Racism, anti-semitism, and comedy

Between Michael Richards and BORAT, there's been a lot of talk lately about comedy and prejudice. I've held out as long as I could, but here's my two cents. Playing a prejudiced character shouldn't get anybody in hot water. Acting prejudiced should.

Each of us can only inhabit one body/identity/gender. If we are virtuous, we try to empathize with others, imagine what it might be like in their skin, but this is an intellectual exercise. It's not very visceral or immediate; it's imaginative. When you add in the immutable preference we have towards ourselves and our own group (however we define that), slippage is inevitable. Prejudice can be tempered by education, shown up by diversity, and soothed by material comfort, but the tendency to deny the essential connectedness--even sameness--of us all is a regrettable fact of the human animal. It's a mistake in perception. Comedy can show this mistake, but it has to show prejudiced behavior to do so.

Humor based on prejudice has always existed, and perhaps this isn't an entirely bad thing: resentment dissipated through humor is resentment that doesn't fuel violence. The trouble, of course, comes when these attitudes leave the barbershop or bathroom wall and become accepted by the culture at large. Outraged right-thinking types primly call for punishment; racists feel emboldened; and the injured parties are justifiably frightened that injury will follow insult.

In situations like this, I think of two things: First, the diagnostic power of comedy. If prejudiced comedy finds widespread acceptance, the problem is with the society--the joke is the symptom of the disease beneath. Symptoms are unpleasant, disgusting even, but they can suggest cures. The outcry over Michael Richards, celebrity idiot, suggests that we're on the right track: people didn't laugh, they got pissed. And that's good.

Feminists disapproved of "woman driver" jokes, but it wasn't ordering people not to laugh that killed them--it was a generation (or more) of parents actually raising their children differently. "Woman driver" jokes proceeded from the assumption that women are inherently less able than men; once that perception faded, there was no joke there. We can only hope that America's racism will attenuate until current comedy involving race seems as outdated as Amos and Andy.

Second, I try to remember the complexity of the comedic game. Is the character Borat anti-semitic? Unquestionably--but he's also crude, unattractive, and vastly ignorant, nobody you'd want to be. Does his anti-semitism help him? No. Is it portrayed as a good thing? No, it reveals him as an idiot. Who are the "Jews" that Borat hates? A weird species of horned shape-shifters where the women lay eggs. Some sort of demon, not human beings of the Jewish religion.

I think I know what Sacha Baron Cohen is getting at with this. The only explanation for the persistence and virulence of an irrational prejudice--whether it's the anti-semitism of Europe, or the racism of the United States--is an insistence that the "other" is nothing like you, another species. And that's insane. In the movie, we see a nice elderly couple running a B&B; Borat sees a pair of horned shape-shifting witches, determined to poison him. Borat is insane; ergo, anti-semitism is insane. Anti-semitism is portrayed in "Borat," and it's shown to be a form of mental illness.

At least that's what I took from it. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.