Bad Reputation

Watching Idiocracy for class this week was my third viewing. It may have potentially been my fourth, but the first one was thwarted. I went to a Blockbuster when Idiocracy was new and I had one of those unlimited rental plans, so I was trading some other movies in. There was nothing that really appealed to me, so I picked up Idiocracy, read the back, thought it sounded interesting, and went to the checkout counter. The girl working the cash register literally talked me out of the movie. She said "Oh, you don't want to get that. It's horrible. It's the worst thing I've ever seen. If you make it to the end, you'll feel like two hours of your life was stolen. People have been coming back in demanding refunds because they think it's so bad." Since I wasn't particularly sold on the movie anyway (seeing as I didn't even know it existed before coming into the store), I put it back.

When I did finally watch it, I didn't really like it, but I also didn't feel like two hours of my life had been stolen. I laughed a few times, I thought that it was somewhat interesting social commentary, but overall I felt it was just stupid comedy. I watched it again a few months later, and it was much, much better. Since I already knew what was happening, I started noticing a lot of small details. This wasn't just stupid comedy. The creator of this film had put some thought and consideration into this. The advertisements (like "Uhmerican Exxxpress: don't leave home") were wonderful mini-parodies. The comment about the lawyer's dad knowing someone on the admissions board of Costco law school was hilarious. Rita's kindergartenesque paiting of Joe was a nice finishing touch. Most of all, the satire came through more clearly, and I found it to be convincing.

How many people would give it this second view, though? And how many people never saw it to begin with because of its bad reputation?

The layering is probably no accident. I didn't know until reading this review that the creator of Idiocracy also made Office Space. According to the article, Mike Judge was disappointed in the fanhood of Office Space because the people it mocked became its biggest fans, and they didn't recognize the second, deeper level of satire. The reviewer notes that "Buried just below the surface, however, is a critique of the modern American workplace and of the materialism that makes us slaves to our machines." On the surface, however, it is a silly, farcical comedy about office life.

This reviewer goes on to say that Judge went in the opposite direction with Idiocracy, creating the "feel-bad comedy of the year." He goes on to note that it is rare to watch a movie that openly challenges your beliefs, and that Idiocracy does just that.

It didn't do so well at the box office. It had limited release and didn't even cover its production costs.

All of this is leading up to a question about the effectiveness of satire. It seems like a very fine line to walk. You have to make your satire apparent enough to be understood while still making it veiled enough to be entertaining so that other people will watch it. In the case of Idiocracy, where the creator is clearly telling the audience something they probably do not want to hear, the entertainment factor is incredibly important. I think that is why I didn't like it the first time I saw it. I had to dig through a lot of farce to find the satire. Once I did, however, I was impressed. I wonder how the viewing world at large did with this film. Did it convey the message it needed to? Did it reach the people it needed to? Does it run the risk of preaching to the choir? Or does the scatological humor, slapstick, and "low comedy" attract the audience who the message is aimed at? If it does, does that message actually reach them?

Beef Supreme channels Harpo?

Is Beef Supreme the 21st century answer to Harpo Marx? He doesn't speak. He uses expressive facial and bodily expressions to entertain an audience. He has particular props. He is athletic and acrobatic.

In addition, he embodies the part of slapstick that makes it unfunny to me: violence.

This isn't the only slapstick in the film, but I think that Beef Supreme is the only actor in Idiocracy that seems to be functioning in a role of pure physical comedy.

Furthermore, Beef Supreme functions in a way similar to the Marx brothers in that he's participating in a role that provides societal critique. In Duck Soup, Harpo represents a critical view of social norms and motives. His insulting way of dealing with adversaries leads to a critique on war in general, questioning the way wars begin as well as the sacrifices of the individuals involved. Beef Supreme functions as a critique on, among other things, celebrity. When he first appears from the rubble, there is a group of girls swooning a la Beatle-mania. The crowd goes wild at the sound of his name, and they react quite enthusiastically to his charade of hunting down Joe.

Obviously, Beef Supreme is a minor part of Idiocracy, but I can't help but notice the similarities from the genre of comedy we've been watching in class, similarities I wasn't really expecting to see.

Ow!

A man strikes another in the back with an ax, beats him over the head with a pan, smashes his hand with a sledgehammer, and slams a wrench into his face.

