Heckler & Koch SL8

A heckler is a person who harasses and tries to disconcert others with questions, challenges, or gibes. Hecklers are often known to shout encouraging comments at a performance or event, or to interrupt set-piece speeches, with the intent of disturbing performers and/or participants.

Origin

Although the word ''heckler'', which originated from the textile trade, was first attested in the mid-15th century, the sense "person who harasses" was from 1885. To ''heckle'' was to tease or comb out flax or hemp fibres. The additional meaning, to interrupt speakers with awkward or embarrassing questions, was added in Scotland, and specifically perhaps in early 19th century Dundee, a famously radical town where the hecklers who combed the flax had established a reputation as the most radical and belligerent element in the workforce. In the heckling factory, one heckler would read out the day's news while the others worked, to the accompaniment of interruptions and furious debate.

Heckling was a major part of the vaudeville theater. Sometimes it was incorporated into the play. Milton Berle's weekly TV variety series in the 1960s featured a heckler named Sidney Spritzer (German/Yiddish for ' squirter') played by Borscht Belt comic Irving Benson. In the 1970s and 1980s, ''The Muppet Show'', which was also built around a vaudeville theme, featured two hecklers, Statler & Waldorf (two old men named after famous hotels). Heckles are now particularly likely to be heard at comedy performances, to unsettle or compete with the performer.

Politics

Politicians speaking before live audiences have less latitude to deal with hecklers. In the early 1930s, before becoming Premier of Ontario, Mitchell Hepburn stood on top of a manure spreader, apologizing to the crowd for speaking from a Tory platform, at which someone in the crowd shouted, "Well, wind 'er up Mitch, she's never carried a bigger load!"

Legally, such conduct may constitute protected free speech. Strategically, coarse or belittling retorts to hecklers entail personal risk disproportionate to any gain. Some politicians, however, have been known to improvise a relevant and witty response despite these pitfalls. One acknowledged expert at this was Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister in the 1960s:

:Heckler: (''interrupting a passage in a Wilson speech about Labour's spending plans'') What about Vietnam?
:Wilson: The government has no plans to increase public expenditure in Vietnam.
:Heckler: Rubbish!
:Wilson: I'll come to your special interest in a minute, sir.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 " I Have a Dream" speech was largely a response to supporter Mahalia Jackson interrupting his prepared speech to shout "Tell them about the dream, Martin". At that point, King stopped reading from his previously prepared speech and improvised the remainder of the speech - this improvised portion of the speech is the best-known part of the speech and frequently rated as one of the best of all time.

During a campaign stop just before winning the Presidency in 1980, Ronald Reagan was heckled by an audience member who kept interrupting him during a speech. Reagan tried to go on with his speech three times, but after being interrupted yet again glared at the heckler and snapped "Aw, shut up!" The audience immediately gave him a standing ovation.

In 1992, then-Presidential candidate Bill Clinton was interrupted by Bob Rafsky, a member of the AIDS activism group ACT UP, who accused him of "dying of ambition to be president" during a rally. After becoming visibly agitated, Clinton took the microphone off the stand, pointed to the heckler and directly responded to him by saying, " ..I have treated you and all of the other people who have interrupted my rallies with a hell of a lot more respect than you treated me. And it's time to start thinking about that!" Clinton was then met with raucous applause.

On 9 September 2009, Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted "You lie!" at President Barack Obama after President Obama stated that his health care plan would not subsidize coverage for undocumented noncitizens during a speech he was making to a joint session of Congress. Wilson later apologized for his outburst.

On 25 November 2013, Ju Hong, a 24-year-old South Korean immigrant without legal documentation, shouted at Obama to use his executive power to stop deportation of unauthorized noncitizens. Obama said "If, in fact, I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so." "But we're also a nation of laws, that's part of our tradition," he continued. "And so the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws. And what I'm proposing is the harder path, which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal."

Audience control

One modern political approach to discourage heckling is to ensure that major events are given before a "tame" audience of sympathizers, or conducted to allow restrictions on who may remain on the premises (see also, '' astroturfing''). The downside is this may make heckling incidents even more newsworthy. This happened to Tony Blair during a photo op

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases