I am still turning over the Ralphie May performance from last week in my head. He touched on so many subjects, employed so many techniques, and made so many controversial remarks that it seems that performance is an absolute gold mine for the theoretical study of comedy.
So let's start at the beginning. Ralphie has the "gift" that many other comedians have made excellent use of. That is, of course, his look. By being obese with a bad haircut and wearing a leather jacket and silver chain, Ralphie is already garnering laughs. This is before he even opens his mouth, so points there. And then he does open his mouth, and we hear some strange, off-putting hybrid of country and urban slang. Certainly points for this. And then he begins his show. And in this we get jokes on "black" movie theaters, the recently deceased Pope, and the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004.
What I found to be truly amazing is how Ralphie does not tread lightly (no pun intended, well, maybe a little) on these very fragile subjects. He goes for the whole shebang. He leaves no stone unturned. And somehow, somehow, he manages to keep the audience mostly with him.
It's this last part that I really find remarkable. Where many comedians might be booed off a stage or given the silent treatment, Ralphie keeps the majority of the crowd laughing, or at least chuckling. It takes some amazing skill to pull this feat off, and I think he was greatly aided by prefacing these as "jokes you're not gonna wanna laugh at." In doing that, he in a way made himself invincible to any problems the audience may have with him or his jokes. He showed them that he himself knew the jokes were offensive, putting himself on the same level as the audience. It has boggled my mind how well he did this.
And no matter what you think or believe, you have to admit that the Pope-Weekend at Bernie's bit was pretty damn funny.
I think that deep down, we all secretly want to laugh at such inappropriate jokes. We just have to be willing to reconcile that with ourselves. Some of the more shy audiences would not approve and some of the more extroverted audiences would love it. It all depends on what you think is acceptable to laugh at but I still think that even the shyest audiences really chuckle on the inside.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes us want to laugh at these? Is it fear of death? If we can laugh at it, it doesn't scare us so much...perhaps this is why most horror films contain humor? Or is it because it disperses the tension? These all beg for a psychological interpretation.
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