Too Soon?- When is it To Soon to Joke about a Tragic Event
“I have a flight to California. I can’t get a direct flight — they said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first.” — Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, September 29, 2001, Friars Club Roast of Hugh Hefner
On Saturday evening, September 29, 2001, a little more than two weeks after the horrible terrorist attacks on America and New York City, comedian Gilbert Gottfried told the above joke at a roast that was being taped for a television special at a later date. The audience at the Friars Club immediately erupted into a chorus of “boos” and an attendee yelled out, “TOO SOON!” There is no actual video evidence of this event because at the later television airing of the roast it was deleted by the producers. This attempt at a joke so soon after a tragedy that the country was still grieving started a deep debate about comedy and when, if ever, is it appropriate to joke about horrific events. This joke about September 11th was not the first time — nor would it be the last time — that debates erupted about timing and whether certain events are totally off-limits as subjects for comedy. Making a ‘too soon’ joke or touching on a subject that is deemed taboo can also make or break careers of comedians, as is the case with Anthony Jesslenik, who has made a career as a ‘too soon’ comic, or Gilbert Gottfried, who has lost very lucrative commercial deals for his ‘too soon’ comedy. So, the real question is: when are tragedies okay to joke about and when are they not? Comedians, scientists, authors and the general public have all weighed in on this subject over time and one thing is clear: there is no rulebook for regulating when it is ‘too soon’ or in some cases ‘ever’ appropriate to make tragedies fair game for comedy.
Charlie Chaplin, a brilliant filmmaker, actor and composer, took on the role of Adolf Hitler in the silent movie The Great Dictator. To characterize his parody of a Hitler-like character as ‘too soon’ is an understatement — it was actually ‘too early’ because the world had not yet truly realized how horrible of a killer Hitler was. At first, Chaplin was worried that no one would find anything funny about the Nazis and that many countries would ban the movie. But, when President Franklin Roosevelt heard Chaplin wasn’t going to make the movie, he sent a message urging him to proceed. So, he did, and it was a commercial success. Even Hitler apparently found it amusing, and it was rumored he watched it several times even though the film was banned in Nazi Germany. Later in life, once the world had finally seen how horrible Hitler was, Chaplin expressed remorse and regret at tackling this topic. History has been kind to Chaplin because of the timing, being ‘too early.’ As we will see, the topic of the Holocaust as a source of humor is very tricky. It seems that joking about the Holocaust is always ‘too early’ and ‘off-limits’ but making fun of the Nazis can be navigated without repercussions.
As just observed, there seems to be one topic for which no amount of time passing can make the subject humorous — the Holocaust. There can be much debate about how much time needs to pass before it is okay to joke about a natural disaster or an act of terror but when it comes to the Holocaust, it always seems to be ‘too soon.’ One of the most notable public outcries about the attempt to use the Holocaust as a basis for a joke happened a few years ago by the now deceased comedian Joan Rivers. In 2013 on the E! Entertainment Fashion Police Show, Joan Rivers was commenting on how beautiful the German super model Heidi Klum looked and said, “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens” (CNN, 2013). The outcries were swift, and there were many calls for Rivers to apologize. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) demanded that Rivers apologize for her “vulgar and hideous” remark, but the comedian refused (Gur-Arieh). According to CNN, Rivers told HLN’s “Showbiz Tonight” that: “It’s a joke №1. №2 it is about the Holocaust. This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust. I do it through humor” (CNN). It is worth mentioning that Rivers is Jewish and a large portion of her husband’s family died in Nazi concentration camps. Neither her statement nor these facts seemed to calm the public outcry. In the Jewish Journal, writer Noga Gur-Arieh in his “Israel Life” column summed up the backlash as follows: “However, some things are not a laughing matter. The Holocaust is at the top of that list. The Holocaust, under any circumstances, is not a joke, even 70 years later. A joke about the holocaust is not like a joke about Jews, or gays or women or Israel. It is not “offensive” or “so-not-funny”, or a taboo and it is not Anti-Semitism, it is way beyond that” (Gur-Arieh).
Another notable public outcry about a Holocaust joke, similar to Joan Rivers, was in response to a joke by the comic Sarah Silverman. Sarah Silverman is known for her satirical outrageous comedy that addresses controversial topics. One night in 2005 was an especially rowdy show. She started off one of her comedy performances as follows, “My ‘Jewy’ niece … my lesbian niece…she called me up and she’s like, Aunt Sarah, did you know that Hitler killed 60 million Jews? I corrected her, and I said, you know I think he’s responsible for killing six million Jews. And she says, Oh, yeah. Six million. I knew that. But seriously, Auntie, what’s the difference? The difference is that 60 million is unforgivable, young lady” (“The Holocaust Historiography”). As one can imagine, neither the audience nor the public found this to be very funny. The implied point in her skit was that killing six million Jews was acceptable, but that killing sixty million Jews would have been “unforgiveable” was beyond insensitive. As we have observed, the Holocaust is a very touchy subject and many people wouldn’t dare to touch this subject. But, certain comedians live on this diet of ‘too soon’ and ‘off-limit’ events. This type of humor defines them and has made them successful. The art is in finding that tension point between funny and offensive. Many in the audience that night found the skit funny, others didn’t and thought it was offensive. Who is right and who is wrong? Is there a definitive answer? Probably not.
