I recently attended a midnight showing of an old release playing at a cinema close to my home. Prior to the screening, we were entreated to a rather agonizing series of attempted comedy acts of the stand-up variety for reasons entirely unknown by me. Better yet, when the film commenced there were technical difficulties, leaving us with no audio, and while the problem was being attended to, the more horrid of the acts saw fit to further subject us, her vastly disinterested audience, to her endless- okay, like, 40 seemingly endless minutes of monologuing. More intoxicated members of the audience were inspired to toss their hats into the rings, shouting and repeating whatever obnoxious clichés seemed to be winning snickers from other audience members. The comedienne poorly bantered with them in a game of obvious responses to expected reactions. But that’s not my complaint. That was all dreadful enough to be entertaining on the most basic levels. Like, “Really? Is this really happening?”
No, my complaint lies with the comic who performed immediately before the audio SNAFU. His routine was largely uncomfortable as it was, a compilation of oft-recycled jokes found on every other website, and he was constantly losing his place mid-joke. Painful, but hardly a reason to fault a individual. But then he went and closed his act with a visual gag of sorts. I’ll try and quote him as precisely as I can.
“Before I get off the stage here,” he said, reaching for the duffel bag he’d hauled on-stage with him, “I hope you all enjoy the movie! I’ll be watching too, with my brother who I brought here with me today. We got here by Greyhound today.”
He then proceeded to zip open the duffel bag and pull out a fake, bloodied, severed head, holding it out to us. He barked a laugh, utterly pleased with his clever joke.
To my immense surprise, many in the audience laughed. Several clapped and cheered. The comedian skipped off the stage, clutching both the head and bag.
I couldn’t even breathe, actually went dizzy with shock, biting back a very real and sudden urge to cry, rapidly re-living all the released details of the case. I’ve never been a boo-er by nature, but if I hadn’t been rendered speechless by the tastelessness of it all, I suspect that would have been just the situation that could induce me to react in such a way.
I felt sick, completely disgusted. I didn’t get why it was supposedly funny. Purely for relevancy's sake? It’s on all of our minds, after all. Is it funny because he dared to offend? Dared to trample over and far beyond “the line”? Would he have thought it so entertaining had he been closely acquainted? What about the cackling audience members? Do they detach, opt to find only hilarity in the situation so that no pain need be felt?
In the days following the tragic death of Tim McLean, I’ve heard more than a few Greyhound-related jokes, but none that treated the brutal killing with such irreverence, none that made the gruesome act seem casual, nearly inconsequential. I’m not in the least an advocate for absolute seriousness. Humour is the ultimate essential for making sense of...well, life, death, and everything. Humour is the most perfect means of coping, of weighing our values and feelings and approaching things from an angle that won’t lead to a state of constant mourning for all the sufferings life brings. Humour is ideal for magnifying the lessons learned during the tutorials of life that do happen to employ elements of the macabre and morbid. I’ve laughed my way through nearly every problem and/or loss I’ve personally come up against, so I really don’t think I’m deficient in my ability to not take life too seriously. Am I being overly sensitive, still now feeling a dull rage that he had the gall to make light of something so deeply unsettling?
The joke and the laughs it drew reek of outright cruelty and a disconnect from humanity. I don’t even think I need to justify all the ways it was wrong, all the ways it was completely inappropriate.
It makes me sad, but I do find some solace in the collective horror.
No, my complaint lies with the comic who performed immediately before the audio SNAFU. His routine was largely uncomfortable as it was, a compilation of oft-recycled jokes found on every other website, and he was constantly losing his place mid-joke. Painful, but hardly a reason to fault a individual. But then he went and closed his act with a visual gag of sorts. I’ll try and quote him as precisely as I can.
“Before I get off the stage here,” he said, reaching for the duffel bag he’d hauled on-stage with him, “I hope you all enjoy the movie! I’ll be watching too, with my brother who I brought here with me today. We got here by Greyhound today.”
He then proceeded to zip open the duffel bag and pull out a fake, bloodied, severed head, holding it out to us. He barked a laugh, utterly pleased with his clever joke.
To my immense surprise, many in the audience laughed. Several clapped and cheered. The comedian skipped off the stage, clutching both the head and bag.
I couldn’t even breathe, actually went dizzy with shock, biting back a very real and sudden urge to cry, rapidly re-living all the released details of the case. I’ve never been a boo-er by nature, but if I hadn’t been rendered speechless by the tastelessness of it all, I suspect that would have been just the situation that could induce me to react in such a way.
I felt sick, completely disgusted. I didn’t get why it was supposedly funny. Purely for relevancy's sake? It’s on all of our minds, after all. Is it funny because he dared to offend? Dared to trample over and far beyond “the line”? Would he have thought it so entertaining had he been closely acquainted? What about the cackling audience members? Do they detach, opt to find only hilarity in the situation so that no pain need be felt?
In the days following the tragic death of Tim McLean, I’ve heard more than a few Greyhound-related jokes, but none that treated the brutal killing with such irreverence, none that made the gruesome act seem casual, nearly inconsequential. I’m not in the least an advocate for absolute seriousness. Humour is the ultimate essential for making sense of...well, life, death, and everything. Humour is the most perfect means of coping, of weighing our values and feelings and approaching things from an angle that won’t lead to a state of constant mourning for all the sufferings life brings. Humour is ideal for magnifying the lessons learned during the tutorials of life that do happen to employ elements of the macabre and morbid. I’ve laughed my way through nearly every problem and/or loss I’ve personally come up against, so I really don’t think I’m deficient in my ability to not take life too seriously. Am I being overly sensitive, still now feeling a dull rage that he had the gall to make light of something so deeply unsettling?
The joke and the laughs it drew reek of outright cruelty and a disconnect from humanity. I don’t even think I need to justify all the ways it was wrong, all the ways it was completely inappropriate.
It makes me sad, but I do find some solace in the collective horror.
2 comments:
I hate to say it, but I might have laughed at this. I know its wrong, and I know I would probably be deeply offended had it been someone I know who had died. But terrible, terrible things are happening everyday. I lost a close relative through alzheimers. Whilst it is nowhere near as disturbing a way to lose someone, I will still laugh at jokes about it because nothing can sully the memory of him, least of all a joke.
And on that absolute polarity of opinion...
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The short of it: you aren't being overly sensitive. You are being a decent human being.
The long of it: imagine a place - say Kosovo. Rape is often used as a weapon of war. It was heavily used in Kosovo for breaking people's spirits. Many women in Kosovo have turned their experiences into a grim joke. Sometimes the only way to deal with these types of realities is to make a terrible, dirty joke about it.
What I'm getting at is that they experienced it directly. I think that gives them entitlement to deal with their pain with humour.
Now compare that with, for instance, internet shock humour. Its funny in a "I - can't - believe - he - just - did- that" kind of way. Its entirely superficial. Shallow. Flippant.
Finally, imagine a comedian sitting at home trying to think of things to make people laugh...
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