Is this a joke? It has to be. Either that or you are tone deaf. 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. Rita Rudner reverses the joke brilliantly, switching polarities if you wish. 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.
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.
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
>
>
___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
________________________________________ `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]