This does not sound like the start of a funny story to me; it sounds like abuse.

I'm a little squeamish when it comes to violence. I'm too empathetic. When I see someone, for example, get his hand cut off on the screen, I grab my wrist. In class, during the umbrella scene, I was holding my stomach; this was the worst scene because I couldn't see the Stooge (Curly, I think) beneath the sand. Was he okay? Dead? Screaming with a mouthful of sand?

In a much earlier post (my first or second), I commented that I didn't find slapstick very funny. I also noted that I thought slapstick was funnier when it was written or when it was a cartoon. Then I posited that perhaps this was because I could imagine it rather than see something so outlandish and unbelievable on screen. Now, I have a different theory; cartoons don't get hurt.

I understand, of course, that the Stooges are not actually hurt, but they are actually people. This reminds me of America's Funniest Home Videos. I hardly ever laugh at them, especially since they've become less babies and animals doing cute things and more people falling off of roofs, riding bikes over cliffs, and getting accidentally hit with baseball bats.

Pain isn't particularly funny to me, and violence is flat out disturbing. It was mildly amusing to see one of the Stooges get accidentally (and usually less severely) whacked with a random object. It was much less amusing to see Mo (right? I don't have the names straight) beat his "friends" and threaten to "murder" them or "chop his head off."

Does anyone else feel this way? Is violence funny? Is it okay because they're not actually hurt? I remember watching the Three Stooges as a kid; is that the right impression to send to children?

The Reality of Humor

I'm a fan of George Carlin in particular and that sort of dry humor in general. However, the last clip that we watched in class didn't strike me as funny, per se.
Instead, it seemed to me to be a dark glance into the disgust and anger this man felt against the world near the end of his life. I haven't seen the whole show, so I can't comment on a cohesive theme here, but he was speaking from a giant graveyard. It seemed to me that Carlin was trying to put some perspective on the life he'd seen and make it all make sense. The end result: it doesn't. As we discussed in class, it's impossible to be a modern man (one made up entirely of taglines) and still have substance. What starts out as clever wordplay and amusing oppositions in the first clip ends up as the rantings of an angry old man.
Sure, there's some humor in this rant, but rather than glimpses of the American condition highlighted through humor it seems to be the other way around: glimpses of humor shining through an otherwise bleak view of the American condition.

He did bring up a point that interests me, though.

I have a rather unhealthy fascination with reality TV. Not an attraction, mind you, but a fascination. I don't understand it, and I occasionally watch it in awe, like I would observe a lion killing off the slowest gazelle: wincing, feeling for the gazelle, a little disgusted, and a little embarassed at watching this carnal display.





When I heard Carlin talk about the suicide channel, it didn't strike me as funny at all. It struck me as true. Our culture has become so obsessed with reality TV that people just might be willing to throw themselves over the edge of the Grand Canyon for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Now, I realize that there are different types of reality TV. I'm not so much thinking of Survivor, American Idol, or the Biggest Loser. I'm thinking of a spectrum that at best is America's Next Top Model and at worst is something like Flavor of Love or the Bad Girls Club. Shows where people line up (literally) to audition for the chance to make complete fools of themselves on syndicated television. Shows that revolve around acting as uncouth, promiscuous, cruel, shallow, or just plain stupid as possible. And we line up to watch them. Don't believe me? VH1 and MTV certainly seem to think we watch them; their entire line-up is hour after hour of this self-loathing.

Which brings me to wonder, is it comedy? I think that most of the people I know watch it for a good laugh. Maybe it's comedy in the way that Thomas Hobbes describes humor: "sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others." Do we watch because it makes us feel superior? This seems reasonable to me, but then why do the shows exist at all? Why are there people willing to go on them? It seems to be that the participants feel superior by going on the shows in the first place. This creates a confusing paradox. How can both the specator and the spectacle be superior? What outlet does reality TV really serve and does it fit into humor theory?

Let Me Try Again

I feel that I probably wasn't articulating myself very well in class when I took issue with the Paul Grawe piece.

There are several things that I think Grawe gets right (or at least as right as anyone can get in a theory of humor, which seems to be an elusive thing). I think that it's an intelligent observation to say that comedy is representative of life; we can usually see more of ourselves and other real people in a comedic protagonist than those of other genres. Likewise, comedy often doesn't require an outlandish plot to be successful.

