The buzz began after screenings at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe and that buzz grew after the Sundance Film Festival. Now the documentary “The Aristocrats” finally gets a limited release in Australia.
Much has been made over the fact that this documentary features many renditions of “The World’s Dirtiest Joke” (An old joke featuring a family presenting an act to a talent agent, describing the act in disgusting detail before revealing the act’s title as “The Aristocrats”), but there is more to it than just sheer vulgarity. A number of the film’s participants share some insight into the art of comedic performance and the value of improvisational skills. It was this information that I found particularly interesting.
There were several scenes from a staff meeting at “The Onion”. They were brainstorming the most vile and offensive acts that could possibly be included in the joke. Although it seemed that they were merely adding to the endless stream of vile and twisted descriptions, it was through this discussion that the subject of the comedy taboos were explored.
The majority of the featured comedians stuck to the stock standard formula of “I’m gonna put in the most offensive and off the wall acts of depravity that I can come up with”. I found this became quite monotonous and numbing after a while, so it was refreshing to see a small minority of performers subverting the structure of the joke to make it unique. This included making the described act very tame and giving it a disgusting name. The joke was also told in Mime (on a public street, attracting the stares of confused passers by), via card tricks and using a Ventriloquist dummy. It was these versions that got the most laughs from me.
One particular version from Bob Saget was amusing for all the wrong reasons. His joke was of the standard variety and the delivery was all over the place (he even abandoned the telling of the joke when he was called up for his set on stage!), but it amused me that the Dad from TV’s “Full House” was trying to fit every disgusting act he could think of into a joke.
Towards the end, a number of the interviewees cited that they considered the benchmark rendition of the joke was that of Gilbert Gottfried who told it at Hugh Hefner’s Roast. Although it was another “Crude Majority” version, it did show that the delivery of a joke can make all the difference. If you get your rocks off by listening to descriptions of the most depraved acts imaginable, you will certainly get your fill. Alternatively, if you are after some serious comedy discussion by many of the best in the business, prepare to weather the storm & you will be rewarded with knowledge from the Comedy Gods.
“The Aristocrats” is now screening at Cinema Nova, Dendy Kino & The George Cinemas