What's Happened To Our National Sense Of Humor?

In our as-fast-as-the-Internet culture, it's hard to believe that it's been less than a month since people have been talking non-stop (online, at least) about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Academy Awards ceremony.  The conversation seems to have died down, at least for now, with Smith having resigned from the Academy and accepted a 10-year ban from Academy events (although not from nominations).  And I don't have much to say about the incident itself when it comes to the who's-right-and-who's wrong question.  But I have a few thoughts about what this incident says about the nature of American comedy at this point, and, beyond that, about the state of comedy reflects the state of American political culture.

First, just to be clear about the incident, which shocked me as much as it did anyone, I hold no brief for either Smith or Rock.  I do, however, feel greater disappointment regarding Smith's behavior, not only because of my up-until-then respect for him, both as a performer and a person, but also because his failure here was both as a performer and as a person.  As a person, he initially laughed at the joke Rock made at the expense of his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and the medical condition that took her hair from her.  His opinion of the joke changed only after he saw how she reacted to the joke, and decided to get ahead of any confrontation he might otherwise have had with her about it.

But here's where he really went wrong.  He's a stand-up performer.  He doesn't need a script.  Instead of turning the Oscars into a crime scene (something the Academy did not handle well, for that matter), he could have gone up to Rock and found a way to critique what he was saying that would have put the mean-spirited nature of the joke front and center.  A rap.  A joke.  Even a short monologue.  The Will Smith I had previously come to admire over the past several decades could have done this easily.  That Will Smith, who belatedly made an appearance later in the ceremony accepting the Best Actor Oscar for "King Richard," was missing in action at a point when, for everyone's sake, having him there was absolutely essential.

And Rock?  Well, in this instance, he's the victim of a crime.  And there seems to be a consensus that he did not know that Pinkett Smith was suffering from alopecia.  On the other hand, Pinkett Smith has talked publicly about her condition, and Rock knew about the existence of the disease and what it does to hair.  Judge for yourself whether or not he should have suspected that the joke might have been over the edge of public respect, if not good taste.  Legally, it doesn't matter; verbal provocation is not a defense Smith would be able to assert in court, should this ever come to that point.  Nor should it be; society rightly expects people, especially those in the public eye, to take the occasional misspoken word. 

But over the edge of both respect and taste is where a lot of contemporary comedians live.  And, at least in my mind, Rock is a notorious example, which is why I mentally rolled my eyes when I heard him being introduced that night.  I knew something bad and potentially embarrassing (if not worse) was going to happen.  That's what Rock does.  In previous years on the Oscars, even when I agreed with the basic point he was making (e.g., referring to Elia Kazan as a "rat"), I cringed at the way he did it.  The viciousness of the style overwhelms the truth that makes the observation funny in the first place.  And, statistical probabilities in life being what they are, you can only sail over the edge so many times before the trouble you're looking for shows up and says "Hi there."

Putting aside the culpability of either man in this fracas, both of who lost something in the process, the question that jumped out at me here is this:  what's happened to our national sense of humor?   Perhaps it would be easier to answer that question with a few observations about the nature of humor itself.

Good comedy is comedy that laughs at everyone, even itself.  By which I mean, not all humor is so-called "insult" humor.  The history of comedy, especially prior to the mid-point of the last century, is filled with comedians who found ways to laugh at themselves every bit as much, if not more so, than others.  You can probably think of examples within your own experience.  For me, my personal favorite will always be Groucho Marx.  One minute in a Marx Brothers film, he will be deflating one or more of the pompous/clueless characters around him; the next minute, he will allow Chico to set him up as the butt of a joke (and, sometimes, even still comeback after that with a wisecrack).  For that matter, this is why ethnic humor is only funny when the comedian telling/performing it is a member of the relevant ethnic group.  By definition in this instance, the comedian is laughing at himself/herself/themselves.

Good comedy is about universal truths, about things we all agree upon.  People shouldn't be unfair.  Or lie. Or cheat. Or steal. Or pretend to be something they're not.  Comedy that not only works but lasts across time does so because the objects of its aim are things that are basic to the human condition, not a particular person, place, or moment.  This is demonstrated by the fact that our comedy culture, like the rest of our society, is made up of people from all other the globe.  At its best, comedy makes all of us laugh at the same things.

Good comedy, by virtue of its universality and self-deprecating nature, brings people together.  Audiences feel reassured and comfortable when they know that everyone is laughing for the same reason, and the laughter is being generated by someone who is not aiming to target a particular person or group in favor of another.

Here is where I need to allow myself the luxury of being explicitly political to make my point.  Perhaps above all, good comedy doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. Like, say news.  Just as news should not pretend it is entertainment, lest the line between fact and fiction be blurred to the point of obscurity.  I will confess that I have a nakedly political reason for mentioning this.  Fox News stays protected from defamation laws while producing patently defamatory material by classifying itself as "entertainment," while making sure that its presence in your cable subscription is ensured by calling itself a "news" network.  Fox should be forced to make a choice.  Either your cable bill will go down, or our political discourse will be polluted with fewer lies.  Either way, we win.

But it's no exaggeration to say that more than three decades of dishonest propaganda from the likes of the late Rush Limbaugh and his sordid professional progeny has done more to coarsen, polarize, and ultimately destroy the fabric of humor in our society.  Yes, there has always been satire, and sometimes pointed satire, and that is as it should be.  But, at its best, it has been produced by people who were open in their aims, and who understood that their targets had a right to fire back.  They didn't try to hide behind a lofty facade.  They could, to use a well-worn cliché, take it as well as dish it out.  And, as a result, conservative cowardice has infected, coarsened, and nearly destroyed the culture of our humor in the same way that it has destroyed the culture of our politics.

To come back to the Oscars for a moment, this is one reason why so many of the "jokes" written into the script of the show don't land.  They don't feel like jokes.  They feel like a series of punches in the nose.  The laughter in the live audience that those jokes do generate feel as nervous as they feel obligatory.  And that observation alone makes me wonder:  when was the last time any of us laughed out loud, because something was so funny you couldn't help doing it?  I can't in my case.  Can you?

Maybe Smith and Rock landed in the middle of this controversy because the rules of the road when it comes to comedy have been hijacked by people who see it as a weapon, rather than as a kind of balm.  Maybe, when the only rule of comedy is to bring your sharpest knife and assume a knife fight will break out, no one should be surprised when blood ends up on the floor.  I think neither man should have their career destroyed over this, and, as far as their relationship is concerned, I hope that they find a way to repair it.  We all would benefit if they do so.

But we would all benefit as well, if we could somehow find a way as a society back to the kind of humor that at its best is characterized by humility, by honesty, by universality, and, frankly, by inventiveness.  Yes, George Carlin and Lenny Bruce liberated our use of language, and bless them for doing it.  But their purpose in doing so was to expand the range of humor, not to make comedians slaves to pushing emotional buttons.

Our national sense of humor has traveled a long way down a bad road, and two of our most celebrated comedians have suffered as a result, along with the Academy, its audience, and movie audiences as a result.  Can we find our way back?

The answer to that question might actually say a great deal about whether our culture, and our nation, can survive.