-----Original Message----- From: joanna <123hop at comcast.net> Sent: Oct 1, 2005 3:02 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] About the joke "The Aristocrats"
Joanna wrote:
>>It's not the end of the discussion because what "aristocrats" are is a
whole lot of things. Of course, they present as "mannered, restrained,
and refined" but that reality covers up a lot of shit. And
everyfuckingbody knows it at some level. That's why the
cannibals/aristos version is funny.<<
Remember Drew Carey's comment that the joke would be even better served if it called "The Sophisticates." It's another reason why I think it's a simpler construction than do you. Not simple--few good jokes are simple--but simpler. Less dependent on a "reading" of the complex meanings of "Aristocrats" in particular. The joke is about excess, something sophisticates by definition are supposed to be disinclined toward. And about upward mobility and enfeebled efforts to ape your betters. And, yes, if you squint, it's about the peccadilloes of the rich and mannered. The joke works not because of multiple layers --there aren't that many--or a look into the black heart beneath the aristo covering, but because of the piling on of excess. Using "Aristocrats" takes you further afield, as Carey noted. Remember, this is a vaudville gag. To audiences in small-town America, aristocrats were just sophisticates.
>>Jokes, like poetry, have got about seven layers of meaning...or more. And most great jokes have a underlying stratum of truth.<<
And Freud remarked that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. You're looking at an exploding cigar and calling it the Big Bang.
>>Fair enough [about the Shakers], but it would be more thinly funny and I'm willing to bet
that every comedian for the next generation would not be cutting his/her
teeth on it.<<
It would be more thinly funny, or not funny at all, because Shakers have little resonance in our society. How about if the comedy act was called "The Disciples of Christ," or "The Lubavitch Rabbis" "or "The Friends of Jerry Falwell" or about some group known for its piety mixed with self-righteousness. That could work, and work the same way.
>>Could we just agree that it was a great movie and that the same joke can satisfy different people in different ways?<<
Fair enough, in general. A great movie. Well worth seeing. Just remember, you are the one asserting there's multiple levels of the joke going down into bedrock, if only we had the facility to look. I looked. It's a two-story (okay, a three-story, but no basement) built in the wetlands, habited by outsized loonies.
Mike Hirsch
Michael Hirsch wrote:
>Joanna:
>Is this a joke? It has to be. Either that or you are tone deaf.
>
Whatever.
> The joke in the Aristocrats is its study in contrasts, the sheer contrast between the act's name and the action in the routine. Aristocrats are mannered and restrained and refined. This act is the extreme opposite. End of discussion. End of joke.
>
It's not the end of the discussion because what "aristocrats" are is a
whole lot of things. Of course, they present as "mannered, restrained,
and refined" but that reality covers up a lot of shit. And
everyfuckingbody knows it at some level. That's why the
cannibals/aristos version is funny.
Jokes, like poetry, have got about seven layers of meaning...or more. And most great jokes have a underlying stratum of truth.
> Rita Rudner reverses the joke brilliantly, switching polarities if you wish.
>
Yeah, ok. But that's just one dimension.
> If John wants to riff on an act called 'The Shakers," then you'd need characters capable of reversing every Shaker stereotype. What would that be? Gaudy dress, opulent furniture, highly libidinous behavior, lots and lots of kids.
>
Fair enough, but it would be more thinly funny and I'm willing to bet
that every comedian for the next generation would not be cutting his/her
teeth on it.
>Of course, if you are doing a send-up on literary theory, the joke is on me. Good one. If not, you must get out more.
>
Could we just agree that it was a great movie and that the same joke can
satisfy different people in different ways?
Joanna
>
>Mike Hirsch
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: joanna <123hop at comcast.net>
>Sent: Sep 30, 2005 9:14 PM
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] About the joke "The Aristocrats"
>
>John Adams wrote:
>
>
>
>>Is the joke inherently about "the aristocrats"? Is it about what the privileged do and get away with doing? Would some other group--say, "the amish", or better yet, "the shakers"--still be funny? Would it still be the same joke?
>>
>>
>>
>I think the humor has two sources:
>
>1. Class. Aristocrats really do get away with this kind of stuff. When I
>heard the joke, the first thing that popped into my mind was De Sade's
>Justine and 120 Days of Sodom....books that describe aristos getting
>together and doing this kind of stuff. (This was especially obvious in
>the cannibals/aristo version of the joke.)
>
>2. Performer/comedian self-abasement/self-reference. This was described
>in the movie as "performers will do ANYTHING, no matter how abasing, to
>get on stage, but at the same time they want to be admired stars, and
>the joke emphasizes this paradox.
>
>And then there's the literal truth (jokes often depend upon a kind of
>buried literalness) that to maintain purity of blood, aristos are often
>required to be incestuous.
>
>Joanna
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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>`And these words shall then become
>Like oppression's thundered doom
>Ringing through each heart and brain,
>Heard again -- again -- again--
>`Rise like Lions after slumber
>In unvanquishable number--
>Shake your chains to earth like dew
>Which in sleep had fallen on you--
>Ye are many -- they are few.'
>--------Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy:
>Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" [1819]
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________________________________________ `And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain, Heard again -- again -- again-- `Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number-- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you-- Ye are many -- they are few.' --------Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy: Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" [1819]