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Patriarchy is a social system in which the male acts as the primary authority figure central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination. Many patriarchal societies are also patrilineal, meaning that property and title are inherited by the male lineage. The female equivalent is matriarchy.

Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, and economic organization of a range of different cultures. Patriarchy also has a strong influence on modern civilization, although many cultures have moved towards a more egalitarian social system over the past century.^[1]

Definition and usage[link]

Patriarchy literally means "rule of fathers",^[2][3] from the Greek πατριάρχης (patriarkhēs), "father" or "chief of a race, patriarch".^[4][5] Historically, the term patriarchy was used to refer to autocratic rule by the male head of a family. However, in modern times, it more generally refers to social systems in which power is primarily held by adult men.^[6][7][8][9]

History[link]

Anthropological evidence suggests that most prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were relatively egalitarian, and that patriarchal social structures did not develop until many years after the end of the Pleistocene era, following social and technological innovations such as agriculture and domestication.^[10][11][12] However, according to Robert M. Strozier, historical research has not yet found a specific "initiating event".^[13] Some scholars point to about six thousand years ago (4000 BCE), when the concept of fatherhood took root, as the beginning of the spread of patriarchy.^[14][15]

Domination by men of women is found in the Ancient Near East as far back as 3100 BCE, as are restrictions on a woman's reproductive capacity and exclusion from "the process of representing or the construction of history".^[13] With the appearance of the Hebrews, there is also "the exclusion of woman from the God-humanity covenant".^[13][16]

A prominent Greek general Meno, in the Platonic dialogue of the same name, sums up the prevailing Greek sentiment about the respective virtues of men and women. He says:

Let us take first the virtue of a man—he should know how to administer the state, and in the administration of it to benefit his friends and harm his enemies; and he must also be careful not to suffer harm himself. A woman's virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also be easily described: her duty is to order her house, and keep what is indoors, and obey her husband."^[17]

The works of Aristotle portrayed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men; saw women as the property of men; claimed that women's role in society was to reproduce and serve men in the household; and saw male domination of women as natural and virtuous.^[18][19][20]

Ancient China was patriarchal, women being expected to be submissive to men in the family and society.^{[citation needed]}

Egypt left no philosophical record, but Herodotus left a record of his shock at the contrast between the roles of Egyptian women and the women of Athens.^{[citation needed]} He observed that Egyptian women attended market and were employed in trade. In ancient Egypt a middle-class woman might sit on a local tribunal, engage in real estate transactions, and inherit or bequeath property. Women also secured loans, and witnessed legal documents.

Greek influence spread, however, with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who was educated by Aristotle.^[21]

In medieval Europe, female Empresses (such as Theodora) and Matriarchs (such as Helena, the mother of Constantine) enjoyed privilege, political rule, and societal honor.^[22]

From the time of Martin Luther, Protestantism regularly used the commandment in Exodus 20:12 to justify the duties owed to all superiors. ‘Honor thy father,’ was taken to apply not only to fathers, but elders, and the king.

Although many 16th and 17th Century theorists agreed with Aristotle’s views concerning the place of women in society, none of them tried to prove political obligation on the basis of the patriarchal family until sometime after 1680.^{[citation needed]} The patriarchal political theory is associated primarily with Sir Robert Filmer. Sometime before 1653, Filmer completed a work entitled Patriarcha. However, it was not published until after his death. In it, he defended the divine right of kings as having title inherited from Adam, the first man of the human race, according to Judeo-Christian tradition.^{[23][unreliable source?]}

In the 19th Century, various women began to question the commonly accepted patriarchal interpretation of Christian scripture. One of the foremost of these was Sarah Grimké, who voiced skepticism about the ability of men to translate and interpret passages relating to the roles of the sexes without bias. She proposed alternative translations and interpretations of passages relating to women, and she applied historical and cultural criticism to a number of verses, arguing that their admonitions applied to specific historical situations, and were not to be viewed as universal commands.^[24] Elizabeth Cady Stanton used Grimké’s criticism of biblical sources to establish a basis for feminist thought. She published The Woman's Bible, which proposed a feminist reading of the Old and New Testament. This tendency was enlarged by feminist theory, which denounced the patriarchal Judeo-Christian tradition.^[25]

Feminist theory[link]

Most forms of feminism characterize patriarchy as an unjust social system that is oppressive to women. As feminist and political theorist Carole Pateman writes, "The patriarchal construction of the difference between masculinity and femininity is the political difference between freedom and subjection."^[26] In feminist theory the concept of patriarchy often includes all the social mechanisms that reproduce and exert male dominance over women. Feminist theory typically characterizes patriarchy as a social construction, which can be overcome by revealing and critically analyzing its manifestations.^[27]

