The Joke

Sometimes the job of studio story analyst makes you feel like you’re facing Masonic mysteries, their inner logic known only to a secretly initiated few.

For example, a colleague of mine recently did exhaustive notes on three successive drafts of a studio project (i.e. a script that’s already been bought and is in development). The project’s writer routinely ignored each set of notes, and the draft got progressively worse. Only when the script went into turnaround (i.e. got dumped), did the reader realize that the studio had never had any intention of making this movie. They’d only bought the thing – written by the best friend of a successful director currently shooting a prestige project for them – to make their more valuable talent happy.

There’s nothing profoundly unusual about this (gambling – in Casablanca?!), but what irked us both was the practice, a tacit, often unconscious gambit by studio powers-that-be, of keeping the reader in the dark. If my colleague had understood from the get that this project was simply a go-through-the-motions task, he’d have been spared a lot of time, energy and frustration. As this reader put it, "Our job would be a lot easier if they’d just let us in on the joke."

He was using the term joke with implicit irony (this is a joke that leaves nobody laughing). The usage got my antennae up because I’ve lately been mulling over this concept of "the joke" with special attention. I’m teaching a seminar entitled Writing Funny Love: Comedy Craft For the Contemporary Romantic Comedy at next weekend’s Screenwriting Expo (see sidebar), and in our post-post-modern age of After Irony, the very idea of what constitutes a joke may be undergoing a shift. Joke, these days, may not necessarily mean funny.

The jokes that have always made us laugh seem to have two basic requirements: 1) they have to tell a story with an ending that surprises us, and 2) that surprise has to reveal a truth – expose something true about being human.

Reams have been written about the finer points of humor, and what’s generally observed is a certain necessary level of cruelty. The more brutal the reversal, the bigger the laugh: a clown slipping on a banana peel may be chuckle-worthy, but a powerful, uptight, self-important executive slipping on a banana peel – there’s your belly laugh. What’s the truth exposed? That pride goeth before the pratfall -- that even the mighty can be easily taken down by something small. Through a neat psychological trick, we both empathize with the butt of such a joke and don’t; we’ve all been both the peel and the pompous one, from time to time.

What’s more recent in the world of humor is strain of cynicism that subverts our basic expectations of what’s supposed to be humorous. I’ve been haunted by a joke told to me a few months ago by a young woman who looked to be still in her teens. I overheard her referring to a favorite joke that cracked her up every time, so I asked her to share it. The woman faced me, deadpan. "A man walks into a bar," she said. "And he’s an alcoholic and he’s destroying himself and his family."

I waited for the punch-line until I realized I’d already heard it, and could only manage a nod. Got me. Brilliantly, though, because it encapsulates a certain dark-edged sensibility that’s reflective of our present moment. It’s a joke about telling jokes, and the truth it speaks to is downright uncomfortable. I suppose its equivalent in the banana peel field would be: uptight pompous exec slips on banana peel and breaks his back, but because he’s got such good health insurance, he’s good as new and on the job again in no time -- unlike say, the millions of Americans who don’t have health insurance, who could easily end up unemployed and homeless after such a catastrophic accident.

Anybody laughing?

There’s a deeply cynical (and/or wounded, profoundly disappointed) subtext in that "man walks into a bar" joke, but its humor, such as it is, comes from deconstruction. The very premise of such jokes is being challenged, i.e. You think it’s funny, a man walking into a bar? Well, not so much in real life, right? This kind of truthful humor could easily leave a person feeling depressed, but there is a somewhat lighter level in play. A different sort of humor arises from the re-appropriation of language: we give you that same-old "man walks into a bar" phrase, and… oh, surprise: we know it’s an outmoded cliché.

So what does my studio colleague mean, when he describes his real-life situation as "not being in on the joke?"  He means that a truth is being withheld.  Well, it occurs to me that there is one way to have a last laugh, given the increasingly dire state of our society, our countries, the world at large – and the seeming inability of our representatives and leaders to identify the truth and to do anything pragmatic about it. We, too, need to re-appropriate our language.

Because by now, we’re in on some of the old jokes out there – the jokes that are only funny in that their trickery is so transparent. We know that the "Clear Skies Initiative" isn’t really about cleaning up the air, just as I know by now that the phrase "the studio’s bought a screenplay" isn’t necessarily about making a movie. So maybe we can begin to actively challenge the jokesters by re-framing the dialogue we’re having, and beat them at their own game.

