Mel Brooks as a Native-American chief who speaks Yiddish in 'Blazing Saddles'
A kid is walking down the hallway of his house. He hears screaming coming from his parents' bedroom and opens the door. The kid's father is dressed only in chaps, his mother is wearing a cheerleader's uniform, and they're going at it. He says "Daddy! what's going on!" The father says "just go to bed, junior. I'll come tuck you in a little later." Twenty minutes later, the father is walking down the hallway and hears screaming from his son's bedroom. The father opens the door, and the kid is having sex with his grandmother. The father screams "Billy! What the hell are you doing?" The kid looks at his dad and says "not so funny when it's your mother, is it?"
I wish my delivery in the written form was as good as Bob Einstein's in person. Whether or not you find the joke above funny or objectionable is more than likely a matter of individual taste. There is no agreed upon science as to what makes something funny, or whether it's a "good" joke, other than whether it can make an audience laugh. Within the world of comedy, the iterations of the genre run the spectrum, with the humor being anywhere between safe, irreverent, dumb, uncomfortable and deeply offensive.
About a week ago, Monica Heisey, writing in The Guardian, did a piece analyzing the comedy of Amy Schumer, which has caused a bit of a debate about where the line is on jokes about minorities, and whether there should be a line. The comedian has been critically lauded for her Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer, which has created sketches skewering sexism and misogyny. However, Heisey accused Schumer of having “a shockingly large blind spot around race,” citing jokes about Latinos as evidence of her insensitivity. Schumer took to Twitter and responded by writing she will "joke about things you like, and ... joke about things you aren’t comfortable with," and that includes "making dumb jokes involving race."
In the time since, the arguments over this have seemed to have grown, with Schumer issuing an additional statement yesterday. Many articles have been written on this topic and whether it's an example of humorless people using political correctness, stifling creativity and censoring comedic commentary. Or whether it's an example of increased sensitivity to perpetuating stereotypes, with at least one column linking Schumer to Donald Trump, arguing "both draw on shared cultural stereotypes and use dehumanizing language that gives life to an ecosystem of racial fear and violence."
So, if there is a line with jokes, where do you draw it? Continue below the fold for more.
One way of viewing comedy is that it's rooted in the tragedy of everyday life. In fact, an old saying goes "comedy is tragedy plus time." It's a way for us humans to laugh at things that are in every other context treated as serious business, but become absurd to the point of a giggle when you analyze it at any length because it is absurd, and we'd rather laugh about it than cry. However, another perspective of comedy is that it's based in mockery and making a mockery of its subjects. And whether someone is laughing with or laughing at someone or something makes all the difference in the world.
For those that view it as being more of the latter, there are some topics where the determination of whether or not the jokes are appropriate become an equation based on the background of the teller, whether the background is one of privilege, and whether there are unfortunate implications notwithstanding the comedian's intent. Following this line of thinking out to its logical conclusion, the result is an argument which posits that if we as a society have decided white people doing blackface is just not something that can be appropriate under any context anymore, shouldn't we treat jokes rooted in humor about minorities the same way?
From Stacey Patton and David J. Leonard at the
Washington Post:
Wouldn’t it be funny if Donald Trump and the wildly popular feminist comedian Amy Schumer joined forces and ran on the same presidential ticket in 2016?
You might not think this duo has much in common, but they certainly share similar views about Mexicans. Whether joking or not, both draw on shared cultural stereotypes and use dehumanizing language that gives life to an ecosystem of racial fear and violence ... Schumer responded to this criticism by explaining that she likes pretending to be an “irreverent idiot” who says “the dumbest things possible.”
“Playing with race is a thing we are not supposed to do, which is what makes it so fun for comics,” she wrote. “You can call it a ‘blind spot for racism’ or ‘lazy’ but you are wrong. It is a joke and it is funny. I know because people laugh at it.”
A blind spot is not finding humor in the systemic exploitation of Mexican workers. A blind spot is not making jokes that depict Latina women as crazy. Nor is it a laughing matter for a white woman to suggest that Mexicans, or other men of color, are natural-born rapists.
