Humor Missing the Mark
Humor is complex, especially in dealing with incredibly sensitive topics. There are dimensions and lines that are ‘pushing the envelope’ and ‘challenging society’ and then being a flat out insensitive motherfucker. After 9/11, people looked to late-night hosts, someone to bring humor into this senseless tragedy and most comedians and hosts were silent. SNL didn’t go up for a week— no one knew what to say. There wasn’t anything to say.
- Gilbert Gottfried (Awful 9/11 Joke): Known for pushing the envelope but went way too far, when he was at the roast of Hugh Hefner in New York, 9/29/01—“I have to leave early tonight. I have to fly to LA but I couldn’t get a direct flight. I have to make a stop at the Empire State Building.” People booed and gasped—rightfully so-- to argue this joke was too soon is an understatement. Even in 2017, personally, I'm still not laughing.
- 9/11 Mattress commercial:
I cringe watching this…Promoting for a ‘Twin Tower Sale’ with their commercial; having two tall stacks of mattress fall down as the employees fall on them. The Mattress store apologized repeatedly for this one. Still waiting to hear how well the sale went... I'll keep ya posted.
These examples and hundreds more that are experienced every day, demonstrate failed attempts of humor in the context of an awful tragedy. When a joke fails like this, it does further reveal the morality of a culture; the reaction communicates where we are as a society in relation to the event.
There was humor that surrounded the events of 9/11, but firstly, they did not take place immediately after the event. Humor came to surface after some of the terrifying reality of the events of 9/11 had sunken in, in where humor played the role of allowing the public to de-construct the tragedy, in order to somehow move forward and making sense of such grief. The humor utilized in this way differed completely from the modes that were previously discussed; the humor looked at breaking down the oppressors, relating back to Gallows Humor.
The Onion Newspaper makes an entire issue devoted to 9/11: “Holy Fucking Shit: Attack on America”, “HiJackers Surprised to Find themselves in Hell”. The fake newspaper isn’t finding the humor in the direct event but makes fun of the attackers, not the victims. In this way it gives people a way to begin to contextualize, when there is no suitable explanation, to understand a tragedy.
Connan O’Brien post 9/11 show after discussing the tragedy of the attacks and how the CONAN team is facing ‘getting back to work’, (3:09),
“We need to come together, and we need to do our job. I will be very honest with you, I have no idea how to do what we’ve been doing—tonight—I have no idea how to do it tomorrow, I have no idea how to do the rest of the week. I have no idea how were going to get back to doing this again. That’s how we all feel. I’ve made a career of getting way over my head and I have never ever, felt more unsure, or more at a loss than I do tonight. I will not lie to you. I don’t know exactly how we’re going to do this. But we’re going to try to do it… to get back and just try our hardest to move forward and to make sense of our lives at a time of our lives, when absolutely, absolutely nothing makes sense(4:16)”.
Jon Stewart of the “The Daily Show”: A week after 9/11, talked straight to everyone: “They said to get back to work. And uh, there were no jobs available for the man in the fetal position under his desk crying.”(1:30)
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