Photo via britxq
When you think of Charlie Chaplin, you think of the little moustache, the big eyes with eyeliner that a headlining drag queen would be proud of, and slapstick comedy. The kind of comedy where there’s a guy holding a plank of wood over his shoulder and he has absolutely no concept of space or timing. He’s going to hit his friend straight in the head if he’s not careful! Oh, he did hit his friend! And now his friend is dizzy and shaking his head in disbelief at plank-guy’s stupidity! You guys are so crazy.
Well it was around 90 years ago when that kind of comedy was established on screen, and it’s hard to believe that comedy has gotten even more ridiculous since Charlie Chaplin’s time. What was once an art form based on timing and wit and body language is now purely a question of who can do the dumbest, most outrageous shit in 120 minutes. Comedy of late seems like the director sits everybody down at the first writers meeting, gets out his whiteboard marker and says, “Alright everybody, I want you to heat up those crack pipes in front of you, take a big dirty drag and yell out the craziest heaps of steaming bullshit you can imagine that hasn’t already been done in a film! And then, we’re going to use every single idea! (Cheers from writers) Okay, go!” And here, we witness the creation of films like ‘The Hangover (one, two and oh dear God there’s a third)’ where Ed Helms marries a hooker, ‘The Campaign’: “I went to the petting zoo and I let the goat lick my penis.”, ‘This is the End’ where Jonah Hill is ass-raped by an alien-demon and most recently, ‘Anchorman 2’, where they figured out Brick was pretty popular in the first one so they upped his lines and added a female Brick.
So I go to the cinemas to see this latest Will Ferrell comedy everyone has been raving about. Rumour has it that it’s so hilariously outrageous, multiple people have pissed their pants while watching it. It’s a cinematic health and safety epidemic, with doctors and science and stuff. Does anyone else ever feel pressure to laugh in the cinema? Everyone else is laughing so hard at every miniscule detail and I’m there with a wry smile on my face for fear of being seen as the sour bitch who didn’t even laugh when Will Ferrell punched a baby! A baby, guys! It’s ground-breaking comedy at its best. At this point in the flick, I’m seriously regretting not just staying out in the lobby with my popcorn watching the Asian kid on the dance machine. If you want to be impressed and amused at the same time, that’s the place to be.
Whatever happened to the skill and dedication in comedy? Think John Cleese, the way he made that freakishly lanky body move in ‘Monty Python’ or his execution of his complete frustration in ‘Fawlty Towers’. Or while we’re on the topic of movement and execution, even Jim Carey had it going on. Few rival Carey’s characters that he put his unique spin on and made his own, think ‘The Mask’ and ‘Liar Liar’. Adam Sandler has tumbled so far down the hill lately he accidentally found the elephant graveyard from ‘The Lion King’, but his early comedies ‘The Waterboy’, ‘Happy Gilmore’, ‘Billy Madison’ and even ‘Big Daddy’ mixed one-liners with ironic self-loathing, particularly about his egg-shaped head which is funny every damn time, and perfectly delivered sarcastic wit. Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Bill Murray – they were all comedians who didn’t need to rely on a completely fucking ridiculous scene to get their audience to laugh. It was all about how they took a scene and made it their own, through their own style of comedy and the only real reliance was on their audience to properly appreciate and understand it.
In my opinion, there are still a few examples of pretty funny stuff around. Personally I love Tina Fey. I think she is my spirit animal and if we ever met she would want to be best friends. Her show ’30 Rock’ is an example of when humour isn’t forced down the viewer’s throat. It relies on the intelligence of the audience to understand the quick jokes, even if not straight away. I don’t know how many times I’ve been in the shower or driving to work when I suddenly get a joke from an episode I watched three weeks ago. Whatever, shut up, I’m smart as.
So next time you’re in the cinema and everyone is cracking up ‘cause the uptight dentist lost a tooth – the irony right?! It’s fucking comedy gold! – I challenge you to stand right up and yell, “What are you all laughing at?! I don’t even think the creators intended this part to be funny!”. Bonus points for a throbbing vein, a voice crack and a hair pull. Don’t just laugh because they tell you it’s funny, laugh when your soul feels happy.
Written by Sally Coates
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