I’m still talking about Bill Maher’s 2007 HBO stand-up showcase, Bill Maher: The Decider, where, after greeting the Boston crowd, Maher begins with a critique of President George W. Bush. Only 50 seconds later, he comes to this nugget:
The country has fuck-up fatigue. [Laughter] Which is what happens when the guy [George W. Bush] fucks up so much that when he fucks up again, people go [Resignedly] “Well, what do you expect. [Laughter] He’s a fuck-up.” And that’s fucked up! [Laughter]
He has now convinced himself that history will be kind to him. [Sarcastically] It’s just US, in the PRESENT who don’t get it. [Laughing to himself]. He’s the Van Gogh of Presidents, you know, not appreciated in THIS lifetime but…
I swear to god a couple of weeks ago he was defending his legacy and he said [in imitation of George W. Bush], “They’re still debating our first President.” No they’re not. Who’s debating whether George Washington was a good President? He’s on the one. [Laughter] He’s on Mount Rushmore. [Laughing himself] They named the capitol after him – I think the jury is in on this guy. I do. [Laughter and applause]
Stanley Fish’s critique of Booth
As I’ve mentioned earlier, Booth talks about stable ironies easily understood (or “gotten”) by a “reasonable,” “qualified reader” as opposed to unstable ironies that could mean a number of things, and also local ironies, where one must possess specific knowledge as opposed to infinite ironies, which anyone could potentially “get.” Stanley Fish disputes this characterization on the grounds that these binary oppositions – stable/unstable, local/infinite – quickly break down in real life.
First off, who is this “reasonable,” “qualified reader” who can easily decide what the stable, intended meaning is? Is such a reader ever guaranteed? Shouldn’t we bank on the idea that all ironies are potentially unstable? But at the same time, how unstable can they be? Specific people in specific places and times will understand the joke and author in a specific way.
These interpretations, what I call the uptake of the joke, how the joke is taken up by actual people, help ground or fix the number of possible interpretations of the ironic joke. Ultimately, however, I would add that the potential meaning of any joke is fixed by the text of the joke itself – not its audience or context, both of which will change over time; however, in any context with any audience, there are only so many possible interpretations.
Further, the differentiation between local and infinite irony has at its heart an idea that some things require specific information, and other things everyone knows, a concept that is problematic for many cultural scholars. Is there an infinite irony that crosses all borders, languages, ethnic groups and religions? Probably not; to some extent, all irony is probably local. At the same time, can’t any local example be taken up to display broader, universal themes? Probably, if thought about in a particular way.
If, as Colebrook says, irony since Socrates “is the resistance to a single fixed point of view” (80), then it cannot be truly stable and limited. However, it must be capable of being understood from particular points of view, so it cannot be truly unstable or infinite. It must be anchored to be meaningful, but expansive to be ironical.
Unreliable strategies
Lisa Gring-Pemble and Martha Solomon Watson believe the rhetoric of verbal irony as a discrepancy between two (or more) possible meanings, when used for satire is self-defeating. Using Booth’s model to examine satiric irony, these scholars note that it is more likely for different audiences to reach quite different conclusions about the text and still be amused. In this sense, these texts are polyvalent, affording one the opportunity to apply different values and thus choose the object of the humor. Thus Gring-Pemble and Watson find that satiric irony is an ineffective rhetorical strategy because “the audience can laugh at the humorous elements in the ironic discourse but reject the disparagement that is its goal” (138).
Other reasons to laugh
For instance, though we may recognize Maher’s attempt to ridicule the President, we can laugh at his “dick joke”: the repeated use of the work “fuck” and the reference to the President as a “fuck-up.” This is classic Relief theory, though we could also feel Superior to those who are “fuck ups.” We could also find its usage unexpected and therefore Incongruous.
We also can laugh at Maher’s wit evidenced by the reference to Van Gogh – it’s a novel connection, kind of artsy and nerdy, and we weren’t expecting it. Thus Incongruity theory more squarely enters the discussion.
We may just laugh at Maher’s impersonation of Bush, which some might think is a fairly accurate caricature. Or we may laugh because we think the caricature is hyperbolic and untrue, it’s a reductio ad absurdum. In both of these we might find more Incongruity, and perhaps more Superiority.
Or we may find the President’s own favorable comparison of himself to George Washington laughable (even if we like Bush) – and this is not to say that a comparison with a more modestly influential president is not warranted. Here we could link in all three theories.
Or perhaps we can note how Maher structured the argument to be parallel to the old “borrowed kettle” joke that Freud and Zizek reference, thus casting Bush as a laughable figure who uses contradictory arguments.
Kettle logic
Briefly, when confronted with having borrowed and damaged a kettle, the borrower responds:
- Either I never borrowed a kettle, or
- I returned it to you unbroken, or
- The kettle was damaged when I borrowed it.
The humor stems from the fact that in trying to cover all his bases, the borrower’s arguments negate one another – you said you never borrowed it, now you’re saying you did, and why would you borrow a broken kettle? It makes no sense. This form of humor is sometimes referred to as literary irony (Mueke).
As Maher would have it, Bush’s logic runs thusly:
- Either I am not a fuck-up (or not thought to be a fuck-up), or
- History will prove that I was not a fuck-up (those in the future will not think I was a fuck-up), or
- Even great presidents are forever thought by some to be fuck-ups (I will always be thought by some to be a fuck-up).
In casting Bush in this way, Maher reduces Bush’s arguments to an absurd level (another reductio ad absurdum), and we can derive humor from the wit of this reduction (not just from a reduced Bush). This also allows fans of Bush an “out,” in that it does not rule out arguments whereby Bush can escape the title of “fuck-up.” Maher isn’t covering all possible arguments, just the ones that support his point, and that may not convince the unconvinced.
Summary
What these various readings display is that readers don’t have to treat a text as stable, though it never becomes completely unstable. To a certain extent, they can apply local knowledge or expand their understanding to larger contexts, and they can find (or fail to find) humor in a number of different places, even if they “get” the satirical intent.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
References:
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1975.
Ceccarelli, Leah. “Polysemy: Multiple Meanings in Rhetorical Criticism.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 84 (1998): 395-415.
Colebrook, Claire. Irony. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Fish, Stanley. “Short People Got No Reason to Live: Reading Irony.” Daedalus, 112, 1998: 175-191.
Gilbert, Joanne. Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 2004.
Gournelos, Ted. “Irony, Community, and the Intelligent Design Debate in South Park and The Simpsons.” Electronic Journal of Communication, 18 (2, 3 & 4), 2008: 1-18.
Gring-Pemble, Lisa and Martha Solomon Watson. “The Rhetorical Limits of Satire: An Analysis of James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 89.2 (2003): 132-53.
Mueke, D. C. The Compass of Irony. London: Methuen and Company LTD., 1969.
Wilson, Nathan. Was That Supposed to be Funny? A Rhetorical Analysis of Politics, Problems and Contradictions in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation in partial completion of the Ph.D. August, 2008.
