Funny or too far?
ZEDDY LAWRENCE
A FRIEND recently informed me he had attended a Q & A with British comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb, during which the stars of the hit British TV program Peep Show were asked whether they’d ever penned material they considered too controversial to perform.
The pair revealed they’d once come up with a sketch in which they were discussing Zyklon B and began wondering what had become of Zyklon A. Wisely, they chose to shelve it.
Wisely, because having a laugh at the expense of the gas used to kill millions of Jews is perfect fodder for journalists at Jewish newspapers who’ll be on the phone to survivors and the artists’ agents before the curtain falls.
Or will they? It’s easy to imagine the same gag coming out of the mouth of Sacha Baron Cohen’s uber-camp creation Bruno. We’d certainly consider it near the knuckle, but because of the author’s ethnicity, we tend not to deem it offensive.
It’s a widely accepted principle — not just in comedy but in society generally — that those affected by prejudice or taboos are entitled to incorporate them into their culture.
Hence the hilarity we find in the virulent anti-Semitism of Baron Cohen’s Borat with the classic “Running of the Jews” scene, or the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry David has a contestant from the reality show Survivor drawing a moral equivalence between himself and an actual Holocaust survivor.
Such examples are a far cry from the self-deprecation of Woody Allen or the Springtime for Hitler of Mel Brooks, but nonetheless rely for our acceptance on the notion that, as with antiques, provenance is all-important.
Is there any point, though, beyond which Jewish comics can’t go?
If there is, then Sarah Silverman is the woman doing it. Take the line about her grandmother’s concentration camp tattoo that reads “Bedazzled”, or her joke “I was raped by a doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.”
While Baron Cohen and Brooks et al. remain just on the right side of farce and fiction to take the edge off their vulgarity and offensiveness, as a stand-up, Silverman’s comedy isn’t couched in characters or plot.
It’s raw and in your face and won’t find favour across the board. Tasteless? Yes. Sick? Yes. But offensive to us as Jews? Not at all.
Crucially though, it’s not the comedians we need be concerned about so much as their audiences. Contemporary comics will tell you it’s all about pushing the envelope and seeing just how far they can go.
Indeed, this was precisely the point Irish stand-up Tommy Tiernan was trying to make last month when he launched into a tirade describing Jews as “f***ing Christ-killing bastards”, adding, “f***ing six million, I would have got 10 or 12 million”.
Assuring us he was not an anti-Semite, Tiernan insisted the comments had to be taken in context —- he was merely explaining that it’s a comedian’s duty to be “reckless and irresponsible”.
We’ve no reason to suspect that Tiernan is not entirely earnest in his belief. What is of concern, however, is that as one listens to the interview he was giving, the rant is eagerly lapped up by the audience. And no, they’re not politely applauding the philosophy of humour he claims to have been outlining.
Rather, they’re laughing at lines that could have come straight out of Der Sturmer. They might tell us it’s not racism, it’s post-modern irony.
But let’s be honest, how many of them really did analyse the humour -— and how many just laughed because it sounded funny to talk about killing “10 million of the f***ing Christ-killing bastards”?
Critically, the same concern applies to non-Jewish audiences watching Jewish comics. While as Jews we may be able to contextualise Baron Cohen’s or Silverman’s lines in light of our own historic experiences, we have to wonder whether others are laughing in the same way.
If not, then such jokes can reinforce morally reprehensible ethnic stereotypes and degrade human suffering.
Ultimately then, the humorist -— Jewish or non-Jewish -— has to accept he does not operate in isolation and his words might just be taken at face value -— words that make a mockery of human tragedy, desensitising us to the horrors that have happened within our own lifetime and turning prejudice, genocide and slaughter into one big joke.
Zeddy Lawrence is editor of the London Jewish News and is a former television scriptwriter and radio broadcaster. He will take up the role as national editor of The AJN next month.
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