As citizens of the United States of America we enjoy more freedom than almost any other nation on earth. One of the most important of these freedoms is the constitutional protection of our right to free speech. Defense of this right has come from some pretty unusual sources. Pornographer Larry Flynt has frequently been brought to the highest courts of the land to defend is right to be obnoxious. His main point was if the first amendment does not protect the worse in society it is useless to protect the best. Through modern history many comedians have also faced charges of obscenity and took on the challenge to court. Pioneer comedians like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin pushed the limits of good taste claiming it was their right as Americans to freely speak their minds. All of this has established a long connection between stand up comedy and the first amendment. This connection has been taken to its logical next step through a comedy series broadcast on the Starz premium cable network. ‘Martin Lawrence presents ‘First Amendment Stand Up’ is about to go into its third season. This was not that widely publicized so there is a good chance that you missed the first two seasons. If you are into cutting edge stand up comedy you can now get season two on DVD thanks to Starz / Anchor Bay. This two disc set contains all twelve episode featuring acts by some thirty different comedians. It is uncensored so just be warned that this set is not for those who are easily offended by sexually explicit jokes and foul language.

The series is hosted by comedian Doug Williams. He is best known for his own brand of comedy that has been known to push the boundaries of good taste. He had a very public embarrassing moment during a roast of football player Emmitt Smith where he went off on Shaquille O'Neal and some audience members. He was booed off stage. With this series he has a new forum to ply his form of humor. As host he generally just tells a few jokes and sets things up for the next performer. Having the name Martin Lawrence in the title is a little misleading. His participation in the series is mostly consists of the camera turning to him in the audience as he laughs at the jokes. Lawrence had been associated with near obscene comedy for most of his career. After a stint on his own sit-com and his recent string of family friendly movies for Disney his image has undergone a major overhaul. Still, he is well known for this type of humor so it was a logical marketing ploy to put his name on the DVD cover. Lawrence is listed as the executive producer so this legitimatizes the use of his name here.

The first episode here contains the acts of Donnell Rawlings, Ian Edwards and Sheryl Underwood. This is pretty typical of the series to have three comedians each with about five to eight minutes of air time. Williams starts off warming up the audience talking about religion and the Bible; nothing like foul language religious jokes to get things moving in the desired direction. He goes on about Joseph, husband of Mary. He was asked to accept the fact that his young wife, who never had sex with, was having a baby and God was the father. He jokes that most men would snap with this news and wind up in police custody. He wouldn’t have believed her until the boy grew up and performed his first miracle. Next Rawlings takes the stage. He starts off with some observations of traveling through an air port in this post 9-11 world. The flight attendants are more like police now patrolling the aisle of the plane. Since he admits to usually being stoned the phrase ‘put your seat back forward’ just confuses him. Besides, the total transit distance of the airplane seat is only around two inches. Even a simple part of his routine as this is liberally sprinkled with profanity. A lot of his routine is concerned with his enjoyment of pot. Drug use is a common theme in this series. He also goes in to how it used to be making a gay joke was not considered a hate crime. Many of the topics here are like this poking fun at our politically correct culture. Williams comes out again to introduce the next comedian, Ian Edwards. Since he hails from New York City he is not used to the California habit of talking to strangers. He compares the closed off and suspicious nature of a New Yorker with the more open LA attitudes. When an elderly white woman started a conversation with him in the supermarket he was unable to let his guard down. Once again much of his act could have been presented in a format using cleaner language but he chose to continue to push the envelope. The last act of this episode is Sheryl Underwood. She is loud mouthed, brash and extremely funny. Like just about everybody on stage before her she points out an older woman in the front row saying it is great that the senior citizens are represented in a venue like this. Those were not the exact words used; they would not be appropriate on a family friendly site. Even when speaking to this older woman Underwood is graphic with sexuality. Much of her act is along these lines of being more sexualized than the men. Going through the other acts on this box set it is apparently common for the female comedians to have more sexually explicit routines. Her act also goes into several racial tracks. She states that she loves Mexicans because they are such hard workers. Two could have cleaned up New Orleans in about an hour. She did go into translating this work ethic into their prowess in bed.

One thing that is frequently noted on stage is the diversity of ethnicities in the audience. This is not an African American venue but rather contains a mixture of white and Hispanic as well. All of the acts presented in this box set are vulgar to one degree or another. The thing about this presentation is the diversity of comedians performing. Stand up comedy is highly subjective so there are bound to be some comedians that you personally do not enjoy. Don’t worry. In a few minutes someone else will take the stage and the humor will change. It is understandable how this is tied to the first amendment right of free speech. Sometime it seems that they are just being vulgar for the sake of it. I guess that this is all part of the concept here. Humor is a protected form of free speech and whether you like the humor or not these comedians have right to express themselves in any way they choose. Needless to say this is not something you will want to watch in front of the kids. It would make a perfect party viewing when adult friends come over for drinks. Starz is known for cutting edge television and this is just a prime example.