Jim Goad Quotes

To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about. If someone vomits while watching one of my films, it's like getting a standing ovation. But one must remember that there is such a thing as good bad taste and bad bad taste.

The bar for being shocking doesn't even exist anymore. What am I going to do to shock people? Seriously, try to get The Fisting Musical off the ground? Its really at this point, there is no bar.

I try to make myself, and subsequently the audience, as uncomfortable as possible, whether it's completely desecrating a song they thought was one thing, or getting too drunk to really do a very good job.

I just wanted to do something that would freak people out. That's the best thing to do.

I always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

Nail up some indecency in plain sight over your door; from that time forward you will be rid of all respectable people,the most insupportable folk God has created.

Satire is meant to have teeth; satire is meant to be dangerous. But it also happens to be fun because subversion and telling the right kind of people to go to hell is supposed to feel good.

I enjoy getting people angry and getting underneath their skin, especially people who don't think.

You cannot hurt animals, so what do I do? I kill the dog first. Then I do it with the boy. You're not supposed to break the illusion of this being a film, so I make the actor talk to the audience. Provocation is the principle of the whole film [ Funny Games]. It is very ironic.

I also believe in cigarettes, cholesterol, alcohol, carbon monoxide, masturbation, the Arts Council, nuclear weapons, the Daily Telegraph, and not properly labeling fatal poisons, but above all else, most of all, I believe in the one thing that can come out of people's mouths: vomit.

I don't think that there's that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone's ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl.

It is very depressing to see that in the 21st century people are still using the same 1950s and '60s style of propaganda.

If in argument we can make a man angry with us, we have drawn him from his vantage ground and overcome him.

I don't like the phrase shock value. Surprise is essential in comedy, and if people are shocked by what I consider merely surprising, then that's their shock. But there is no joke without surprise.

People may think I'm wildly obnoxious.

I believe that people want to be free. And that we face an enemy that murders innocent people to try to shake our psychology to get us to leave.

If you purposefully look to shock people, it isn't funny. That's what 50 million dollar Hollywood comedies do ; try to be shocking and dirty.

Everything was meant to wind people up [in Make It Big ]. I don't know why we had this great pleasure in winding people up, but we really did think they would get the joke. And it backfired on us.

My dad taught me swears when I was a toddler, and I saw, at a really early age, that if I shocked people, I would get approval, and it made my arms itch with glee. I got addicted to it. It became this source of power in a totally powerless life.

When I was very young, I would occasionally stick 'f****' where I knew something contentious might happen so that the editor could remove the word 'f***' very proudly and leave whatever else was around it.

And people like you are the reason we have middle fingers.

I want to do things that shock people. I think that persona attributes more to the roles that other people may consider me for, rather than the ones I consider for myself.

The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.

There are characters in [punk] that do deliberately go as far as they can in certain kind of taboo areas.