Racism, anti-semitism, and comedy

Between Michael Richards and BORAT, there's been a lot of talk lately about comedy and prejudice. I've held out as long as I could, but here's my two cents. Playing a prejudiced character shouldn't get anybody in hot water. Acting prejudiced should.

Each of us can only inhabit one body/identity/gender. If we are virtuous, we try to empathize with others, imagine what it might be like in their skin, but this is an intellectual exercise. It's not very visceral or immediate; it's imaginative. When you add in the immutable preference we have towards ourselves and our own group (however we define that), slippage is inevitable. Prejudice can be tempered by education, shown up by diversity, and soothed by material comfort, but the tendency to deny the essential connectedness--even sameness--of us all is a regrettable fact of the human animal. It's a mistake in perception. Comedy can show this mistake, but it has to show prejudiced behavior to do so.

Humor based on prejudice has always existed, and perhaps this isn't an entirely bad thing: resentment dissipated through humor is resentment that doesn't fuel violence. The trouble, of course, comes when these attitudes leave the barbershop or bathroom wall and become accepted by the culture at large. Outraged right-thinking types primly call for punishment; racists feel emboldened; and the injured parties are justifiably frightened that injury will follow insult.

In situations like this, I think of two things: First, the diagnostic power of comedy. If prejudiced comedy finds widespread acceptance, the problem is with the society--the joke is the symptom of the disease beneath. Symptoms are unpleasant, disgusting even, but they can suggest cures. The outcry over Michael Richards, celebrity idiot, suggests that we're on the right track: people didn't laugh, they got pissed. And that's good.

Feminists disapproved of "woman driver" jokes, but it wasn't ordering people not to laugh that killed them--it was a generation (or more) of parents actually raising their children differently. "Woman driver" jokes proceeded from the assumption that women are inherently less able than men; once that perception faded, there was no joke there. We can only hope that America's racism will attenuate until current comedy involving race seems as outdated as Amos and Andy.

Second, I try to remember the complexity of the comedic game. Is the character Borat anti-semitic? Unquestionably--but he's also crude, unattractive, and vastly ignorant, nobody you'd want to be. Does his anti-semitism help him? No. Is it portrayed as a good thing? No, it reveals him as an idiot. Who are the "Jews" that Borat hates? A weird species of horned shape-shifters where the women lay eggs. Some sort of demon, not human beings of the Jewish religion.

I think I know what Sacha Baron Cohen is getting at with this. The only explanation for the persistence and virulence of an irrational prejudice--whether it's the anti-semitism of Europe, or the racism of the United States--is an insistence that the "other" is nothing like you, another species. And that's insane. In the movie, we see a nice elderly couple running a B&B; Borat sees a pair of horned shape-shifting witches, determined to poison him. Borat is insane; ergo, anti-semitism is insane. Anti-semitism is portrayed in "Borat," and it's shown to be a form of mental illness.

At least that's what I took from it. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

Broke again.

Is it YOU? Are YOU doing it with your eyes?

Okay, still busted....

...but I have faith that it will be fixed eventually, so here I am with some random thoughts:

1) I celebrated the Cardinals' victory in the World Series with a bottle of Veuve-Clicquot. The trick to not becoming a lush is to cultivate sufficiently expensive tastes.

2) I celebrated Halloween at The Aero, a theater here in Santa Monica. It was running an all-night marathon of horror movies. Decent time, though I wasn't able to stay for more than two and a half. I don't like Italian horror movies, and I'm tired of people telling me how freakin' great Dario Argento/Lucio Fulci/etc are. If that's good, that whole area of culture is incredibly impoverished. "Gialli" are like Hammer movies but with horrible dialogue and worse special effects. I've given these guys at least five chances to entertain me, and they've never done it.

3) Same with Brian DePalma. I think he's a retard. Anybody who watches "Sisters" and doesn't figure it out within the first thirty minutes (fifteen if you're a USC film student) should be escorted from the room. And please, don't anybody explain to them how to reproduce.

4) At the same festival, I watched "Re-Animator," a pleasant memory from my teenage years (with a surprising amount of full-frontal; I wonder how I ever got into that theater at 16?). Apart from the nudity--always welcome, even now--I noticed that actor David Galt looked strikingly like Senator John Kerry. Take a look.

Here.

Here.

They're a little dark, but I think you can see what I'm talking about. It's really striking in some scenes. I think this explains 2004. That, and the voter intimidation. And the electronic voting machines run by Republicans.

5) In more conspiracy news, anybody with 42 minutes to burn and an obsession with Robert F. Kennedy (as fitting a description of me as any) might be interested in this talk given by Lawrence Teeter, Sirhan Sirhan's lawyer. Keeping in mind that he WAS Sirhan's lawyer (he died), Teeter's talk is a nicely compressed discussion of the case for conspiracy.

6) Yesterday was not a day to root against me in football. Not only did Yale beat Harvard, USC beat Cal. Yale hadn't won in five years, including a crushing triple-overtime loss last year. But not this time, Cantabs.

7) I am working on several books, including a couple that should be available for this Xmas. Watch this space (assuming I can figure out what's going on with the site...)

8) And finally: "What happens in Vegas..."
"...can usually be cured by antibiotics. Usually."