We fought the law and the law won

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on June 18th, 2009

Comedian Steven Crowder, writing for Steven Breitbart’s BigHollywood website, says that “Republicans need to grow a sense of humor.”

As proof, he cites the reaction to three recent incidents involving very public joke-making that didn’t go over so well.

Exhibit A, Crowder says, is the reaction to President’s Special Olympics gag during his appearance on Jay Leno‘s Tonight. Exhibit B is the offense taken to Wanda Sykes‘ ill-fated performance before the White House Correspondents Dinner. Exhibit C is, of course, the impetus for the article– the firestorm that erupted over David Letterman’s monologue jokes concerning Sarah Palin’s daughter(s).

In none of the examples does Crowder honestly assess the very fundamental aspect of who is telling the joke and within which context the person is telling it.

This is disappointing, considering that Crowder is a professional comedian. It is disappointing, it is frustrating and it’s maddening, considering that, of all people, Crowder should know that these facts must be taken into consideration.

But Crowder is not alone. Judging from what we’ve read on various blogs and in comments (indeed, in our own comments), comedians are loath to consider context and are instead more likely to blindly defend the comedian out of some sort of loyalty to the joke or the joke teller.

As near as we can follow the logic (insofar as there is any logic to be observed) the reasoning goes like this: If we don’t defend the joke (“It’s only a joke! Lighten up!”), then we will all be rounded up and sent to some sort of jail for crass people. Or we will all be classified as lunkheads, with restrictions on our speech, or on our subject matter and on our livelihoods.

But, of all the people on the planet, it is comedians who should be able to rise above all of this and observe, in a rather dispassionate manner, all three instances for what they are: Incidents where people attempted to makes jokes in such a setting, and in such a manner, that rendered them inappropriate.

It’s all about context.

There is a supreme irony here. Comedians should acknowledge that, once in a great while, a joke doesn’t work because of who is telling it and where they’re telling it. Which among us doesn’t know that? Which of us doesn’t live by that bit of knowledge? If we were to acknowledge that simple fact in these discussions, it would actually make us look better, more attuned to the whole dynamic that exists between joke-teller and audience. We’re supposed to be the experts on this stuff, are we not?

Why have so many intelligent, reasonable people (comedians) abandoned intelligence and reason in these instances? It’s a mystery.

Crowder contends that the donnybrook over Wanda Sykes’ performance at the White Horse Correspondents Dinner was caused by people who took offense that she wished that prominent talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys would fail and that folks “jumped on the dame for ‘wishing death upon somebody, which is inappropriate under any circumstances!'” He defends her by saying that Sykes set had been performed “within the context of comedy.”

So, the defense is that Sykes did the jokes, “within the context of comedy.” That is a meaningless phrase.

The context is not “comedy.” The context is actually the White House Correspondents Dinner. Comedy cannot be considered its own context. If it were, no one would get more than $200 for a corporate gig.

Consider that one cannot do comedy at the Holocaust Museum. One cannot crack jokes on the rim of an actively erupting volcano or in the immediate aftermath of a five-car pileup in which there are multiple deaths. “Sure, they were jokes about the lava and the smell of anti-freeze and six million dead Jews! But they were jokes, right! Comedy provides its own context, right? They come with their own protective coating. No one need even think about taking umbrage. They’re told within Crowder’s magical ‘context of comedy,’ so no one can complain, right?”

Nonsense. Context isn’t everything. But it is something.

Context is vitally important to assessing the appropriateness of a joke. Context is something that must be considered.

But context is also our friend.

Context is not just something that hems in comedy, it’s something that liberates our performance. When you define what can’t be said and where and by whom, you essentially leave the rest of it wide open.

When you consider what might be asked of comedians (professional and amateur) in these last three incidents, it’s really not a whole lot: Maybe the POTUS shouldn’t make a joke about retarded people on network television; maybe the comedian at the WHCD shouldn’t wish death upon someone; maybe Davide Letterman would be advised to go easy on the sex jokes about a prominent politician’s daughter. Could any one of those taken individually, or all three combined be said to constitute a serious threat to the artistic freedom of professional comedians?

The answer is no.

In all of these recent controversies, we (professional comedians) could have actually agreed with all those who took umbrage. And we could have done so and still not suffered any erosion of our artistic freedom. We may not have necessarily agreed that suspension of firing is appropriate for Letterman. We may not have been required to the President to step down. But we could have at least acknowledged that, in some cases, here and there, a comedian does something that might be considered inappropriate.

Indeed, had we offered our “professional opinions” and brought our expertise to bear upon the discussion, we would have been viewed as sober, thoughtful professionals who are aware of boundaries, aware of sensibilities, aware of limitations. But we could also have simultaneously delineated just where those boundaries and limitations end. And– and this is the weird part that few seem to understand– we could have done so with absolutely no risk to our precious “outlaw personae.” (Really, when it gets right down to it, how many people over the age of 19 actually believe that even the most outspoken among us is actually an “outlaw” in any sense of the word, or in any danger whatsoever of being prosecuted for what we say or how we say it… within the proper context, of course! What’re the chances of, say, Doug Stanhope being hauled off to the pokey for something he says in a live performance in our lifetime? We’ll take that bet. Anyone? Whipping out the penis or threatening the President cancels the bet.)

Instead, far too many chose to scream “First Amendment” at the top of their lungs with no concession that the folks on the “other side” had any legitimate reason to register any complaint whatever. (When was the last time, in anyone’s memory, when the “other side” had absolutely no leg to stand on? It happens, but rarely. To totally dismiss the possibility is a tactical and strategical error of monumental proportions.)

An awful lot of the rhetoric from the side of the comedians had/has all the subtlety of a hallucinating boar.

from → News • View 4 Comments • Print-Friendly • Back To Top