Why did the chicken cross the road? I suppose George Bush's answer would be because of the terrorists. Though many Republicans seem more concerned with keeping the chicken from crossing the road, thereby preventing the chicken from stealing jobs on the other side.
At its core, it's a philosophical joke about motivation. It begins with a basic setup. And answers to the eternal question can range from the silly punch line of a five-year-old to a more offensive ethnic, religious, or political one. That's why it's a classic. Then of course there's The Aristocrats. Since the "age of the joke" is over, comedians now favor whole routines. And The Aristocrats routine begins with a simple setup involving a family pitching an act to a talent agent. The agent asks what the act entails. We're then told the most offensive, filthy, disturbing act the joke-teller can improvise. When the agent finally asks what the family call their act, they always respond with the same answer: The Aristocrats!
The punch line isn't funny. In fact, it isn't supposed to be funny. Then what is the point of this routine? The same as many other jokes, to subvert expectations, to surprise. And it is in that surprise that the unfunny is rendered funny. The punch line is so benign compared to its setup that, like an Andy Kaufman routine, it is more a joke on the audience than for the audience.
According to physiologists and evolutionists, laughter accelerates respiration, increases circulation, and raises blood pressure. Sigmund Freud described laughter as a "discharge of psychical energy" saying tension is built up and laughter serves as a satisfying release. In the book The Catharsis of Comedy, Dana Sutton argues that laughter relieves an audience of bad feelings.
That brings me to the real purpose of this article. The comedian Gilbert Gottfried made news recently after being fired as the spokes-voice for the duck in the Aflac commericals over two controversial tweets he wrote on his Twitter page. These controversial tweets:
"Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them."
'I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, 'There'll be another one floating by any minute now.''
Since the story broke, everybody's got an opinion. The negative criticisms range from those who found the material little insensitive to those who felt he crossed the line into being deeply offensive to the victims of the recent tragedy in Japan. And this wasn't the first time Gottfried has attacked risky material about tragedies shortly after they happened. He was one of the first comedians to make light of the events of September 11th at a Comedy Central/Friars' Club roast of Hugh Hefner (parts of his Hugh Hefner:roast can be seen here and here (NSFW)):
Gottfried began his performance with a joke in which he claimed to have to catch a late flight out of town but was worried because his flight "had a connection at the Empire State Building." The joke, a reference to 9/11, was poorly received by the audience, who showered Gottfried with boos and cries of "too soon." In response, Gottfried told an obscenity-filled rendition of the Aristocrats joke. According to the film, the telling was as much a cathartic experience for the audience as it was a shocking one, regardless of whether viewers were familiar with the joke or not.
Thinking about these two events in Gottfried's comedy career reminded me of the first thing I told my brother on September 11th. I was living in New York at the time, and it had been well into the day before my brother had been able to reach me by phone. Aware that this tragic event was occurring on, of all days, his birthday, the first thing I said was something to the effect of, "I wanted to do something special for your birthday, so I had them light some candles for you," referring, quite audaciously, to the flaming towers. My remark was what Comedian Jeff Garlin might call, "a big bowl of wrong," and shocked even me. At the time, I'm not sure I knew why I said it, but it harkens back to what I've come to call my "Five-Minute Rule."
While many cling to the notion that humor making light of tragedies often comes "too soon," I believe that five minutes after a tragedy, it's okay to joke about it. Anything before that and you should be ashamed of yourself. Of course the five minutes are entirely arbitrary and are themselves, meant for comic effect. I come from the school of thought that doesn't actually believe it is ever too soon to make light of a tragedy, because one of the central purposes of humor is to cope with grief and tragedy. What's the cliché? "You have to laugh to keep from crying." Something Mark Twain once said that I found particularly insightful was, "The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven." Similarly, Lenny Bruce once said, "All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the breadline." Further, I can only think of few great comedians who haven't had a troubled background or weren't perpetually on the verge of self-destruction. And many great comedians have self-destructed.