Secondly, patterning is certainly seen in many art forms. I think that the way Grawe describes patterning and the themes it can reveal is very accurate.

Though I'm not entirely convinced, I'll even entertain the fact that comedy's main goal is to show that humanity will survive. It is when Grawe starts exploring this more closely that he loses me.

Grawe tells us that there are three types of comedy with a positive protagonist (heroic, everyman, and buffoon) and three with a negative one (villian, butt, and fool). He also says that these progressively blur into one another. To connect these categories to his earlier assertion that comedy is a statement of the faith that humanity will survive, he makes some generalizations. Heroic comedy "asserts that mankind's survival is based on exceptional individuals and their values or abilities" (35). Everyman comedy's assertion "is that the human race survives and must survive not because of any one particular and extraordinary talent . . . but because people are social creatures who can use the special talents of every individual" (37). Buffoon comedy asserts "both the good news and the bad news" (42) and shows us "people surviving in spite of themselves" (17). The negative protagonists show us overcoming the self-destructive individuals in society in similar progression. These distinctions work very well for the examples that Grawe gives, but most of his examples are television/movies and all of his examples involve multiple characters who interact with one another. Also, the comedy that Grawe discusses creates a microchosm of society; the actors in The Waltons are not supposed to be the actors when we watch them--they are the Waltons.

While I completely agree that all stand-up comedians create a persona in order to do their acts, I still don't think this is the same as the actors in a movie or television show. We know that this person is up there telling jokes. We are not watching a "fake" world that is supposed to be real (characters instead of actors) and drawing comparisons to the real one. For this reason, it doesn't seem to me that stand-up comedy can fit in this. If Chris Rock or Ralphie May represent one of these characters, how does that show us human survival. Let's say, as we started to in class, that Chris Rock is an everyman. He is a single person standing up on the stage telling jokes; in what way does that illustrate that we are social creatures who will survive because we have the ability to use other's talents? Perhaps he's a hero, but then what way does that act illustrate that we will all survive because of his extraordinary abilities? Is he going to tell jokes to chase away the meteor or alien attack? It just doesn't fit to me.

I think that comedy, like all art forms, cannot be categorized this specifically. Grawe tries to keep it broad, but his prejudices come through. When he thinks of comedy, he thinks of situational comedy in which people pretending to be fictional characters (or books with other characters created in them) interact with other fictional characters to provide a window into the real world. He leaves out satire. He leaves out stand-up. He probably leaves out several other kinds of comedy. In the end, he has done nothing more than the critics he so harshly chastizes in his first chapter: created a theory that accounts for a small piece of comedy.

The Other Side of the Ralphie May Spectrum?

It was mentioned in class that viewing Chris Rock's stand up would be like viewing the opposite of Ralphie May's racial commentary, but it didn't quite seem that way to me.

First, a caveat: I recognize that my liking Chris Rock's comedy definitely tints the way that I view these pieces. However, I still think there are some striking differences that deserve attention. Also, I wholeheartedly believe Ralphie May should be able to tell whatever jokes he wants; I'm very supportive of free speech. Just don't expect me to laugh.

1) The audience- Ralphie May's absolutely blatant (and to me disturbing) singling out of the one black woman in the audience was very different from Chris Rock's interactivity with audience. I recognize that some light-hearted ribbing of the audience is part of stand up

culture. However, when Chris Rock makes fun of the white women who are trying to explain to their (presumably white) husbands why they laughed at the joke about sex with black men, he's not singling them out individually (partially because there's more than one to single out--another striking difference from Ralphie May's distinctly racially solidified audience).

2) The point- While Ralphie May later explains that he wants to push his audience to the edge of the line of decency and question their own sense of humor, he makes no such disclaimer before telling the joke about the black theater. The point of that joke, to me, seems to be that he knows a secret about this subculture that his white audience does not. They are having this other world illuminated by listening to Ralphie explain ghetto hair cuts and stereotype black accents. He perpetuates difference and separation through this dichotomy. Chris Rock, on the other hand, is talking to a diverse crowd, and much of his humor centers around the interaction between the two (or more) cultures. While his discussion of the n-word (which I choose not to use for complicated and probably not interesting reasons, though I do not object to its use by others; words, after all, are only words), certainly pushes the same line of decency that Ralphie refers to, the effects are entirely different. Chris Rock focuses on interaction; Ralphie May centers on separation.

