The Year in Humor

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And divided we laugh: the year in humor

By Paul Lewis | December 29, 2006

FROM THE RISE of Stephen Colbert to Not all of the year's humor was political, of the fall of Michael Richards, from the use course. For the hard work they put into of racial stereotypes in campaign ads to amusing the public, let's raise a New the recycling of botched jokes on Year's Eve glass to Lindsay Lohan, YouTube, 2006 was a year in which Britney Spears, Kevin Federline, Ashlee provocative humor, driven by hardball Simpson, Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise, Katie politics and new media, convulsed Holmes, Pamela Anderson, Kid Rock, and America. Tara (Miss USA) Conner. Yet beyond the comparatively toothless and generally In 2005, the last of George W. Bush's 9/11 predictable celebrity putdowns, American Teflon washed off in the waters of Katrina humor reflected broader disaffection with and the blood of Iraq. This year, as the the course of events in the country and in White House mantra "stay the course" the world. Notable in this regard was the joined such mocked and discarded work of Stephen Colbert, veteran of "The expressions as "mission accomplished" Daily Show with Jon Stewart," who and "heckuva job," the president remained launched his own program, "The Colbert the most-ridiculed man in the country. Report," in October 2005.

With so much anger animating our politics, Appearing in what In These Times editor the jokes Americans told and how they Jessica Clark calls "full conservative were received revealed a country cracking drag," Colbert exaggerates what he sees up in two ways: On the one hand, we were as biased far-right reporting. If, for frequently and, at times, uproariously instance, Fox News's Bill O'Reilly devotes amused; on the other, laughter often rang endless hours to a concocted "War on out from opposite sides of our cultural fault Christmas," Colbert features a cartoon in lines. which Santa is shot out of his sled by a World War I fighter plane (presumably These jokes had real consequences; by piloted by secular liberals) and then contributing to a public perception of rescued by Jesus, who catches him in his haplessness and indirection at the White own aircraft. House, they helped bring down conservative leaders who were once Colbert's most controversial performance thought invulnerable. came on April 29, when he appeared as the host of the annual White House Humor writers everywhere were handed Correspondent's Dinner. Staying in the gift of the year when Vice President character, he mocked Bush with Dick "Deadeye" Cheney shot Texas excessive praise for his gut-based attorney Harry Whittington while quail decision-making. About the president's hunting in Texas in February. Meanwhile, sinking approval rating, Colbert quipped, for jumping with both feet onto the "We know that polls are just a collection of heaping pile of ruined hypocrites, statistics that reflect what people are Representative Mark Foley and the Rev. thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well- Ted Haggard became the target of both known liberal bias." serious scorn and comic harassment after being caught up in gay sex scandals. This routine failed to amuse the president, the first lady, and many members of the press (whom Colbert also mocked) -- not to win reelection, used an obscure racial because it was witless but because it hit slur -- macaca -- to refer to an American too close to home. college student of Indian descent who was shooting video for Allen's Democratic By spinning off current events, Colbert's opponent. Though the remark sent titters show joined the already crowded field of through the supportive crowd, when the fake-news humor. From the left, while Jon footage ran repeatedly on TV and Stewart provided irony-laced stories about YouTube, a wider audience saw politics to fans who relied on him for their arrogance and intolerance in the murky news fix, whitehouse.org blasted away images. Allen, who until recently was with phony news releases and headlines considered a decent prospect for the like "President Bush Berates New York Republican presidential nomination, Times for Revealing the Super-Duper- ended up losing his seat. Classified Military Secret that Our Troops in Iraq are Sitting Ducks." From the right, Attempts at ethnic humor are always scrappleface.com, which boasts about dicey. Still, Sacha Baron Cohen's movie presenting the "news fairly unbalanced," "Borat," which opened just before Election featured such stories as "Iran May Stop Day, proved to be a hit both in the United Nuke-Making in Exchange for ICBMs" and States and abroad. It struck particular "Democrats to Boost Minimum Wage, chords here. No doubt Borat, the Minimum Service." character, embodies the spirit of every ethnic joke ever told anywhere by being a Regardless of its target, fake news dirty, uncouth, and incompetent foreigner reminds us that all reporting is less and, perhaps, also by being foolish in a objective than it seems, a matter of nonthreatening way. It was easy to laugh "truthiness" (to use Colbert's word of the at a country in which being the "fourth- year) rather than truth. best prostitute" counts as an achievement.

To the extent that voters noticed and And yet Borat has far more to say about reacted to this distinction, they punished America than about Kazakhstan as a land Republicans. As R. J. Crane, the editor of of fools. For, as he travels west in search topplebush.com, sees it, by the time the of "cultural learnings," Borat encounters midterm elections rolled around, "the Americans all too willing to join him in relentless ridicule" of mainstream comics, expressing repugnantly homophobic, anti-Bush Web sites, and partisan misogynist, racist, and anti-Semitic views. cartoonists had helped push a "critical A pied piper of bias, Cohen used feigned mass" of opinion against the decider-in- hate speech both to call forth the inner chief. bigot in his marks and to challenge our vaunted sense of national superiority. To be sure, Bush wasn't the only one in Cohen's American fans know that the real the pillory. Other politicians earned public joke is on us, and presumably agree with ridicule when their jokes backfired. Just his implicit criticism of US culture. In this before Election Day, Senator John Kerry regard, "Borat" is part of the trend toward tried to tell a joke about how Bush's marketing comedy to groups defined by stupidity got the United States trapped in their shared values. Such marketing has the Iraq War. Instead, he ended up promoted niche satire on the left and right. suggesting that the American military is But at the same time, technology has populated by academic underperformers. made it virtually impossible to control Whoops! one's audience -- a crucial reason why jokes (and attempted jokes) proved so Meanwhile, in front of an all-white explosive this year. With camcorders and audience in Breaks, Va., Senator George cellphones recording everywhere, and Allen, the incumbent Republican favored with YouTube recycling gaffes, public speakers (like Borat's interlocutors) could no longer count on being able to share Yet while partisans on all sides of our their edgy kidding with just their national divides used humor as a cudgel, supporters. Even Rush Limbaugh, who most of us were far less serious about the has addressed a large audience of "ditto- jokes we shared. Though talk radio thrives headed" fans for decades, was caught by on what we might call "rage-icule" and the his own webcam mocking Parkinson's Internet hosts whole galaxies of hostile sufferer Michael J. Fox. satire, for the most part we laughed to relax, connect, and, above all, enjoy Over and over again in cyberspace, ourselves. Most of the time when we Limbaugh, Kerry, Allen, and Bush -- along asked "Have you heard the one about . . . with Michael Richards, the comic whose " we were just taking a moment to step bizarre racial diatribe was captured on back from the troubles of a demanding camera -- reenacted moments of and dangerous world. weakness or folly they surely wished to erase.

Paul Lewis, a professor of English at Boston College, is the author of Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict.