Is It OK to Laugh?

(After this happened, the organization that gives out the award immediately changed the rules of the award to prohibit comic books from ever winning again. It is apparently embarrassing that a comic book can win a Best Short Story of the Year Award.)

Gaiman had the advantage here of being able to start with one of Shakespeare’s finest plays. (He did the same thing with The Tempest later on in Sandman, by the way. Quite clever. But that is a digression.) I suspect it would be hard to find anyone who would doubt the greatness of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

But, is it funny? Be careful before you answer.

Consider the lion. As you will recall, within the play a bunch of rustic workmen decide to put on a play for the wedding celebration of the Duke of Athens. In the play, one of the characters, Snug, will play a lion. Snug is a joiner, a job which involves joining (hence the name!) pieces of wood together to make furniture. He isn’t terribly bright, but he can roar. Bottum (a weaver) thinks he would be better at roaring:

Snug: Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
Quince: You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
Bottum: Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the Duke say “Let him roar again. Let him roar again!”
Quince: An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies that they would shriek, and that were enough to hang us all.
All: That would hang us, every mother’s son.

They obviously need to ensure a mild roaring. Later on, the workmen are still a bit concerned about frightening the ladies.

Snout: Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
Starveling: I fear it, I promise you.
Bottum: Masters, you ought to consider with yourself, to bring in (God shield us!) a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing. For there is not a more fearful wildfowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to ’t.
Snout: Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
Bottum: Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect: “Ladies,” or “Fair ladies, I would wish you,” or “I would request you,” or “I would entreat you not to fear, not to tremble! My life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such thing. I am a man as other men are.” And there indeed let him name his name and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
Quince: Well, it shall be so.

And then when they finally put on the play, Snug does indeed make sure nobody is frightened.

You ladies, you whose gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
May now perchance both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
Then know that I, as Snug the joiner, am
A lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam;
For if I should as lion come in strife
Into this place, ’twere pity on my life

After which the nobility provide commentary mocking the whole enterprise.

Now, think about this particular thread of the play. Did you find it amusing? Shakespeare clearly wanted you to find it amusing. In the past, people laughed heartily at the joke. But did you find it amusing?

It is not hard to start listing the sins of that passage if you use the criteria beloved by the modern Campus Scolds. First, it is misogynistic and perpetuates gender stereotypes. Then it reinforces classism and the distinctions between the upper and lower classes. Third, it reinforces the idea that the lower classes serve only to amuse the upper classes. Fourth it demonstrates the inequality of wealth. Fifth, it roundly mocks the less educated. Need I go on?

So, is it funny?

While discussing this play with a couple of students, we got to talking about exactly this question. All three of us thought the whole lion thread was funny. Very funny. But, where is that line between being funny and being offensive?

Consider the following situation. Mount Holyoke has a couple of annual events where students give brief presentations on “What I did for my summer internship” and “What I did for my senior thesis.” The college spends a lot of energy in promoting these events. You can spend all day listening to undergraduates give 10 minutes spiels on their work. Nice idea I suppose, but truth be told, the day is pure torture. Don’t get me wrong. I love Mount Holyoke students. But, very few of them actually give riveting 10 minute talks on their senior thesis or their summer job.

Now, consider an event where the presentations at these events are mocked. Imagine a skit called “Senior Symposium” which was a full ten minutes of a really bad presentation in which every stereotypical feature of a bad presentation is featured. Could that be funny?

Then imagine that the presentation is not just a generic bad presentation, but actually specifically the kinds of things that students actually do at Senior Symposium? It cuts a bit closer to home. Is it still funny?

Then, imagine mocking a particular presentation. One of the students with whom I was talking wrote a senior thesis on the how the American Communist Party’s views on women changed over the course if its existence. Imagine mocking a presentation on that particular thesis at length. Is it still funny?

Somewhere along that spectrum, you probably drew a line. But, where? And does everyone draw the line at the same place? Of course not.

A sticky problem. Is it Ok to laugh at something if you know someone somewhere might take offense? One answer is “No.” That answer kills comedy. Try coming up with a joke that has no chance of ever offending anyone. Not just people you know, but anyone anywhere. Not just people you think are “reasonable” who “can take a joke” but even “unreasonable” people. Not just people you like, but even people you don’t like. Not just people today, but people in the future too. Good luck.

The problem is that it is literally impossible to draw the line here. So, either we have zero humor in the world or…what? If we don’t rule out the whole idea of humor, then what do we do? Shakespeare, ever the clever one, has an answer at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The mischievous Puck walks out, looks at the audience and says:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;

There is an intriguing option. If you are offended, just pretend it was all a dream. Pardon others. It is not a perfectly satisfying answer, obviously. But, it does point us in the right direction. Have a little grace with others. The alternative is the death of laughter.

P.S. The thesis mentioned above about Communists and women is actually really good. It deservedly won all three major college awards for which it was eligible. It is also quite honestly without a doubt the best work ever written on the relationship between women and the American Communist Party. (That is a low bar, to be sure.) The conclusion I drew from the thesis is that Communists are really pathetic, have no deep principles, and just make up their views on an issue in order to constantly sound hip and avant-garde. The student didn’t particularly like the conclusion I drew, however, so maybe there is another possible conclusion which can be drawn from the thesis. If anyone wants to read the thesis, let me know. Of course, I expect precisely zero people to ask me for a copy. This is a thesis, after all, about Communist women in the mid-20^th century, a topic which interests precisely nobody. Don’t pretend you think it is interesting—remember—you won’t even ask me for a copy! I will get a mock-angry e-mail from this student now. I will laugh.