't have to do anything -- just do your act.
BLACK: Yeah, you do your act. Sometimes you have to tailor your act if you're, like, in Toledo.
MAHER: Right! (laughter from audience, guffaws from Maher and Black).
What passes for a badge of honor on the left -- the solemn confessional about bowing one's head in shame and apologizing while abroad. The specifics don't really matter. What counts is that it gets done and, more importantly, is later recounted, preferably before an audience of other Americans.
Black, seeing an opening to pile on, promptly adds to the insult by denigrating the intelligence of Ohioans -- with the obvious exception of fellow guest Nina Turner, former state senator from Ohio, whose skin hue and sex render her immune from criticism, at least by other liberals.
That Maher has somehow managed to remain tragically unilingual is all the more amazing when one considers that he hasn't lacked for opportunity to become fluent in a language other than irony. His father was a network news editor and radio announcer, his mother a nurse, according to Maher's Wikipedia page. Maher was raised in suburban New Jersey where he attended public schools before going to Cornell and double majoring in history and English.
Even if Maher somehow managed to pass through high school and an Ivy League college without instruction in a foreign language, which is unlikely, what's kept him from learning one in the four decades since his formal education ended?
If anything, Maher is in an ideal line of work for this sort of thing. His show on HBO runs weekly, 35 times a year, and isn't nearly the grind endured by those whose programs run nightly. When not dredging for laughs on cable, Maher still performs stand-up, which means lots of time on the road -- and plenty of down time in limos and airports. Has there ever been a more opportune moment for a person, so inclined, to learn another language? (Or anything else for that matter). An abundance of instruction is now available online and readily accessible, from nearly anywhere if you're a comic on tour, via smart phone or tablet.
Instead of taking this approach, that of the genuinely curious, Maher prefers to claim "victim" status instead. Since he wasn't spoon-fed a foreign language at taxpayer expense when he was a kid, or he was but it didn't take, Maher has decided he's past the point where it makes any difference. And learning one now poses an even bigger problem for someone with Maher's shriveled perspective. Future apologies for ignorance to audiences abroad might fall flat if delivered in their native tongue.
