RURAL ROUTES/Margot Ford McMillen

Lies Outrun the Laughs

The Saturday after the school shooting in Florida that took 17 lives, Saturday Night Live parodied the President’s reaction. Playing the solemn newsman Anderson Cooper, Alex Moffatt intoned, “In times like this, we look to our leaders for guidance. Instead, we will hear from Donald Trump.” That was funny, in one of those “I get it ...” ways that humor works. When our smiles mean, “I get it ...” the humor has taught us something.

Then, Alec Baldwin, as Trump, spoke about gun control: “The youth of America deserve to feel safe and secure in their schools … because, folks, I can only run into so many schools and save everybody.” That wasn’t funny. We get what the writers were trying to do, picking up on the egotistical POTUS, who commented that even though he’s never been tested he’s sure he’d confront a shooter in a school. But, for the hundredth, maybe millionth, time in this presidency, I had to ponder the meaning of humor, and its use in our society.

The best humor reveals truth. That’s why the Anderson Cooper bit worked. In the words of the great Lily Tomlin, “No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.” Tomlin reveals truth when she uses the juxtaposition of “cynicism,” suggesting pure self-interest, next to “impossible to keep up” suggesting the competitive world of fashion. Genius!

Unfortunately, now that we’re living in the land of continuous half-truths, humor doesn’t teach us. Real life is like that New Yorker cartoon where the wife pokes her head into the room to tell her cartoonist husband at his drawing board, “Stop! That Trump cartoon you came up with this morning just happened.”

Like the SNL skit, the cartoon is laughable, but not funny. And there’s the problem. I wonder if we know the difference any more. It’s confusing.

Confusing because humor is based in surprise. And in half-truths, puns, double entendres, foolish insider knowledge and outright lies. Three fish walked into a bar ... As soon as you hear “three fish” and “walked” you know you’re in the world of lies. Your insides start to smile in anticipation of a great punch line.

But, these days, the hilarious stuff we dreamed up this morning happens. But not in a gentle way. When it happens for real, it’s a lot meaner. POTUS, for example, saying he’s pretty sure that if he’s confronted by a shooter, he’ll run right in.

So, the insider jokes of Saturday Night Live aren’t as funny as the real thing. In a Christmas edition, Beck Bennett playing Mike Pence, looked for events to be offended by. In real life, he stomped out of an NFL football game Oct. 8 when the athletes kneeled instead of standing during “Oh say can you see?” The fake Trump asked (as played by Alec Baldwin) would Pence walk in, then walk out, of a gay wedding? Would he walk out of Starbuck’s when they served his coffee in a “happy holidays” mug instead of one that said “Merry Christmas”?

That’s pretty funny on a lot of levels— but is that as funny as the real Mike Pence walking out on a football game with real players protesting injustice in our society by kneeling and hanging their heads during the national anthem? Or is it funny when both Pences refuse to stand and acknowledge possible harmony between two Koreas? I can’t tell. I guess I’ll just abandon humor for the next three and a half years.

Way back in the halcyon days of October 2015, when we thought a Trump-Pence win was impossible, I listed some of the words that had been used in the press to describe him: alien, crony capitalist, deeply weird, hyperbolic, jeering, misogynist, narcissist, rich, self-absorbed, well-connected, wheeler-dealer, xenophobic. This list didn’t come from any official sources; they were just a list from publications, mostly urban ones, mostly from New York City. And, as negative as they were, there was an alternative universe building that would eventually elect the man.

Now the words have changed. The New York press has moved on to describe the president as “alarming,” “bizarre,” “isolated” and “unstable.”

In an ABC/Washington Post poll last September, asking ordinary voters to weigh in with the first word that came to mind, “incompetent” topped the list. Next came “arrogant,” “strong,” “idiot,” “egotistical,” “ignorant,” “racist,” “a—hole,” and “narcissistic.” the only positive word, “great” was number six on the list. A month earlier, Quinnipiac University in Hamden, N.J., ran a poll and found voters more positive. They blurted out “strong,” but that was followed by “idiot” and “incompetent.” A couple of months later, according to the same pollsters, “idiot” had moved into first place.

As far as I can tell, “funny” has never made the list.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History. Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2018

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