"Real humor, the engendering kind, implicates you in the joke." Yes this. I'd heard about the South Park bit but hadn't seen it until I clicked on the link here. Meh. (Of course I never watched Colbert either.) Mary Townsend's point here is real. If you feel self satisfied, you haven't accomplished anything.
I am reading after watching Abby Innes speak about her book "Late Soviet Britain." She argues that both neoliberalism and communism share the utopianism of self-regulating material distribution -- one from the market, the other from central planning. Both, it turns out, have created societies where their economies produce goods and services that nobody wants or needs. (When I walk into a modern gas station or grocery store I am reminded of the feeling I had as a mischievous child walking past the beaded curtains into the "adult" section of the video store: that somehow, every single thing on the shelves is somehow wrong and bad for me.)
The potential for humor is endless in that fact, yet I struggle to see our technocrats having the humility to admit it. They are too busy solving serious problems and changing the world, while us Plebs crave stability. (Not that most here are Plebs ;-D)
This reminds me of something Phil Christman wrote recently over in his Substack: writing about what makes movies like Airplane and Naked Gun funny, he pointed out:
"Pamela Anderson costars in the new Naked Gun, and at this point her ability to do “attractive woman who is in on the joke that she reduces men to drooling idiocy” is … I mean, nobody will ever beat Marilyn Monroe at that game but it’s not an insult to Marilyn to mention Pam in the same sentence. I find this honestly sort of moving, given what being hot has cost Pamela Anderson in terms of indignity, public humiliation, violation of privacy, misunderestimation and so on. Her funniest moments in this film are just extravagantly goofy."
This kind of self-implicating humor is both brutally honest and deeply generous at the same time: which I'd like to think is why it can succeed at actually being disarming enough to help us see both ourselves and whatever monstrosity it mocks with non-defensive, non-murderous clarity? Anyway: I loved this piece. Thanks so much!
From where I sit watching, just right of center, the left is so self-serious, so sure of the arc of progress and history, that they call it violence if they ever bear the brunt of the joke.
The right is very poor at taking blows as well. In this partisan afterglow of the liberal world order.
I was feeling like the guy in 1984 as I read this. I'm in on the 'joke' but powerless to change anything. So, I guess Ian Douglas Rushlau is right on the balm for the masses part. But wrong because while decrying fascism, he fails to see the fascists in each one of us. Now that would be a funny bit!
"Real humor, the engendering kind, implicates you in the joke." Yes this. I'd heard about the South Park bit but hadn't seen it until I clicked on the link here. Meh. (Of course I never watched Colbert either.) Mary Townsend's point here is real. If you feel self satisfied, you haven't accomplished anything.
Great writing, Mary. Thanks.
I am reading after watching Abby Innes speak about her book "Late Soviet Britain." She argues that both neoliberalism and communism share the utopianism of self-regulating material distribution -- one from the market, the other from central planning. Both, it turns out, have created societies where their economies produce goods and services that nobody wants or needs. (When I walk into a modern gas station or grocery store I am reminded of the feeling I had as a mischievous child walking past the beaded curtains into the "adult" section of the video store: that somehow, every single thing on the shelves is somehow wrong and bad for me.)
The potential for humor is endless in that fact, yet I struggle to see our technocrats having the humility to admit it. They are too busy solving serious problems and changing the world, while us Plebs crave stability. (Not that most here are Plebs ;-D)
This reminds me of something Phil Christman wrote recently over in his Substack: writing about what makes movies like Airplane and Naked Gun funny, he pointed out:
"Pamela Anderson costars in the new Naked Gun, and at this point her ability to do “attractive woman who is in on the joke that she reduces men to drooling idiocy” is … I mean, nobody will ever beat Marilyn Monroe at that game but it’s not an insult to Marilyn to mention Pam in the same sentence. I find this honestly sort of moving, given what being hot has cost Pamela Anderson in terms of indignity, public humiliation, violation of privacy, misunderestimation and so on. Her funniest moments in this film are just extravagantly goofy."
This kind of self-implicating humor is both brutally honest and deeply generous at the same time: which I'd like to think is why it can succeed at actually being disarming enough to help us see both ourselves and whatever monstrosity it mocks with non-defensive, non-murderous clarity? Anyway: I loved this piece. Thanks so much!
Very welcome, and thanks for this good example!
and agree about the generosity being part of comic honesty!
From where I sit watching, just right of center, the left is so self-serious, so sure of the arc of progress and history, that they call it violence if they ever bear the brunt of the joke.
The right is very poor at taking blows as well. In this partisan afterglow of the liberal world order.
I was feeling like the guy in 1984 as I read this. I'm in on the 'joke' but powerless to change anything. So, I guess Ian Douglas Rushlau is right on the balm for the masses part. But wrong because while decrying fascism, he fails to see the fascists in each one of us. Now that would be a funny bit!
Cheers to a fascist stalemate.