WHAT IS COMEDY?
‘‘Comedy is an aesthetic term. It has two distinct kinds of meaning. It can either refer to the genre as a whole, in which case it either explicitly or implicitly includes each one of its various criteria’s, each one of its forms and each of its various works. However it can also refer to particular works. In the second case,the more restricted notions of comedy come into play.’’
Neale and Krutnik
Various attempts have been made to define and explain comedy. But it is evident as even the quotation above indicated that anything that comedy refers to even in everyday speech, is a diverse concept embracing ideas about form and genre, moments of speech or action (jokes, funny behaviour) and individual or group tastes about the comic, what is thought to be funny and this it is unlikely that there can be an essence or core that one can uncover of clarify about what is ‘comedy’. Comedy can simply be called a humorous discourse usually intended to amuse an audience. It is possible to trace the history of comedy or of the various forms and works as mentioned above which have their roots deep in literature or beyond in oral and folk culture. However, the connotation of this term is so diverse that it may not be possible to limit its definition based on a single or a group of definitions for this may limit its application and hence be insufficient. This diversity can be better understood by considering Aristotle’s definition of comedy as one of the genres of literature; where as Bharata Muni in his Natya Shashtra (mainly in ancient Sanskrit Drama) defined humour (hasyam) as one of the nine nava rasa’s(emotional responses). The only element that seems common at all points is the generation of laughter or amusement.
In case of television, comedy meets a similar fate where it hasn’t been analysed at length. One of the reasons why there hasn’t been a detailed analysis of comedy is the fact that comedy’s low cultural status to a large extent uninspired academics coming from the fields of humanities and literature, and they instead invested their research and study into ‘serious’ concerns. Another reason is the vast variations in each form of comedy; the range is vast comprising sitcoms (FRIENDS, 1994-2004), sketch shows (Little Britain,2003-2006), stand-ups, advertising (Meerkat.com), chat shows (Mock the Week,2005-2010) and animation (Simpsons1989-2007) as well as the functions of comedy. But this aspect of comedy (complex and vast), which makes its difficult to define, is one of its clearest crucial features.
The inability to precisely define comedy and setting out a limited list of its functions and features does hold a problem for the genre or the examination of forms or genre that embody comedy, but it also gives birth to crucial questions and issues where comedy comes into play, especially when considering form, aesthetics, morality or ethics and ideologies. These are situations in which we question the functions of comedy . These are situations regarding nationality, ethnicity, gender and culture where we face question such as who can make fun of whom? When does comedy get offensive? Is there a place for aggression and rudeness or even can we have comedy without such attitudes? Is this the right way to pose the question you are interested in…. does comedy always reinforce notions of gender difference or stereotypes? Is there a national /ethnic sense of humour? The following essay attempts to discuss these questions and others regarding nationality, race, ethnicity and gender by taking examples from television comedy.
GENDER ORIENTED HUMOUR
‘Gender’ as we know mainly refers to male and female. Television comedy has used this equation in some sitcoms and sketch shows for a long time . However it is very interesting to know and analyse the level of acceptance of gender oriented humour when it is associated with ideologies of feminism and sexual humour. A lot of times comedy based on gender differentiation and sex has been debated, one of the reasons has been the ‘effect’ and response that has generated, sometimes negative. However it has also been noticed that what may seem offensive to some may not be offensive to others. For example a lot of women enjoy and appreciate jokes about women such as those about their habits, characteristics and nature while some women may find it offensive and insulting. It can also be the case that similar or similar seemingly offensive humour about women can be accepted by other women more if told by women than if told by men (eg, the humour about women in Absolutely Fabulous)
Palmer explains this disparity with the example of feminism and dirty jokes. A lot of people find sexual humour unacceptable. This may mainly be based on the symbolic association of woman = vagina, and is therefore undignified (gender based humour gets associated with sexual humour). Such an association also harms the status quo. Whereas some find it funny. Here arises the question of how do two different groups of people see entirely two different things in the same artefact? A very obvious answer is that the ones, who are at the receiving end, don’t appreciate such humour. But even when some are at the receiving end, they are able to take a joke as a joke and not get offended by it. As Palmer further explains it, some sexual humour demeans women, and also helps to reinforce the status quo, the status quo of patriarchy as it speaks the unspeakable. Dirty jokes can be seen as an act of aggression with the purpose to continue male dominance for example pornography apart from comedy. However in the case of men and women who enjoy such humour, the reason could be the pleasure that sexual humour derives in a comic way out of something that is a source of regular emotional tension, thus it is seen as beneficial and possibly even rebellious as it can overcome repression that will be beneficial even for women even if their inequality is still being reinforced thus in many comedies on television or in the cinema the sexually frustrated wife can tell jokes against her impotent or ugly or uninterested husband( for example in Sex and the City when Charlotte discusses the guy who is a bad kisser and Carrie is unhappy about her boyfriend who doesn’t get an erection); such jokes are not exactly liberating for women but they are expressive of repression, oppression, female desire, some kind of nascent rebellion. In such circumstances, in order to attack something by ridicule, or to give offence, a joke must by contrast authenticate something else.
