In his forward for Bruce’s memoir, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, theater critic Kenneth Tynan parsed this hypocrisy at the heart of Bruce’s “shocking” career. “He is a true iconoclast. Others josh, snipe, and rib; only Bruce demolishes. He breaks through the barrier of laughter to the horizon beyond, where the truth has its sanctuary. People say he is shocking and they are quite correct. Part of his purpose is to force us to redefine what we mean by ’being shocked,’” wrote Tynan. “The point about Bruce is that he wants us to be shocked, but by the right things; not by four-letter words, which violate only convention, but by want and deprivation, which violate human dignity.”