To continue with Bill Maher’s 2007 HBO stand-up showcase, Bill Maher: The Decider, I’ve indicated the part after he greets the Boston crowd, where 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]
Tearing this bit apart using Wayne Booth’s model of verbal irony, we can see that in his second point, Maher uses irony satirically (in the form of sarcasm): that history will be kind to President Bush.
He states – with the President – that we don’t “get it,” comparing Bush to Van Gogh, a great artist who was unappreciated (and thought crazy by some) in his own time, but who, via his works, attained immortality. He signals his ironic intention in the set up, but also through emphasis on specific words (e.g. “It’s just US, in the PRESENT who don’t get it… [Bush is] not appreciated in THIS lifetime”) and through his own laughter at the statements while stating them. Thus Maher seems to be effective in both stating one thing and signaling that it means something else, and the end result is to make Bush look ridiculous, as I’ve indicated.
Litige
However, the problem with this interpretation is that it presupposes that dispute resolution will take place via litigation or litige, “a dispute where both parties articulate their claims in a language they mutually share with a court or judge whose legitimacy they both recognize,” in which “the decorum of the court is known and respected by both parties, and the judgment imposes closure” (Charland, 221-22).
This tradition of litige is commonly inferred whenever we talk, including when we tell jokes. Generally, we think that everyone communicates like we do, and therefore, everyone knows exactly what a person means when they say something, either because of the words they’ve chosen or the way they say it – we know how they’re supposed to act, the decorum, and therefore we can all judge the way they did act.
If only it were that simple.
Above, Charland’s description requires shared language, shared decorum and a shared estimation of and respect for authority. These elements of litige are fairly well recognized as requirements in not only satire, but basic conceptions of irony as well. Ettema and Glasser admit that for the journalist’s sense of outrage to shine through when using irony, the writer and reader must share a particular moral frame and vocabulary. Booth argues that irony requires a tremendous amount of shared meaning and the fact that a shared sense of irony can occur at all is astonishing. These authors seem to recognize that for irony to be received, all involved must engage in the logic of litige.
In this case, Maher seems to be stating his case in transparent language, which he expects to evoke the proper meaning and therefore judgment from the audience. However, [as I’ll describe soon,] we can’t easily rely on litige when we’re trying to both move people politically, and at the same time say something funny. A particular problem for comics is authorial intent – that they are speaking plainly and mean what they say; that they are bona fide – when we know that they’re supposed to be just joking. But strangely, even if we grant that they mean what they say, it does not ensure the message will have any effect. The process of irony itself can affect the reception and clarity of the message. We might read Maher’s satire as ironic [as I’ll describe tomorrow].
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
References:
Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Irony. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1975.
Charland, Maurice. “Property and Propriety: Rhetoric, Justice, and Lyotard’s Différend.” Judgment Calls: Rhetoric, Politics, and Indeterminancy. Ed. John M. Sloop and James P. McDaniel. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998. 220-36.
Ettema, James S. and Theodore L. Glasser. Custodians of Conscience: Investigative Journalism and Public Virtue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. 1905. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton, 1963.
Lyotard, Jean François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1984/2002.
—. The Différend. Trans. George Van Den Abeele. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1988.
—. “Lessons in Paganism.” The Lyotard Reader. Ed. Andrew Benjamin. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989/1993. 122-154.
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.
