I was sorry I missed The Aristocrats when it was big in the theaters. You can always catch films later on cable or DVD but this one — an 89 minute exploration of what some call the world's dirtiest joke — sounded like it warranted being seen with a big, live audience. So when I heard about a screening to be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers and some cast members…well, that sounded ideal. Which just shows you how wrong I can be.
It occurred last evening at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood under the aegis of a group called Hollywood's Master Storytellers that stages and videotapes such events — and I suppose we should be grateful that someone does it. But jeez…a theater full of paying customers had to sit through an awful lot of filling and stalling and a "warm-up" guy who proved that you can be unfunny even when you work dirty. At one point, he dragged four audience members up on stage and had a little contest in which they were to each make the sound they make while achieving orgasm. Later, four more audience members came up to tell their versions of the central joke of The Aristocrats. Between these charming moments and various other delays, they managed to get things off to a flying stop and add another hour to what was already a very long evening.
Without it, I might have enjoyed The Aristocrats more than I did…which is not to say I didn't enjoy a lot of it. There is something quite compelling about seeing a wide range of master comedians in free flight, which is the idea behind the film. In it, dozens of comedians tell and/or dissect a legendary joke that, by its basic structure, allows its teller ample room to improvise and embellish. Most versions involve some combination of incest, violence, bestiality, projectile vomiting and wallowing in feces, and it has been suggested that what the comic chooses to include is something of a Rorschach test of his or her sensibilities. (If this is true, Bob Saget should be promptly confined in one of those Hannibal Lecter cells without windows, shoes or visitors.) Interestingly, the whole joke is told, start to finish, fewer times than I'd expected…and the tellings which stand out tend to be the variations: Wendy Liebman telling it backwards, a ventriloquist telling it via his dummy, a magician turning it into patter for a card trick, the Smothers Brothers turning it into a typical Smothers Brothers "Dickie doesn't understand Tommy" argument, etc. Kevin Pollak tells it as a Christopher Walken impression and Martin Mull even manages to turn it into a completely different (and just as hoary) dirty joke.
Matter of fact, the biggest laugh at last night's screening was achieved by a white-faced mime, not because he was particularly brilliant but because by the time we got to his segment, we were sick of the story and delighted to see it parodied. Which is almost the point of The Aristocrats — to inure us to things that would offend our grandparents…and shouldn't. I know people who still think they have to react in outrage to bad taste humor; who haven't learned that it's so liberating to be able to laugh at it or, failing that, being bored. Both are infinitely preferable to getting upset. I have a friend who still turns himself in knots when someone says the "f" word in his presence. It's almost like he's trained himself to feel pain at something that doesn't bother the rest of us one bit. He wouldn't enjoy The Aristocrats. He wouldn't laugh himself sick, as I almost did, to hear Gilbert Gottfried pushing an already outrageous joke ever further across the line. That's my friend's loss.
The panel discussion that followed brought us co-producers Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza, plus four folks who appeared in the film — Jason Alexander, Andy Dick, Bob Saget and Sarah Silverman. The talk was very amusing, though we learned almost nothing about the movie other than that Penn and Paul feel that the cover of the forthcoming DVD stinks beyond all belief. (You can see it and pre-order the DVD from Amazon by clicking here.) And Penn did explain how disappointed he was that both Buddy Hackett and Rodney Dangerfield declined to participate due to failing — and in both cases, terminal — health.
So I guess I'm glad I went. And in a way, I may even be glad they had that awful warm-up guy there. If nothing else, he reminded us that not all dirty jokes are hilarious. Some of them — especially in the hands of amateurs — are just plain boring.