It is remarkable that some mainstream comedians like Sarah Silverman and Gilbert Gottfried don’t seem to learn from their prior experiences touching on topics that are off-limits, such as the Holocaust. And, as they are identified as ‘too soon’ comedians, they will likely continue to flirt with this blurry fine line. Gottfried, who engaged in a 9/11 joke two weeks after the twin towers came down, tripped up again after the devastating tsunami hit Japan in 2011 by posting two tweets in an attempt at Tsunami humor. He tweeted: “I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say there will be another one floating by any minute now.” He tweeted again, “And Japan is really advanced. They don’t go to the beach. The beach comes to them” (IBT Reporter). This time, apart from public outrage, Gottfried paid a substantial economic price for making a ‘too soon’ joke. AFLAC, an insurance company whose mascot is a talking duck with a whiney, annoying voice (Gottfried’s), is actually owned by a Japanese company. They didn’t find the tweets anywhere close to funny. Accordingly, they quickly moved to fire Gottfried costing him perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, if not more. Silverman, after her 6 million/60 million Holocaust joke in 2005, more recently appeared on the late night talk show Conan to do a skit that compared U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump to Adolph Hitler and dressed in full Nazi uniform complete with a Hitler moustache. While it does not appear that this antic cost her any endorsements deals, it did get a strong rebuke from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is an international Jewish human rights organization. Its spokesman and Associate Rabbi noted, “Entertainment figures accusing Trump of being Hitler-like is wrong and dangerous. You want to mock Trump, ok, he’s fair game…But inserting history’s greatest criminal — who launched a world war that left 55 million people dead and who mass-murdered 6 million Jews — as a political prop in the 2016 campaign is beyond the pale. It demeans Hitler’s victims and debases history” (Blum, 2016). Going back to Charlie Chaplin, we have seen many comedians and actors mock Hitler successfully but it seems that because of Ms. Silverman’s history in joking about the Holocaust itself, her appearance was not deemed funny.
Anthony Jeselnik is a contemporary comedian who looks for a line to cross and then leaps beyond it. Jeselnik is not a mainstream comic; not someone who just dabbles in ‘too soon:’ he is a full-fledged, unapologetic ‘too soon’ comic who intends to shock and horrify. There is basically no subject deemed off-limits, and Mr. Jeselnik seems to rush to joke about horrific events — everything from dead babies to the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting to the Boston Marathon bombing to child molestation — so as to ensure he is not too late for being ‘too soon!’ In Mr. Jeselnik’s various stand-up routines, he boasts that he doesn’t have to read newspapers, watch the news, or get feeds from various internet news services since he always knows when a terrible tragedy or event strikes because his close friends and family immediately text him and say, “Don’t do it!” (“Thoughts and Prayers”). He has been asked on several occasions what his approach to crafting a joke is. In one interview he said, “If something made me uncomfortable, I would take it as a challenge to try and make a joke about that. That’s my only goal: to find things that you shouldn’t joke about, and find a way to make a joke” (NPR Reporter). On another occasion, he told a reporter, “I try to say the worst thing you could and get away with it…once people get that I’m saying awful things for a reason, it takes away that barrier. It gets them to laugh about domestic violence or breast cancer” (Marshall). Jeselnik’s approach seems to embrace the observation once made by the famous comedian George Carlin: “I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately” (Farhi). Jeselnik has even taken on the Holocaust as subject matter and seems to have have escaped without the wrath incurred by Joan Rivers and Sarah Silverman. He joked, “My mom, for most of her life, was a Holocaust denier. And it was terrible for the entire family to have to deal with until, finally, a couple years ago, we had an intervention. And we had a rabbi come into the home, had him walk her through the history of the Jewish people, and then he made her watch “Schindler’s List.” And after that, my mom did a complete 180. Now she can’t believe it only happened once” (Marshall). There didn’t seem to be a lot of public outrage over this routine, and perhaps it’s because Jeselnik has put the world on notice that he is a ‘too soon’ comic and nothing else.
When are tragedies and other horrific subject matters okay to joke about and when are they not? Many different people, from many different professions have all weighed in on this subject and many of them come to the simple conclusion that there is no formula or method for ‘too soon’ comedy. It may be as simple to ask, no matter what the subject matter, “is it funny?” Much of ‘too soon’ comedy is judged by the opinions of the audience and general public. In a famous Supreme Court case, Jacobellis v. Ohio, about pornography, one of the Justices noted that rules and standards don’t apply easily to certain situations and that sometimes it is difficult pin things down when, “faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable.” That judge simply said, “…I know it when I see it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio). So whether, it is the comedic work of Charlie Chaplin, Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, Gilbert Gottfried, Sarah Silverman or Anthony Jeselnik, they will all be criticized for their work every time a ‘too soon’ joke pours out of their mouths but, in the end, humor is humor and human beings seem to know funny when they see it. It is rather ironic to note that the comedians covered in this paper that received the greatest public backlash for joking about the Holocaust, two were Jewish themselves (ie, Joan Rivers and Sarah Silverman). By contrast, the self-proclaimed ‘too soon’ comic Anthony Jeselnik is not Jewish and seems to get a ‘pass’ on this third-rail of comedy when he touches upon it. So it appears that greater scrutiny is applied by audiences, sponsors and the media to those comedians who should be more sensitive to certain topics because of their backgrounds including their religions. Nonetheless, to be a great comedian you must push boundaries and touch upon subjects that make different audiences uncomfortable in different ways. So while the real question posed at the beginning of this paper may be: when are tragedies okay to joke about and when are they not? It appears that the real answer is: we’ll simply know it when we see it.
“Works Cited”
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Gottfried, Gilbert. “Gilbert Gottfried on His Infamous 9/11 Joke and ‘Too Soon’.”Vulture. N.p., 02 Feb. 2016. Web. 12 Jan. 2017.
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Lattman, Peter. “The Origins of Justice Stewart’s “I Know It When I See It”.” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 28 Sept. 2007. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.
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