I bought Holidays in Hell on the strength of mentions since his death, and it is tough going and dated to start with - it's just a series of national stereotypes played for cheap laughs that made me wince rather than smile.
I haven't looked at a National Lampoon in many years. But I'm guessing that a lot of modern audiences would find a lot to object to during the magazine's heyday. Of course, a lot of its humor was always pretty sophomoric but in its heyday it was probably a lot more acceptable to say "I probably shouldn't be laughing at this but it's really funny anyway."
> "I probably shouldn't be laughing at this but it's really funny anyway."
Part of me feels fairly uncomfortable with this idea. Humor is such a complicated emotion, but lately we seem to try to distill it to a single interpretation, shallow, derisive, and then proclaim what it's okay to laugh about or not.
There's also a strong component of enforcing the right not to be offended. That's always existed to some degree but lately there's a much stronger sense of it.
The enlightenment position holding: «Monsieur l’abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire» isn't celebrated by the mainstream culture anymore. It always was a bit hypocritical, there were historical boundaries for whatever the contemporary view of obscenity might be, but free speech was still valued. Nor is the simple child's rhyme "Sticks and stones may break my bones But words shall never hurt me" held to be true. We really need to figure out a middle way that preserves some of the older enlightenment virtues with more modern understandings of verbal harms. There has to be social norms that discourage assholes without the instant-banishment, or fear-of-mispeaking that has edged its way forward. Or the boorish result of the backlash involving those saying any inane thing without a filter.
Hopefully it'll get better.