A finales de los 80' y a principios de los 90' las películas sobre adolescentes no salían de los melodramas tipo changes are y de las comedias eróticas tipo Porky's. Pump up the volume es un caso aparte pues examina a los adolescentes promedio de las secundarias americanas de una manera realista enfocada hacía el ennui, el asilamiento y la impotencia; aspectos oscuros de la psiquis juvenil. Mark Hunter es el chico nuevo, callado y triste, de un pequeño pueblo de Arizona que se describe a sí mismo de esta manera:
"I could be that anonymous nerd sitting across from you in chem lab, staring at you so hard. Then when you turn around he tries to smile, but the smile just comes out all wrong. You just think, How pathetic. Then he just looks away, and never looks back at you again."
Sin embargo, todos los días a las 10 de la noche se convierte en Happy Hard Harry, un cínico DJ de una estación de radio pirata. Su programa que puede durar entre 5 minutos o 5 horas, se dedica presentar música anti-mainstream y a despotricar del sistema educativo americano. Pronto se convierte en una leyenda urbana y su influencia preocupa a la moral de su comunidad, sobre todo por sus lapidarias frases que desencadenan comportamientos subersivos en los jóvenes y un suicidio al aire:
"They say I'm disturbed. Well, of course I'm disturbed. I mean, we're all disturbed. And if we're not, why not? Doesn't this blend of blindness and blandness want to make you do something crazy? Then why not do something crazy? It makes a helluva lot more sense than blowing your… brains out"
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"They think you're moody, make 'em think you're crazy. Make 'em think you might snap. They say you got attitude, you show 'em some real attitude."
Independiente del develamiento de todo un dispositivo de control que opera desde el interior de las familias y que se extiende a las instituciones de enseñanza, a través de la figura del Dj sátiro se trata todo tópico literario como lo es el free speech. Trás este aspecto se encuentra la víndicación de la figura de Larry Bruce, cuya autobiografía se ve reiterativamente en las manos del protagonista.
Lenny Bruce, es el padre del stand up comedy en los 50'. Se le reconoce porque superó el viejo concepto del cuentachistes y creó al observador mordaz e inteligente, capaz de lidiar con cualquier tema por incómodo que éste fuese para el poder como: el aborto, el Ku-Klux-Klan, el patriotismo, la discriminación racial, las drogas... Pese a la persecusión de la que fue objeto, Lenny como el protagonista de Pump up the volume se convirtío en una leyenda underground. La autobiografía de Lenny, How to talk dirty and influence people (parodía del libro de autosuperación de Dale Carnegie: How to win friends and influence people) narra sus avatares yendo contra la corriente americana. Infortunadamente el fin de Larry Bruce es trágico en 1966 a los 40 años, trás una exitosa carrera como comediante fue encontrado muerto es su apartamento víctima de una sobredosis de mórfina. Al año siguiente su imagen figuró en la portada del Sargent Peppers de los Beatles y Bob Dylan le compuso una canción biográfica:
Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on
Never did get any Golden Globe award, never made it to Synanon.
He was an outlaw, that's for sure,
More of an outlaw than you ever were.
Lenny Bruce is gone but his spirit's livin' on and on.
Maybe he had some problems, maybe some things that he couldn't work out
But he sure was funny and he sure told the truth and he knew what he was talkin'
about. Never robbed any churches nor cut off any babies' heads,
He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light in their beds.
He's on some other shore, he didn't wanna live anymore.
Lenny Bruce is dead but he didn't commit any crime
He just had the insight to rip off the lid before its time.
I rode with him in a taxi once, only for a mile and a half,
Seemed like it took a couple of months.
Lenny Bruce moved on and like the ones that killed him, gone.
They said that he was sick 'cause he didn't play by the rules
He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools.
They stamped him and they labeled him like they do with pants and shirts,
He fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts.
Lenny Bruce was bad, he was the brother that you never had.
Este es uno de los célebres monólogos de Lenny que inspiraron Pump Up the volume
To is a preposition.
To is a preposition.
Come is a verb.
To is a preposition.
Come is a verb.
To is a preposition.
Come is a verb, the verb intransitive.
To come.
To come.
I've heard these two words my whole adult life, and as a kid when I thought I was sleeping.
To come.
To come.
It's been like a big drum solo.
Did you come?
Did you come?
Good.
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
I come better with you, sweetheart, than with anybody in the whole goddamn world.
I really came so good and I came so good 'cause I love you.
I really came so good.
I come better with you, sweetheart, than anyone in the whole world.
I really came so good.
So good.
But don't come in me.
Don’t come in me.
Don’t come in me
Don't come in me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
Don’t come in me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
Don't come in me.
Don't come…. in me…in me in me.
Don’t come in me, in me….in me.
I can't come.
'Cause you don't love me--that's why you can't come.
I can't come.
I love you, I just can't come; that's my hang-up.
I can't come when I'm loaded, all right?
'Cause you don't love me.
Just what the hell is the matter with you-what has that got to do with loving? I just can't come that's all.
Now if anyone is this room or the world finds those two words decadent, obscene, immoral, amoral, asexual-- the words "to come" really make you feel uncomfortable--if you think I'm rank for saying it to you, you the beholder think it's rank for listening to it, you probably can't come. And then you're of no use, because that's the purpose of life, to re-create it.
Se podría afirmar lo que garantiza el orden social y del mundo es el lenguaje, la inversión del lenguaje altera el orden. Lo que no se puede nombrar, lo indecible, al hacerse lenguaje abre espacios de creación, de nuevas formas de expresión. Detrás de la decencia, del pudor, de las buenas maneras, del delimitamiento de lo políticamente correcto y lo incorrecto, se enmascara el miedo al cambio. Las formas del free speech hieren las buenas maneras, por eso resultan tan perturbadoras y provocativas. La razón de ser de la censura es mantener en silencio lo que convive con lo decible y es potencia de cambio. Desde el free speech se afirman las contradicciones y se abre el espacio de la creación de nuevos ordenes, de nuevas realidades. Para esto el free speech debe superar su propia ironía....