Several people have rushed to her defense, arguing that Schumer can’t be racist because she doesn’t intend to be. But the motivation of the joke-teller and what compels laughter is not at issue. What matters is the costs and consequences of these “jokes” to those being objectified. Invoking the “it’s just a joke” defense denies the social, historic and cultural implications of racial humor. It ignores the ways that disparaging jokes provide a safe vehicle to share stereotypes, release inhibitions and spread racism.
The biggest problem with the above column is that it equates the "serious" views of a presidential candidate with the jokes of a comedian. Even though Patton and Leonard argue intent doesn't make a difference, that doesn't seem fair. But those which argue jokes are more than
just a joke,
feel the increased scrutiny adds accountability before someone speaks, forces comedians to grow the same thick skins as their subjects, and analyzing and talking about what people are outraged about can be a good thing to the larger society.
This debate has flared up from time to time over the past couple of years, with Patton Oswalt, Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld claiming comedians can't really say what they want to say anymore. The internet has made it where someone can't say or do something controversial and it'll be forgotten. A video of it will show up on YouTube. The comedians resent experimentation and of the moment thinking being judged and analyzed to death by internet commentary, and believe it's used to censor any material a group of sufficient number doesn't feel is appropriate. When Trevor Noah was chosen as Jon Stewart’s replacement as host of The Daily Show, his prior tweets became a focus of whether or not they were offensive to the point of disqualifying him from having the job.
From David Sims at The Atlantic:
Like Noah, Schumer’s brand of comedy earned her an invitation to take over The Daily Show, an opportunity she declined. But she’s never resisted an opportunity to point out human folly or make people laugh while also making them at least a little uncomfortable.
You could micro-analyze every joke Schumer has told, good and bad, but that would undermine the value of the experimental nature of stand-up, which lives in the split moment an audience decides to—or not to—laugh. This isn’t to say Schumer’s comedy doesn’t have the power to offend, or that people don’t have the right to be put off by her particular persona. It’s simply to acknowledge that it’s unfair and impossible to ask a comedian to push boundaries without also giving them room to write material that sometimes falls short, or pushes too hard.
In the end, what it really comes down to is whether one trusts the person telling the joke (or any other type of comment for that matter) is doing it from a good place. For some people, hearing those words or seeing the stereotypes has to be grating and very essence of "not funny." Far too often, saying dumb shit just to provoke a reaction has been equated with comedy because dumb people laugh at it. However, that in and of itself is not a reason for why certain aspects of life, and the differences we create among us, need to be walled off from commentary or humor. For at least some of us, there are certain people given a pass to say things that would be offensive if said by a stranger, even in joke form. Whether that's right or wrong is I guess something that will be an evolving debate for society.
However, to say our cultural idiosyncrasies can't be a source of humor is not logical. Especially the cultural idiosyncrasies and differences which make no sense whatsoever. Because sometimes we have to laugh at the absurd things to realize they're absurd.
From Drew McWeeny's interview with Mel Brooks at
Hitfix:
"Comedy has to be outrageous. It has to be the jester whispering the most salacious things about that dancing girl into the king's ear. You know? That's what it is. It's all about the truth. What's going on in life? What you want to have go on. We did that. When we were writing [Blazing Saddles], I said 'write everything that's deep and dark in you, that you've always wanted to say.' This was the other writers I was talking to. I said, 'It's never going to get made. It's not gonna get made. Warner Bros is not gonna make this movie, you know? So I said, 'Let's say everything.'"
He continued. "I had Richard Pryor writing it with me right at my side. And I used to say to Rich, 'Can I use the N word here?' He said, 'Absolutely.' 'Rich, what about there?' I said, 'Richard, I'm talking to Harvey, and I'm calling him the N word. That's wrong. He's, you know, Harvey Korman, you know? He's Hedley Lamarr. He's like my assistant. He's white. I can't.' He said, 'Call him the N word.' Richard said, 'Call everybody the N word.'"