MOVIE REVIEWS
The Aristocrats
Lauren Gaetano
“So this guy walks into a talent agency”
Who would have ever thought that phrase was as rife with possibility as “Once upon a time?” The Aristocrats, as one will learn within two minutes of the movie’s opening, is no fairy tale, but it is both a loving and horrifically filthy tribute to the fine art of making us laugh.
Directors Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette have filmed a documentary chronicling the epic journey of one joke. This joke, too offensive to be told in front of civilians, has been an industry tradition for decades, a dirty little secret told from one comedian to another. The set up is always the same. A guy walks into a talent agency. What happens after that depends on the teller, but rest assured it involves unspeakable atrocities, including anything and everything from incest, bestiality and the ingestion of things we are not meant to ingest. What do you call an act like that? The Aristocrats!
OK, so it’s not so funny on paper. As the comedians themselves admit, the punch line is weak, perhaps even nonsensical. It is the journey, not the destination that counts. How comical we find the journey is up to the guide, which is where the true genius of the film lies. It is one thing to shock and appall, but it is another thing to make it funny. And while watching over 100 comedians attempt to do just that, the audience is treated to a crash course in comedy. What makes something so vile amusing? George Carlin suggests it is all in the vocal inflections. Discussing the act of defecating into the mouth of a loved one as if casually commenting on the weather equals comedic gold. Drew Carrey insists that snapping your fingers during the punch line makes it work. Bob Saget is all too aware that the fact that he is Bob Saget makes his telling of the joke that much more offensive, more uncomfortable, and more perversely endearing than that of most A-listers. He can barely get through it without breaking up in fits of embarrassed laughter.
As the documentary boldly marches on, we witness the joke told by a ventriloquist dummy, a mime, and watch it incorporated quite ingeniously into a card trick. We hear tall tells and urban legends the joke has spawned over the years. Legend has it someone once told the joke for 90 minutes straight at a cocktail party. Phyllis Diller once heard a version so raunchy it caused her to faint. And many comics agree the joke reached its apex during a rare, on-stage performance given by Gilbert Gottfried at the Friar’s Roast of Hugh Hefner, weeks after 9/11. At a time where people were seriously asking if we would ever laugh again, Gottfried went balls to the wall in front of his peers, delivering the joke with the escalating, hyped up enthusiasm of a demented cheerleader. Hugh Hefner had no idea what was going on, but the rest of the audience was roaring.
Doesn't a joke get old after 90 minutes? It can. There are times when the film drags, especially during those awkward moments where a comedian can’t quite make it work and we are forced to watch him flailing helplessly in a sea of obscenity. But even those moments offer their own insights. One comedienne claims that females bring their own spin to the joke before proceeding to stumble over a hackneyed, obvious, and painful retelling. However, Sarah Silverman and Wendy Liebman, giving no such preface, get some of the biggest laughs of the film with their unexpected, and decidedly female riffs. Comedy is a rough business. To see a person pull it off it is to witness a little bit of magic. It is fascinating to see the same spell cast so many different ways.
The Aristocrats is not for everyone. It is unrated, which is the politically correct term for Rated X. The things spoke of in this film should get a person arrested for even thinking about, let alone performed on stage. If you have the stomach for it, however, it is a unique, intelligent, and more importantly, hilarious look at the sordid history of one dirty mother fucking joke.