Biological vs. social theories[link]

Most sociologists reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that social and cultural conditioning is primarily responsible for establishing male and female gender roles.^[28][29] According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation.^[28] These constructions are most pronounced in societies with traditional cultures and less economic development.^[30] Even in modern developed societies, however, gender messages conveyed by family, mass media, and other institutions largely favor males having a dominant status.^[29]

Some sociobiologists, such as Steven Goldberg, argue that social behavior is primarily determined by genetics, and thus that patriarchy arises more as a result of inherent biology than social conditioning. Goldberg also contends that patriarchy is a universal feature of human culture. In 1973, Goldberg wrote, "The ethnographic studies of every society that has ever been observed explicitly state that these feelings were present, there is literally no variation at all."^[31] Goldberg has critics among anthropologists. Concerning Goldberg's claims about the "feelings of both men and women" Eleanor Leacock countered in 1974 that the data on women's attitudes are "sparse and contradictory", and that the data on male attitudes about male-female relations are "ambiguous". Also, the effects of colonialism on the cultures represented in the studies were not considered.^[32]

There is considerable variation in the role that gender plays in human societies. Although there are no known human examples of strictly matriarchal cultures,^[33] there are a number of societies that have been shown to be matrilinear or matrilocal and gynocentric, especially among indigenous tribal groups.^[34] Some hunter-gatherer groups have been characterized as largely egalitarian.^[12]

One evolutionary psychology explanation for the origin of patriarchy starts with the view that females almost always invest more energy into producing offspring than males, and therefore in most species females are a limiting resource over which males will compete. This is sometimes referred to as Bateman's principle. One important female preference will be for males who control more resources which can help her and her children. This in turn has caused a selection pressure on men to be competitive and succeed in gaining resources and power in competition with other men. There has not been a similarly strong selection pressure on females.^[35]

Psychoanalytic theories[link]

Although the term patriarchy is loosely used to stand for 'male domination', as has been pointed out above, it more crucially means - as others have stated here: "The rule of The Father".^[36] So patriarchy does not refer to a simple binary pattern of male power over women, but power exerted more complexly by age as well as gender, and by older men over women, children, and younger men. Some of these younger men may inherit and therefore have a stake in patriarchy's continuing conventions. Others may rebel.^[37][38] This psychoanalytic model is based upon revisions of Freud's description of the normally neurotic family using the analogy of the story of Oedipus.^[39][40] Those who fall outside the Oedipal triad of mother/father/child are less subject to patriarchal authority.^[41] This has been taken as a position of symbolic power for queer identities. The operations of power in patriarchy are usually enacted unconsciously. All are subject, even fathers are bound by its strictures.^[42] It is represented in unspoken traditions and conventions performed in everyday behaviors, customs and habits.^[43] The patriarchal triangular relationship of a father, a mother and an inheriting eldest son frequently form the dynamic and emotional narratives of popular culture and are enacted performatively in rituals of courtship and marriage.^[44] They provide conceptual models for organising power relations in spheres that have nothing to do with the family, for example, politics and business.^[45]

See also[link]

Patriarchal models[link]

• Biblical patriarchy
• Chinese patriarchy
• Patriarch
• Paterfamilias

Antonym[link]

• Matriarchal

Related notions[link]

• Feminism
• Gender role
• Homemaker
• Masculinity
• Nature versus nurture
• Sociology of fatherhood

Comparable social models[link]