It's because of this close relationship to despair and tragedy that comics are given license to cross so many boundaries. Still, you'll always find people who say another man's humor goes "too far." A few years ago, British Prince Harry showed up to a private costume party with a swastika armband, and scandal broke out. People cried for an apology, claiming there was nothing funny about the Holocaust. Some even declared it proof that his generation doesn't understand the reality of that tragedy (mostly from people who themselves weren't 5 years old when it happened). Yet, being of Harry's generation and of Jewish descent myself, I think we do get it. I just think my generation has enough distance from it that we don't treat it quite as sacrosanct, and can more easily discuss it with irreverence. And as for the Holocaust not being funny, are you kidding me? When has the Holocaust not been funny? Hitler himself has been comic gold at least since 1940, when Charlie Chaplin satirized him on film in, The Great Dictator. And in 1942, filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch released the original "To Be Or Not To Be," a comedy about a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their talents to fool the occupying troops. The latter film even includes a humorous one-liner referencing the Holocaust. Though I'm not sure how knowledgeable Lubitsch was at the time of what was really happening in the concentration camps. But certain subjects will likely forever be the subject of jokes: Hitler, Jesus, Sarah Palin, the guy who wrote the script to Batman and Robin.
But as the tenth anniversary of the September 11th tragedy approaches, I think about my own experience that day, the great tragedy of my generation. I woke up that Tuesday in my college dorm room on East 7th Street at 9:30 to get ready for an 11:00 class. My father called and told me a plane hit the World Trade Center. I found my roommates already watching it on the television in our common room. I watched, not certain whether to shower and head to class, but opted to stay put. We watched the towers fall on TV It was surreal walking the Manhattan streets that afternoon. I saw the billowing smoke down Third Avenue. The streets were unusually quiet for that time. Everyone moved like zombies, and the sound of planes caused everyone to stop and look up in the sky, fearing the worst. Several students were on their way to Beth Israel Medical Center to donate blood. Given the severity of the situation, I tagged along. But when we got there, we were turned away because their blood facilities were already at maximum capacity. They told us to come back in a few days. I never did.
As much as I regret not contributing blood that day, I was proud of the reason we were turned away: enough people stepped up to perform their civic duty in a time of crisis. In the weeks following the tragedy, I attended candlelight vigils in Washington Square and Union Square Parks, and in the months that followed, I remember every day brought the scent of burnt ash, a constant reminder of the tragedy.
Maybe Gottfried's jokes were funny and maybe they weren't. There's no accounting for personal taste. I for one found his tweets about as funny as any quickly thought up free comedy in under 140 characters is likely to be. If you're the kind of person who follows Gottfried on Twitter (the only way the jokes could have been seen until the media chose to repeat them to everybody), then you're not likely to be the kind of person who'd be offended by such extremely tame material. His audience was his followers on Twitter, whose opinions about the material the media is uninterested in reporting. If you follow him on Twitter, that's the equivalent of you buying a ticket to his stand-up act. You actually have to opt in. It's not his fault the media chose to throw his material in the faces of random people who didn't take the necessary steps to hear the material and who weren't part of his intended audience. If you're not his Twitter follower and you're offended by his words, I say it's the news media's fault you were offended, not his. Okay, and mine since I too have now repeated his tweets.
Some people cry. I laugh. Laughing about a tragedy just comes naturally to me and feels far more cathartic than trying to rrepress that part of me that sees the absurdity in life. And while I censor myself in public, I view my Twitter followers like my friends, to whom I have no problem making off-color remarks. Though as a celebrity, the rules may be different and perhaps it is unreasonable for a celebrity, even a comedian known for his off-color humor, to think they can be their unfiltered themselves on Twitter and not expect it to create public controversy or result in negative consequences. But I propose that people take some time to escape the mourning of this tragedy and find a reason to laugh, because laughter is the best medicine, and in times of darkness, and in the wake of tragedy, it can remind us of the beauty and absurdity in the world as well as why life is worth living. And if that isn't the best reason to cross the road, I don't know what is.
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