By keeping the above argument in mind we will now analyse some products of recent television comedy to have a better understanding of gender based humour. During the 1940s and 1950s, television was a materialistic possession that signified high status, television channels in that period also were dominated with ideas of status and hierarchy and it was here that television was used for domestic ‘containment’.
Mellencamp describes that ‘Containment’ was not only a defensive military strategy developed by the US foreign policy in 1950s but was also used at domestic fronts. Here, it was used to exclude women from the work force and keep them at home, women were being urged to leave cities and settle in suburbs to look after families and raise children by giving up working. But not all women fell to this temptation, many remained in the work force but those who left got a new incentive for staying at home ‘television sitcoms’ catering to them. There was a lot of importance given to powerful women usually in their 30s and 40s in such shows, but in the later years there was a change in this format. The focus shifted from well dressed, witty and smart powerful women wanting well paid jobs to being contented with family life, if not completely happy but yet having the ability to work and sacrifice for the larger aim.
A very popular sitcom was The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show(1950), that was an upper middle class sitcom about a happily married couple, the fashionable Gracie and George. Gracie’s image was that of a woman who disrupted logic, she would cause unnecessary confusion resulting in comic situations, devising doubtful stories and schemes, which would become that week’s ‘plot’ often to be mocked by her husband George. What also added to the shaggy dog quality of the plots were other characters who would get involved in the story by Gracie. The one who mostly stopped all the confusion would be George who in turn would do an Aristotelian analysis of Gracie’s behaviour for speechless bewildered bystander’s .At the end of each show he would issue the essential statement ‘Say goodnight, Gracie.’ This kind of representation of Gracie perhaps showed the clichés that were associated with women. Patricia Mellencamp states that ‘‘the dominant discursive code of patriarchy tried, through benevolent George, to contain Gracie’s volatization, her literal deconstruction of speech, and her tales of family.’’ So here we see how it was almost impossible for Gracie to survive her blunders without George’s wise words. This show to a large extent shows that male-female divide. Apart from the story-telling, other conventions in most of the episodes also gave more prominence to George, by always placing him in the centre frame and he also is shown to enjoy direct access to audience via his direct looks at the camera. Mellencamp says, ‘‘he nods at his audiences knowingly, with conclusive glances at us (or perhaps at eternal husbands everywhere).’’ Coming back to the containment issue, the importance given to the male lead in such sitcoms during this period used laughter as a source of containment, in which women were made to realise again and again where they belonged rather than liberating them. So this show in particular could classify as one that both had women as the subject and object of comedy, which is different from Freud’s classification of women as objects only. If, we try to apply the fact as discussed above that the popularity of this show was also due to the fact that women enjoyed watching Gracie make mistakes, so how is it that women were able to laugh and enjoy this sitcom even when it subtly showed their position in society?. This could have been possible as humour was a rare gift to women then, it would have been seen as a weapon and tactic of survival, ensuring wisdom as Gracie was quite rebellious in her nature and always out of control of men, even if the seeming ideological intention, according to Mellencamp, was containment. However this response of acceptance and laughing is not a replacement of anger and rage by pleasure, and a cover-up but also a complex issue, concerning problems of women’s replicated liberation by comic containment.
GENDER IN TODAY’S TELEVISION COMEDY
‘‘Who needs a husband? ’’
Time Magazine, 2000.
