Dustin Hoffman's masterful performance as the original shock comic is an abject lesson in the price paid by those who arrive ahead of their time, even if just a little.
If he'd arrived a decade later, would he have made it at all? I'm not saying he wasn't talented. But he arrived at a moment when cultural mores were changing rapidly and profoundly. His gift was the willingness and ability to take a sledgehammer to a wall of cultural taboos that was just starting to crumble. Any earlier and the wall wouldn't give. Any later and people would wonder why he was pounding a pile of rubble.
If he'd arrived a decade later, would he have made it at all? I'm not saying he wasn't talented. But he arrived at a moment when cultural mores were changing rapidly and profoundly. His gift was the willingness and ability to take a sledgehammer to a wall of cultural taboos that was just starting to crumble. Any earlier and the wall wouldn't give. Any later and people would wonder why he was pounding a pile of rubble.
It’s a fair question to ask.