• Kyriarchy
• Matriarchy

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Adeline, Helen B. Fascinating Womanhood. New York: Random House, 2007.
• Baron-Cohen, Simon. The Essential Difference: The Truth about the Male and Female Brain. New York: Perseus Books Group, 2003.
• Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. (first USA edition, in translation)
• Bornemann, Ernest. Das Patriarchat - Ursprung und Zukunft unseres Gesellschaftssystems, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1991 (Original German edition 1975), ISBN 3-596-23416-6
• Bourdieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination. Translated by Richard Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
• Brizendine, Louann. The Female Brain. New York: Morgan Road Books, 2006.
• Brown, Donald E. Human Universals. New York: McGraw Hill, 1991.
• de Santillana, Giorgio & Hertha von Dechend. Hamlet's Mill: an essay investigating the origins of human knowledge and its transmission through myth. David R. Godine, publisher, Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 1977. The effects of evolutionary theory on the study of culture, pp. 68–72.
• Eisler, Riane. ' 'The Chalice and the Blade' '. Harper Collins, 1987.
• Gimbutas, Marija. The civilization of the goddess: the world of Old Europe. Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1991.
• Jay, Jennifer W. 'Imagining Matriarchy: "Kingdoms of Women" in Tang China'. Journal of the American Oriental Society 116 (1996): 220-229.
• Konner, Melvin. The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. 2nd edition, revised and updated. (Owl Books, 2003). 560p. ISBN 0-8050-7279-9 [first published 1982, Endnotes
• Lepowsky, Maria. Fruit of the Motherland: Gender in an Egalitarian Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
• Mead, Margaret. 'Do We Undervalue Full-Time Wives'. Redbook 122 (1963).
• Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. Palgrave MacMillan, 1999.
• Moir, Anne and David Jessel. Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women.
• Ortner, Sherry Beth. 'Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In MZ Rosaldo and L Lamphere (eds). Woman, Culture and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 67–87.
• Ortner, Sherry Beth. 'So, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'. In S Ortner. Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, pp. 173–180.
• Smith, Bonnie G. (2005). Women's history in global perspective, Volume 2. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-02997-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=cQz2o883S38C. 
• Pilcher, Jane and Imelda Wheelan. 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies. London: Sage Publications, 2004.
• Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate: A Modern Denial of Human Nature. London: Penguin Books, 2002.
• Wood, Wendy and Alice H. Eagly. A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: Implications for the origins of sex differences. Psychological Bulletin. 128(5) (Sep. 2002):699-727.

External links[link]

Look up patriarchy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Patriarchal System.

• "Cattle ownership makes it a man's world". New Scientist (2003).
• Women’s Status and War in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Reconsideration
• Mary Wollstonecraft. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Boston: Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, 1792.
• Pannekoek, Anton. Arguments based on natural science, when applied to social questions, must almost always lead to wrong conclusions..Marxism and Darwinism, 1912.
• Simone de Beauvoir. The Second Sex. Translated by HM Parshley. London: Penguin, 1972.
• "Equality". In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 2001.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2011)

George Carlin
Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008
Birth name	George Denis Patrick Carlin
Born	(1937-05-12)May 12, 1937 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, books, radio
Nationality	American
Years active	1956–2008
Genres	Character comedy, observational comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy
Subject(s)	American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family
Influences	Danny Kaye,[1][2] Jonathan Winters,[2] Lenny Bruce,[3][4] Richard Pryor,[5] Jerry Lewis,[2][5] Marx Brothers,[2][5] Mort Sahl,[4] Spike Jones,[5] Ernie Kovacs,[5] Ritz Brothers[2] Monty Python[5]
Influenced	Chris Rock,[6] Jerry Seinfeld,[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,[8] Lewis Black,[9] Jon Stewart,[10] Stephen Colbert,[11] Bill Maher,[12] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,[13] Adam Carolla,[14] Colin Quinn,[15] Steven Wright,[16], Mitch Hedberg,[17] Russell Peters,[18] Jay Leno,[19] Ben Stiller,[19] Kevin Smith[20]
Spouse	Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)[21]
Notable works and roles	Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and "Mr. Conductor" on Shining Time Station The George Carlin Show
Signature
Website	www.georgecarlin.com
Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya (posthumous) Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[22]

Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In 1988, the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death.

In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[23] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Early life[link]

Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[24][25] the second son of Mary (Beary), a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[26] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[27][28][29]

Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[30] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[31][32] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[33] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana.

During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. During his time in the Air Force he was court martialed three times, and also received many disciplinary punishments.^[34]

Career[link]

In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits.

1960s[link]

Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36]

In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were:

• The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line")
• Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'"
• Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning."
• Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known"

Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38]

Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich.

During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40]

Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41]

1970s[link]

Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43]

The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words."

It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience.

Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series.

Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978.

1980s and 1990s[link]

In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials.

In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. From 1991 to 1995, he narrated the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, and played "Mr. Conductor" on Shining Time Station from 1991 to 1993. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand.

Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46]

In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show, "I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47]

In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published. The book sold nearly 900,000 copies and spent 40 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. ^[48] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart.

In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character.

2000s[link]

In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[49] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[49]

For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating:

People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects.

An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[50][51]

He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[52] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the desire to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals.

On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back."

Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film.

Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[53] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country.

Personal life[link]

In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born on June 15, 1963.^[54] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997.

Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[55]

Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[56] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[57]

Religion[link]

Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[58] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it.

Themes[link]

Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show:

I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.

Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies.

Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[59] among many others.

George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008

Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!"

In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting."