Comedy is Tragic

There is a vast generation gap in our household.  Our kids agree harmoniously with their fifty-something parents on a range of important things:  where to get the best burger, how to dress, where to go on vacation, and even the best cars to drive.  We do not quibble over body art and piercings.  We approve of their significant others.  But there is one thing that creates a great divide in our family, leaving me feeling like the old fart that I am:  comedy.  When it comes to today’s brand of humor, my kids and I are miles apart. 

Over the past thirty years there has been a transformation in ‘funny’.  More and more I find myself leaving the room in disgust while my kids, who are 19 and 22, are bundled up cozily watching TV, laughing hysterically.  The latest culprit is The Life and Times of Tim—an HBO animated show that, like its Hank Williams theme song, had me feeling like “I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive.”  I was busy in the kitchen and slowly became aware that my ears were being assaulted by the F word.  It just wouldn’t stop.  I became so annoyed by the shock premise of this program that I was never drawn in to discover what was going on in the plot.  I just didn’t care.

I admit that the kids have worn me down with their favorite shows.  I can now watch an episode of Family Guy without changing the channel.  In truth, I will turn to it on occasion, even when the kids aren’t home.  South Park took me a little longer.  In both these shows, I’m beginning to see that along with the daring of the topics is a generous helping of cleverness.  I particularly like the evolution of Seth MacFarlane’s Griffin characters.  It is funny when Stewie exhibits but does not yet understand his adult tendencies, or when Brian—the most sophisticated and self-aware in the family—assumes the latent behaviors of the dog that he is.

I admit, with all due humility, that I make a true effort to open up to these shows in order to right a parental wrong.  For many years, I banned The Simpsons from our house.  Yes, I know it’s the longest running show on TV.  And yes, I realize that in the spectrum of offensive TV animation it’s probably only a three on a scale from one to ten.  But at the time, when my kids were still in elementary school, I was offended by the deep disrespect Bart Simpson had for his parents and, indeed, for himself.  I could not in good conscience allow my kids to grow up celebrating or emulating this little snot.  As I watched The Simpsons, I feared my son would drop out of school, take to a life of crime, and (God forbid) talk back to his mother!  So while The Simpsons were blacklisted in our home, my kids secretly discovered Family Guy. I had no interest in sitting down to see what they were laughing at.  By the time I caught my first episode of Family Guy it was too late.  The joke was on me!

I long for the comedy of my youth, with clever scripts and legendary characterizations.  When Rob Petrie ordered a self-inflating raft to prove that Laura had an uncontrollable curiosity---THAT was funny!  When Mary Richards, that model of decorum in all occasions, laughed uncontrollably at Chuckles the Clown’s funeral—THAT was funny!  When Frazier Crane was duped into delivering a speech at his son's Bar Mitzvah in Klingon—well, that made me wet my pants laughing!

Today’s idea of humor seems so focused on bad language and body parts.  True, humor occurs at the margin of society’s boundaries.  Perhaps the boundaries are just so much broader today.  Cable TV and rap music have changed the standards of what is acceptable as witty repartee.  Even on the more restrictive network television, where George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV” is down to just five, they now script the forbidden words and pixelate over the actor’s mouth before broadcast.   But in my opinion, there is a vast difference between laughing at a situation because the character got away with saying something we would never say in public, and laughing from the tickling brilliance of scripted irony.

Thank God for shows like Big Bang Theory, which gave me back my faith that good comedy isn’t lost forever.  I have locked the Lizard-Spock Expansion Theory episode on DVR so that my husband and I can watch it on demand.  In this episode, Sheldon decides that the game of rock-paper-scissors offers results that are too few and too predictable.  He invents “rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock” to enhance the statistical probabilities; it includes the familiar Vulcan hand greeting (also the sign of the Jewish Cohain) as the gesture representing Spock.  In true nerd-academic fashion, you can win if “paper disproves Spock”.  Brilliant!

But for every well written comedy show (and I count among those: Up All Night, Whitney, Mike and Molly, the original Two-and-a-Half Men, Raising Hope, 30 Rock, and the born-again Seinfeld show, Curb Your Enthusiasm) there are many that I just don’t get.  For example, I’ve tried on a number of occasions to watch the Office.  In one episode, the characters made a farce of sexual harassment in the workplace.  It resonated so much with my former job that I just didn’t find it funny. 

I’ve taken to attending comedy films with an investigator’s curiosity:  Will it be funny?  Can I discern what makes it funny?  If my kids find it funny will I, and vice versa?  I laughed at moments during the first Hangover movie—much to my son’s surprise--although I would never watch it again.  It was unpredictable and ridiculous.  The Hangover II was nothing more than recombinant Hangover, so it was boring and stupid.  Bridesmaids was funny, but what I remember most was the outrageous food poisoning scene.  I found myself laughing despite what I dislike most about today’s comedy: the reliance on body functions gone awry.  However, Melissa McCarthy’s artistic commitment to her character was just so over the top that it was funny.   Would Mel Brooks have written the bean scene in Blazing Saddles this way if society and censors had allowed it?

I will continue to battle with my own psyche over what’s funny and why.  To a certain extent, I enjoy having this battleground with my kids.  It’s a particular joy to intellectualize a show until it ruins it for them.  (Years ago, I launched into an analytical diatribe on the musical and literary virtues of Eminem’s Lose Yourself that nearly caused their heads to explode.  Everyone needs a hobby.)  The irony is that I enjoy the analysis so much that it adds to the entertainment value of these films for me, despite my distaste for their comedic mechanisms.  Take for example the use of nudity as a comedic element in The Hangover and Saving Sarah Marshall.  Is it funny?  Or is it purely gratuitous? 

In The Hangover, Ken Jeong’s appearance in full nudity was the actor’s own idea.  He is playing a badass, but lacking the physical presence to sell himself as a badass on screen, he plays it naked.  How could he have dressed to convey badassness?  A costume could not have made this slight figure of a man appear threatening.  But in his bare state, you feel only the raw impact of his words.  I bought it.

In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason Segel chose to appear nude in the break-up scene, when his goofy girlfriend, Kristen Bell, explains that she is leaving him for Russell Brand (were there no other choices?).  Let’s face it.  Jason Segel could not have won us over with Hollywood tears.  But naked, we feel his vulnerability far better than with swollen eyes and a snotty nose. 

In my analytical way, I can move closer to understanding my kids.  But can or will they warm up to my point of view?  When they assume the silent and forlorn detachment of today’s youth, I long for a way to snap them out of it.  Inevitably, any attempt I make at cracking jokes to elicit a smile bombs.  Maybe the key is to appeal to them on their own comedic level.  Maybe I should come out naked, getting in their faces with the sincerity of my convictions.  Perhaps, the undulation of my middle-age flesh is the true antidote to their childlike narcissism and will spark a laugh.  Or, maybe they will at last see past the cheap tricks and their momentary angst to realize that in life, as in great classic comedy, one must endure the set up to reap the punch line at the end.