Entertainment
Penn Jillette: Purveyor of Bullshit… Maybe Just Recognizing It
By Brian K. White
Dec 4, 2006, 02:01

In recent months I've been watching more and more of the Showtime original series "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" and, as much as I want to cancel my costly subscription to Showtime, I just can't do it. Why? Because the show is just that good, and although I'm sure Penn Jillette only believes a meager half of what he asserts, the challenge is still put forward that you and I should doubt everything. Everything? Yep, even the claims made by his very show.

If you've never seen Mythbusters, you're likely the sort that gets an email about HIV-laden needles in payphone booths and forwards them on to all your friends, family and patently irritated co-workers ad nauseum. In all honesty, I like ad nauseum, really I do. It's great because it insures a churning in the belly, but this too goes off the point. I'm just saying that if you like to see myths dispelled, you can appreciate the scientific, reasonable, and even-keeled analysis of that which can be proven either true or false.

Science? Reason? This is all nonsense to many people, but it isn't bullshit. Bullshit, of course, is by technical definition, the Showtime original series.

Man, I so wanna shiv somebody… wait, that declaration is for later. My bad; you just read on.

The show is entertaining, comical, and hosted by Penn & Teller, arguably the most famous magic and juggling duo in the history of history, but that's not the point either. Sure they're entertaining, but so is Pat Robertson when taken with a sufficiently large grain of salt of the earth as it were. That's hardly the point. These guys have written more books on debunking their own magic than any magicians ever, and even that isn't the point. The point is that they came to fame as hucksters, and even they couldn't stomach it, so they moved on to reveal their own men behind the curtains, and yet still, even that isn't the point.

The point is that their magicians, whether it's a card trick, a half-dozen bowling pins in the air or a documentary series -- Wait, hang on a second, what does that mean about the magic?

Once the tricks are flipped and their tricks are auto-debunked, what's left? In case you haven't been able to decode my thick layers of sarcasm just yet, the only place left for magic is in their true-to-life bullshit debunking show.

And it really is magic, I promise.

The series takes its own take on everything from Sasquatch to legalized prostitution to the much ballyhood (though entirely failed) war on drugs. That doesn't mean they're saying that Penn & Teller suggest that Bigfoot is real, that prostitution is good and/or healthy nor that drugs are good, it just means that you should think with reason and balance, take in the information sufficient to make your own decision, and that you might want to question any and all authority... even their own.

The Showtime original series Bullshit! doesn't just give you unfiltered bias, that would be unfair, of course, because despite even their self-proclaimed admission of bias, the show doesn't tell you what to think, it suggests what questions you may wish to pose and what points you may consider challenging.

Even though Teller rarely speaks and Penn had the audacity to name his daughter Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette, that they are magicians who self-debunk, and that they have the sufficient ball-pairs to admit their own bias, you might want to give them the time of day.

This isn't to say the show isn't without its critics or that it's flawless in any way. I'm just saying what they say, which is that the producers of this show want you to consider, get this: thinking for yourself!

Yeah, I know, it's pretty crazy, isn't it? Thinking for yourself isn't always easy, but it just might be worth it, and heaven forbid you actually consider reasoning through something before supporting it, especially if it's something as outrageous as abstinence or Ouija boards.

Oh, and if you don't have the time of day, maybe you should consider getting Showtime or finding some other method of acquiring it on your own. I'm not saying these guys are geniuses or anything, I'm just saying that if you have any respect for critical thinking, and if you consider yourself a critical thinker, it may be time to up the ante and think things through on your own for real.

And for those of you who may wonder, Showtime has not directly or indirectly paid for any endorsement on this site -- but my own critical thinking has led me to a love of things that challenge the status quo, whether it be in the form of urban legend or government sponsored propaganda -- that would in any way affect the outcome of this article… and my next act will be to contact Penn and/or Teller for an interview, and we'll see where things go from there.)

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