The Aristocrats

reviewed by Bill Creasy

This 2005 film is a documentary by Penn Jillette (from magicians Penn and Teller, winners of the 2005 Richard Dawkins Award presented by the AAI) and Paul Provenza. The film is about a dirty joke that comedians love to tell but that isn't really very funny. I must warn the prospective viewer that the film includes descriptions that are incredibly gross, disgusting, and perverse, even though only in verbal descriptions.

One may be tempted to see the movie out of curiousity just to hear the joke. Jay Marshall, an comic from the 1930's, tells a short version in the first 5 minutes of the movie: "A vaudeville agent is interviewing acts. An act comes in. He says, 'What do you do?' The man says, 'My wife and I come out and take off our clothes, we sh*t on the stage, and the kids come out and wallow in it.' 'What kind of an act do you call that?' the agent says. 'We call it The Aristocrats.'"

Don't feel bad if you don't think the joke is funny. This movie is an amateur anthropological study of why comedians like this joke. There is no question that comedians find it endlessly entertaining to tell each other variations on the joke. Penn can give the impression of being loud and obnoxious, but he also clearly has a rational, objective interest in the mechanics of show business and the things that people will do to get a laugh.

My first impression of the joke, since it originated in the Great Depression, was that it was derogatory comment about the behavior of the upper classes. That explanation turns out to have little to do with it, and the comedians have a remarkable number of explanations for the appeal.

The key to telling the joke is not the punch line, but the middle. Some comedians like it because it lets them go overboard in imagining any kind of obscene, taboo acts that could be done on stage. These descriptions are too extreme for the comedians to even talk about in their own stage act, but they like to tell them to other comics. They seem to like to push the limits of what taboos can be put into words.

The joke is compared to jazz, in which each performer can riff on their own variation. Some use it to practice their techniques to analyze what methods can be used to make it funny. George Carlin thinks it is funny with a lot of precise details. Drew Carey thinks it is important to snap his fingers at the punch line. Sarah Silverman gives a natural description as if she had been a child in an Aristocrats act. Once a viewer gets desensitized to the vulgarity, one has to admire the creativity.

But the joke also seems to include an observation about the unreality of show business. In show business, a person can get up on stage and do or say any socially unacceptable thing they can think of, as long as the marketing is good enough to bring in an audience. They are even willing to sacrifice what is most personally important to them, their families and children. The name of the act, "The Aristocrats," is supposed to give ticket buyers the impression that the act will be high-brow, even it is is bathroom humor. A dirty joke from Shakespeare is still Shakespeare.

Perhaps the joke also reflects the self delusion and egotism of the actors. The members of the act want to think of themselves as being serious and important, even when they are only gross and disgusting.

In short, perhaps this film is just intended as a tribute to a profession that makes its living by pushing freedom of speech to its absolute limits. It is an interesting study, but don't watch it unless you have a very strong stomach. The film is unrated and available on DVD.

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