Controversy often swirls around stand-up comedians when their perceived transgressions on or off-stage are seen to require an apology or even some sort of punishment. As outlined in an episode of the engrossing 2022 documentary series The Dark Side of Comedy (SBS On Demand, two seasons), for example, Andrew Dice Clay’s routines during the 1980s era of “shock comedy” led to accusations of racism and misogyny. And the footage of him on stage spouting vitriol about immigrants and women suggests, as one commentator puts it, “a monster that’s out of control”.
His response to that charge was that “the Dice Man” was just a character he was playing. It wasn’t him. His real name is Andrew Clay Silverstein and the accusations related to his stage persona.
At the same time, his performances there for the approval of roaring, fist-pumping, predominantly male audiences certainly support the episode’s suggestion that his shows were fashioned more like macho rallies than comedy acts. Andrew Dice Clay: shock comedy. In the episode, famed women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred has little sympathy for his protestations.
“He has to take responsibility, which I have not seen him do yet,” she says. “Responsibility means acknowledging what you did was wrong to the people on whom you inflicted that wrong.” That’s almost what Louis C.
K. did in a short piece he wrote for The New York Times in 2017 after being outed in its pages for masturbating in front of a number of w.