3) Race of the speaker- We discussed in class that it is often more acceptable for the minority to make fun of the majority, but not the other way around. This makes sense to me--especially when the majority has used its power for centuries to degrade the minority in every categorical way possible. This doesn't just apply to race, and it's also true of groups that are making fun of themselves. When Jeff Foxworthy makes fun of "rednecks," many find it funny. If a Wall Street executive made the same jokes, they wouldn't. So, when Ralphie May, as a white man, makes fun of black people it has a different effect than Chris Rock, a black man, making fun of white people (which again, in the skit we watched, I'm not convinced he did--he more made fun of the interaction between white and black culture than white culture itself).

Oh The Dichotomies!

After reading Cook and watching Eddie Izzard, it became clear to me that dichotomies are potentially very important to humor. We briefly discussed the inclusiveness and "us vs. them" of humor in class, but I wonder how persona factors into this.

Eddie Izzard's act set up a few different dichotomies: British v. American, crossdresser v. (what's the opposite of a crossdresser? non-crossdresser?)
Cook's work clearly takes up the British v. American point of view (as the narrator tells us, even his best experience in America was "Not half so good as English beer" (26) and most of the time the expectations he has from his British lifestyle ruin any chance for a positive experience in America).

When we add persona to the mix, however, it becomes much more complicated. When Eddie Izzard makes fun of Americans, it's a clear us v. them set up. But he then goes on to make fun of his fellow countrymen (such as when he mocks England's insufficient funds for participation in the moon race). He creates a persona that allows him to make fun of both sides (and that's a good thing, since this particular piece of stand-up was performed for an American audience), but where does that leave him in us v. them? His audience doesn't necessarily consider him one of them, and his crossdressing further removes him from them.

The persona of Cook's narrator, too, plays a large role in the way "The Sot-weed Factor" is read. This narrator shows obvious condecension for America and all things American from the very beginning. An American audience has no doubts that they are being cast as the "them" and that this "us" wants no part of it. There is none of the self effacing humor that arguably allows Izzard to get away with mocking Americans. Instead, Cook's narrator becomes the butt of the joke. Cook develops a character with outsider status and uses it to create the humor. We laugh because he's not one of us; the us v. them gets turned around against him as he fails to fit into his new environment.

I'm Funny! Right?

I hadn't put much thought into the gender gap of humor before. Sure, I noticed that most of the stand-up I watched starred men, but it never occurred to me that there is a belief that women are (innately? culturally? intentionally?) not funny.

After hearing this idea brought up in class during one of our very first meetings, I started thinking about it more. Sure, I don't see that many female comedians, but there's plenty of them in sitcoms, right? And there are female stand-up shows. And I laugh at the jokes women tell. And, I mean, I'm funny, right?!

This potential crisis of identity led me to a Vanity Fair article, titled not "Are Women Funny?" but, quite depressingly, "Why Women Aren't Funny." There's a lot of different perspectives on this issue covered in the article (including a fairly disturbing discussion of the difference between "normal" women and women who do stand-up). The most interesting to me was the discussion that women aren't supposed to be funny, culturally:

it could be that in some way men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals.

And this, from Fran Lebowitz:

"The cultural values are male; for a woman to say a man is funny is the equivalent of a man saying that a woman is pretty. Also, humor is largely aggressive and pre-emptive, and what's more male than that?"

Really? Is this all humor is? Another pick-up line? Setting aside (and it's a hefty load to place over there) most of the sexism in this line of reasoning, I still don't get it. Is being funny a threatening thing? And even if it is somehow threatening to this traditional view of courtship and relationships, shouldn't we be past it by now?

In a connection that may only make sense in my mind, I was recently listening to a rap/R&B station and heard yet another song (by men) touting the female ideal of being independent. This is becoming a very popular musical theme. (Ludacris: "She makes her own money, pays her own bills" Ne-Yo: "I love her cause she got her own/she don't need mine, so she leaves mine alone" Lil Boosie: "She got her own house/drive her own whip") There have been similar themed songs, but typically from the woman's perspective (Beyonce, TLC, Shania Twain), but I think that having it come from a male perspective changes it, somehow. So, if we're (we being American culture) casting out the traditional idea that men must provide for women, can't we be funny, too?