Beneath the surface of insult, stereotype and prejudice humour

Remember those movies you and your siblings watched again and again as kids? You know - the ones you had recorded on VCR so that you can watch it every morning of the holidays and re-enact it every afternoon so much so that it drove your mother mad? We had The Lion King and Mary Poppins. We watched it so much, we believed what we performed.

I once watched the office NBC seasons 1 to 5 about 5 times. I loved everything about it. The awkward mock documentary (mocumentary) style, the honest filming, the pranks, the facial expressions, the reactions, the agonizing personality clashes, etc. It's like big brother. Only better. because it's scripted, it's in an office and it had Steve Carell.

Steve Carell played Michael Scott, my favourite TV character of all time. Michael Scott is one of my biggest influences in comedy and one of the reasons I repeated watching the first five seasons 5 whole times (also, at that time, I had no friends - I know right?!!).  Give the amount of time I spent watching the show, I've really thought about why I find it so funny.

The misinformed, well meaning, unintentionally offensive Michael makes you squirm but his isolation, humanity and occasional sweetness make you empathize with him. It's kind of like seeing your own irritating behavior in another human but exaggerated. He is so obliviously offensive that you can't help but find it endearing.

Some of Michael's funny and offensive moments:

The great thing abut Michael Scott is that he is a beloved character from popular television.  Most of us have heard of him, and most of us find him funny.  He is very offensive, yet we accept this and choose to laugh instead of being outraged.

What Michael Scott did for me: he gave me permission to realise that I can present what I think people are thinking about even if it's seriously offensive, get away with it thanks to my endearing appearance and plant a seed of thought in the minds of the audience.

Offensive, insult & stereotype humour are powerful tools on stage. It stings because we all think it, but know we shouldn't be saying it.  While in real life, being openly prejudiced won't fly, on stage, it's a different story.  Like the Michael Scotts of TV, the comic on stage is absolved from the responsibility of offensive humour because, it's expected on that platform.  The comic is not mean because they are actually mean.  I've said some pretty heavy things on stage:

This leaves some audience members (especially the ones that had free tickets) offended and, at times, confrontational.  It's true that the above is extremely offensive and unacceptable.  Heck, I'm offended when I say it! But there's a reason for it:  The comic is deliberately making themselves the bad guy to provide insight into popular thought.  By revealing the awful and dark thoughts people react to by laughter exposes the secret prejudice in all of us and highlights how not ok it is to think / feel / believe those things.  Beneath the surface of offensive, insult and stereotype humour, there is always a deeper message about people / places / contexts / your beloved comic.

Take Michael Scott, for example - his wild statements about homosexuality divert attention from actual homosexuality to his own outrageous attitude, so much so, that by the end of it, we are not offended by homosexuality, but rather, the prejudice and judgement associated with it.  The same is true for his statements on "retards" and mine on the poor and the fat.

So, long story short - When it comes to offensive comedy, laugh at the comic but also be offended. Think about the joke, figure out the deeper message, feel clever for being clever, you clever thing, stop being a racist and go tell all your friends!

PS.  I think I should also do this...

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Zakkiya Khan
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This is a post that was written by Zakkiya a few months ago.  It was taken from her blog, Winking Plum and updated for Indie Comedie.