There has been a great change in the narrative structures of television comedy in recent times. The contemporary sitcoms, sketch shows and stand –ups have surpassed the previous concerns and lay emphasis on modern crucial issues and ideologies. Today comedy has been able to incorporate homosexuality in its forms, in shows such as Will and Grace and Two and a Half Men which used to be debatable issues or more emphatically, taboo issues, that could not be addressed even through humour, or only in highly metaphoric or unstated ways. The social taboo has dissolved, and the acceptance has arisen. And these sitcoms deserve credit for bringing about a change or at the least validating them after the change had taken placed. The example of the The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show from the 1950s was used to understand the position of women during that period and also analyse why this sitcom was popular among women. We will now take a more recent example of a situation comedy, Sex and the City (1998-2004) that has been immensely popular among today’s women and some men as well. It first aired on Home Box Office in 1998 and has won numerous awards, the show has audiences from around the globe waiting to get involved in the lives of four absolutely self-sufficient, brand- iconic single women (even if they do get married in later series).This situation comedy was seen as a social-cultural phenomenon and a cultural discourse to current fashion trends and above all the position of women in ‘advanced’ societies and possibly aspirational, literally or metaphorically, for those women in less advantaged positions.
The four central characters Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha Jones (Kim Catrall), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) live in Manhattan (the only place worthy for survival, the place is magical like no other in the world, the ‘ultimate’ social space of the modern age: urban, socially mobile, free to wander around, full of desires and the potential for personal fulfilment, uncensored and ‘free’, deal with their lives and objectify men the way women are usually objectified usually referring to them as Big, Mr.Pussy, Groovy Guy and Artist Guy making very little reference to their names. These characters have men in their lives but are in search of Mr. Right, they enjoy having sex but sometimes wonder if they are sluts, clearly such ideologies are very modern in nature and represent a large section of women. The women are not shown as fallen or characterless, in spite of having a very active multi partner sexual life. This show also redefined the traditional family sitcom, as here four women have been the central part of the form, the central grouping (seemingly outside of both the family unit that defines most sitcoms or even the work situation that may define other sitcoms) and their conversations and thoughts become the theme of the show, unlike other sitcoms that excluded or ignored women as independent entities outside their definitions as mother or wife, however strong they may have been represented. Female friendship is a defining and central quality of this show, their relationships are strong and the women stand and support one another (as seen in ‘Ring a Ding Ding’ when Charlotte gives Carrie her 30,000 USD ring, to afford an apartment). A very important strategy in this show is the use of humour to deal with complicated issues such as heartbreaks, divorces, abortions, STDs and impotence. In one of the episodes when Miranda finds out about her pregnancy she decides against abortion, which in a way is going along with the US TV taboo of not depicting abortion. This in a way is limiting and questioning the ideologies that the show tries to explore with its characters. This contradiction is not prominent very often may or may not be a notable feature of the show, depending on who is doing the interpreting as it is clear that women, though often enjoying the show equally, can radically disagree as to its position as far as liberation or containment is concerned.
But the show has a bigger issue, which is its dream-like depiction of its characters.
The vision of female empowerment in Sex and the City is limited, as its protagonists are all white, heterosexual, thin, attractive and most importantly economically well –off and stable. This is one reason why and how women can disagree about the ideology of the show as regards women. The hours that they spend examining and discussing their sex lives is a rare dispensation of their race and class position. So it can be argued whether this sitcom uses a device that allows its characters to discuss without worrying about anything else or is it an impossible barrier in order to consider the show as ‘liberating’?
This is one of the aspects that make it impossible for a lot of women to laugh and relate to the show as the series does not deal with ‘real’ issues of day to day lives such as the concrete realities of patriarchy, child abuse, domestic violence, teenage crimes and hypocrisy and when it does its always in a lighter way. There is a lot more to deal with in every day life than just buying branded bags and shoes, dining in expensive restaurants and intercourse being a dominant force. This is where the show loses its touch with reality and a noticeable section of its female audience.
Hence, we can say that Sex and the City is a sitcom that challenges its predecessors . but at the same it ignores a large section of the society where women have completely different issues to deal with (and here a pair of Manolo Blahinks would not matter or make them feel better the way they make Carrie laugh and celebrate).
NATIONALITY, ETHNICITY, RACE AND CULTURE
CAN COMEDY OFFEND?
Frequently one gets to hear about a variety of controversies generated from jokes and humour regarding issues of nationality, ethnicity and culture. Incidents such as those of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’s prank calls to Andrew Sachs last year or Jimmy Carr’s jokes about handicapped soldiers from Afghanistan are some current examples. One of the forms of television comedy where most comic attempts are made with a live audience is stand-up comedy .More than often a lot of comics have chosen controversial subject matter for their routines and have in turn offended people. One of the reasons for the inclusion of such routines is that excessive contentiousness produces offence instead of hilarity; excessive graciousness produces monotony and boredom. The pressure to generate something new and different that can make people laugh, often encourages comics to debate the taboos and the forbidden. It has been a common feeling that a comedian should be able to understand the line that divides these ideologies, and also should be able to evaluate and account for the reaction. In addition to these, Palmer raises some fundamental questions, firstly when does a joke become or cease to be, funny? What is the nature of humour? And finally the question about the effectively of humour: what type of effect is it capable of having? In all these cases, humour seems to have the effect of neutralizing resistance, of bypassing the possibility of criticism. or when it is resisted and accused of being offensive and not funny then the comedian can claim that comedy is primary and it is his ‘right’ to make jokes or that he is being censored etc as in the Boyle case I emailed you all about recently. Let us consider some recent controversial incidents to answer these questions.
British stand-up comedian Frankie Boyle’s routine on people with ‘Down’s Syndrome’ landed him into controversy and he was confronted by a woman in the audience whose daughter had the same syndrome. Boyle made exaggerated imitations of people with Down’s. Sharon Smith found the routine offensive and embarrassing. This episode resulted in a nation-wide debate on what is humour and what is offensive humour? Here, Sharon Smith was at the receiving end, and was offended However, a lot of other people found it offensive as well. Boyle, even after getting to know about the situation went on to joke and asks whether his imitation was right or not? This made a lot of the audience laugh but later Boyle became a bit uncomfortable. It is obvious that Smith did not enjoy the routine as being at the receiving end. The line was crossed here, clearly this was when humour turned offensive and the question that who can make fun about whom comes into debate. But if we were to defend Boyle’s routine, it could be argued that his routines are known to comprise sarcastic and controversial material, had it not been Down’s Syndrome and had been some other disability, would Sharon Smith still be troubled(as she commented she was aware that the routines could have mature content such as jokes on disabilities)? Would it still have offended her? This reflects double standards in an audience that at times makes a controversial piece of humour outright offensive. In ‘The Art of Donald McGill’, George Orwell explains the dilemma of how something can simultaneously be conservative and subversive, supportive and destructive, offensive and non offensive. This is explained by showing two sides to a person’s nature: The Quixote side and the Sancho Panza side, the noble and the ignoble. Such jokes give temporary pride to Sancho; on the way they reaffirm its indissoluble relation to Quixote, acting as a kind of safety valve for the only quasi – avowable appetites our Sancho sides have.
However the dilemma cannot be solved, it remains a source of contention but also it does reflect that comedians such as Boyle cannot expect to go unchallenged or use the idea of subersive humour or ‘there are no taboos’ as a defence; this is a matter of ethics and these things never become agreed or fixed.But it does reflect the fact that people have their own ways of interpreting humour. The ‘boundary’ as mentioned before that are a division between offensive and non-offensive humour, like morals are not extant. The boundaries of taboo-busting humour have not been defined; they can only be evaluated and judged. They have been created by us, and unless we try to push the boundaries or move them, it is difficult to have rules about humour. Maybe Boyle’s controversial routine, made us realise that such topics are still out of bounds for humour, however ‘liberal’ ; open or free-thinking we may wish to be.
In the above situation, it was someone else having a laugh at another person’s expense, but there are instances when artists make their own selves the butt of a joke. Self-deprecating humour is attaching an implausible action to oneself, or to one’s belief system. We will try to understand this by referring to two different ethnic stand up comedians, such as Shappi Khorsandhi or Russell Peters Shappi Khorsandhi an Iranian born comedian raised in United Kingdom has been popular for her routines involving implausible humour about Iranians. At ‘Live At the Apollo’ (8/12/2008) in London, Khorsandi’s routine had lines such as:
‘‘..When I say my body clock’s ticking, people would hit the ground!’’
‘‘This is like one of my family weddings, slightly different in colour’’
‘‘we are the ones with weapons of mass destruction’’
‘My mother In Law asked me if I was going to have my son circumcised, I told her not unless he is really naughty’’
‘’…teachers at school told me that only little blonde girls are the angels, little brown girls are the whores of Babylon!’’