There was a wonderful instance of turning "the joke" around on Bill Maher’s HBO show this past Friday night (a great piece of live entertainment, by the way, in that a trio of vocal protestors stopped the broadcast in its tracks and had to be bodily evicted). For a long time now, any questioning of our administration’s foreign policy has been countered by the accusation that such dissidence means one isn’t "supporting our troops."  On Maher's show, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, addressed this rhetorical gag of "the soldiers" being used as a political deflector.

"Every time the president talks about threatening those of us who want the troops to come home, they say, you’re cutting and running. Well, I’ve got something for him," she said. "I want to call [Iraq] a military success. I want to thank the soldiers for the job they’ve done. They’ve completed their mission, and I want them to come home with ribbons, and banners, and celebration… We’re not cutting and running, we’re acknowledging that the soldiers did their job… they went into Iraq and they got rid of Saddam Hussein… and now the political folks have got to find a resolution."

After audience applause, Lee added, "It’s a way of looking at it." Nicely done: take the very approach used by the powers-that-be (i.e. using volatile buzzwords to deflect complex issues) and turn it right back at them. Can’t deal with failure? Then let’s call it a success.

All the talking points, the phrases each side uses to bat the other side down – it really is a war of words. The most effective weapon may be a shift in perception that’s neatly articulated. Let’s take a lesson from our current comedians – choose our words just as cannily, and surprise the audience by exposing some truths. Maybe we can be in on the joke, and start turning the joke around.

Comments

[Christina]

Re: "A man walks into a bar," she said. "And he’s an alcoholic and he’s destroying himself and his family."

I'm not that hip - I still prefer man-walks-into-a-bar jokes with dogs, priests, clowns and blondes.

[John]

This is a great idea. It’s like ‘queer’ and ‘geek’ by taking ownership of the word you can control its meaning and take back the power of the word.

[Tom]

"The world is indeed comic but the joke is on mankind." -- H.P. Lovecraft

[Scooter]

Great post, Billy. It's really got me thinking.

[jamy]

Great post. Makes me think of a couple of things--that serious movies with no humor (eg Rendition) are a drag and do little to further their very worthy causes.

Ms. Lee also did an excellent job in not letting "them" define the terms of the debate. When you do that, you've usually already lost.

Damn this war stuff is depressing!

[E.C. Henry]

Thanks for the insight into the life of a studio story analyst. Sorry to hear your friend worked so hard on a lame duck project.

Wish I could see you work you magic at this year's expo. Really enjoyed your session last year.

Joke STILL emplies a funny end result, it's just sometimes in life WE ARE the punch line!

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Christian Howell]

Great post, Billy. Even in a very serious movie, I tell some "mood-breaking" jokes rather than tearjerker scene after tearjerker scene.

As writers we do have to remember that the most touching story is one where horrible things happen but the "victim" goes about life with a smile and a joke.

Unfortunately I won't be at Expo this year, but I will be here.

[mernitman]

Christina: Sure. I like pretty much any joke with a dog in it.

Hey John: Exactly!

Tom: Yup. Meanwhile, will you tell H.P. that some aliens from Cthulu who've been eating his bones find him both hilarious and nutritious?

Scooter: Thanks! Then my work here is done.

Jamy: Yes, yes -- let's keep redefining.

E.C. -- More often punched than not.

Thanks, Christian: Smile on.

[Judith Duncan]

Such a wonderful post - food for thought.
Cheers,
Judith

[Joanna Farnsworth]

Billy, your post visuals are always great, but you've outdone yourself with this one. Those climactic cats and zebra kicker said it all.

Print up that T-shirt for the Uni lot in the present tense! Why don't they let you guys fix up those scripts that don't work? Instead of passing it back to writers who don't listen to you?

And for all you screenwriters who haven't taken Billy's Cinematic Storytelling course ... this is why you need it.

[jess]

here's my current favorite joke:

"An idiot gets voted into the white house.

Twice."

it's hilarious, no?

[mernitman]

Judith we aim to please.

Thanks, Joanna. We have met the zebras and they are us.

Oh, God, Jess -- hysterical. So so sadly so.