The “Line”
Here is a typical breakdown that could occur during any comedy show, anytime, anywhere:
Comedian: (tells particularly dirty joke)
Audience: (gasps, groans, boos, etc.)
Comedian: “I was just trying to find the line.”
Every audience has a “line” where something crosses from funny to rude, or funny to gross. Every performer has such a line as well, and sometimes those two arbitrary points don’t line up. This can cause problems. I’ve been thinking a lot about these invisible markers quite a bit this week with everyone talking about the incident that happened on Red Eye with a number of “pundits” last week. If you haven’t seen it… this group of television personalities (and I use the word “personality” with more than a hint of sarcasm), mocked Canada’s involvement with the war in Afghanistan, our troops, and basically insulted every Canadian stereotype that you can imagine.
Canadians took offense in a big way. Facebook groups, online petitions, and boycotts cropped up in only a matter of hours and are all getting some pretty good support. And yet, this is not the first time that Canada has been made fun of. South Park wants to “blame Canada” for everything that goes wrong in the US, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert take frequent shots at us, and even a character on one of my favourite sitcoms two weeks ago asked, “Why do we let them be a country?”
None of those comments were received with such a backlash. I guess the cast of Red Eye found this country’s “line”. Granted, the timing of these comments could not have been worse – given the deaths of four brave Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan recently. (And I can not stress enough my respect for the armed forces, especially the people, some of them my age, that have given their lives for our ideals.) While this may have been a big part of the issue, I think that the idea of “intention” and “attitude” are far more important than timing.
The cast of Red Eye intended to inflict harm. Their ignorance created an attitude that turned what they perceived as commentary into abuse.
This creates a very interesting question for all stand-up comedians… Every joke has a victim – a target. Sometimes it is the performer him/herself, other times it is a person/country/idea that is attacked. What makes such an attack acceptable? The intention. Most comedians that I know have the best of intentions. It is their goal to share a viewpoint with their audiences, or entertain, or educate, or even open minds. So long as these jokes are not written from a place of ignorance the performer remains on the same side of the line as the audience.
If anything, the infamy of this clip should remind all comedians (and all pundits) that their intention and attitude may be more important than their punchlines.
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PS: Happy Birthday, Dad! (Sorry I couldn’t have a cheerier post on the big day!)