These lines demonstrate that humour here is self deprecating, where she only means she is growing old by her body clock ticking and people think she is going to blow up like a bomb (a stereotype attached to Iranians or people of middle-eastern origin). The implausibility of the humour in self –deprecation adds a fundamental vagueness that makes it challenging for the audience to either consider the action in question really belongs to the targeted section, or to regard this attribution as unreal. Another aspect that comes to into question is self deprecating humour becomes more acceptable in these cases as the comedians make themselves the target (belonging to the same ethnicity for example an Indian making fun of Indians, an Irish person making fun of Irish people). Russell Peters a Canadian born Indian stand up comedian is known for his extremely self deprecating humour and jokes on nationalities. There is hardly any field that has escaped Peters’ routines, they include jokes on accents (Indian, Chinese, American, Mexican etc); habits (business skills: Jews as misers, Indians as bigger misers and some as profit makers); sex (Asian men’s small penis sizes and Black men’s large sizes) and cultures (Chinese peoples’ interest in imitation goods e.g. Louis Vuitton bags or the inability of western parents to raise well-disciplined kids) . Like Khorsandi, Peters’ self deprecating routines are easily accepted. Palmer argues that ethnic stupidity jokes also constitute a form of anxiety reduction by the projection of fears about personal inadequacies in some cases to an outsider group.On a lot of occasions such comedians joke about other races (such as white) and are appreciated. This acceptance reflects the awareness of history and other political issues in White people, who allow and enjoy being the target by these comedians to in someway balance the disproportions between races. So, is it right to derive from the above examples that people belonging to same ethnicities and racial backgrounds can joke about themselves; and also other nationalities as this is seen as maintaining a balance. This can be interpreted as there being no boundaries or limitations in humour. However, if this is applicable to artists belonging to the once superior races or world powers is still debatable. But what is notable is that jokes don’t derive from racial prejudices (unless told by someone who is racially prejudiced), there is no connection as such to prove deliberate attempts. However this may not lessen the offence taken by the ones at the receiving end.
Da Ali G Show starring Sacha Baron Cohen experimented with social boundaries and busted taboos about television comedy. Cohen as Ali G (an uneducated, boorish and ignorant ‘youth’ journalist) interviewed prominent leaders and dignitaries on The 11’O Clock Show. The interview method was rude and funny, often making controversial statements and acting ignorant. Ali G became a phenomenal success and the young generation related to it (even if or because the character was clearly dumb) . The jokes were offensive yet because of humour’s semiotic process, gained an implausible ambiguity. This made the humour both paradoxical and correct. Ali G, showcased how some of our baseless and ignorant belief systems have been formed. The show challenged the taboos of television comedy and made for a progressive path for comedy
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion we can say that television comedy in its various forms has explored issues of ethnicity, race, gender and nationality both by entertaining and by challenging taboos. However in some cases, we have also seen that humour has taken an offensive form and created debate about the existing boundaries. For comedy it can be said that one of the mechanisms has more importance than the other, implausibility downsizes plausibility, the impact of implausible is principal and the impact of plausibility is noticeably less. It is virtually impossible to measure the impact of humour on the audience, as each situation differs (such as in the case of Frankie Boyle where audience were offended or in case of Russell Peters where his jokes about deaf and dumb are laughed at; both routines having similar content). But one thing that we are aware about is that there still are certain taboos or areas that unless redefined or broken cannot become a part of forms of comedy.
Hence we can say that humour can be offensive as well as inoffensive, serious and ridiculous, subversive and conservative, and what makes this possible is its semiotic process which demonstrates why comedy can be both conflicting and correct. Just like a coin has two sides, so does television comedy which deal with issues of race, nationality and gender in dual ways.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Akass, Kim and Janet Mccabe. Reading Sex and the City. , I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006
- Creeber, Glen. The Television Genre Book , BFI, 2004
- Joanne Morreale, Critiquing the Sitcom: A Reader , Syracuse University Press,2003
- Neale Steve and Frank Krutnik, Popular Film and Television Comedy. Routledge, 1990
- Palmer Jerry, The Logic of the Absurd: On film and television comedy. BFI, 1987
VIDEOGRAPHY
- Da Ali G Show.Episodes: Number 100-106(created by Sacha Baron Cohen, 2000)
- Russel Peters (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9wxss_russell-peters-red-white-brown-part_fun )
- Shappi Khorshandi(Series 4 - Al Murray, Shappi Khorsandi and Russell Kane, BBC 1, December 2008)
- Sex and the City. Episodes: ‘Coulda Woulda Shouda(season 4, episode7); Woman’s Right to Shoes(Season6, episode 9); Carrie and the Russian( Season 6, episode 5)’(Produced by Dareen Star Production,Rysher Entertainment, HBO Original Programming, 1998-2004)
- The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. ( CBS Television,USA, 1950-1958)
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