Did you see either the original or the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still? One of my favorites, maybe because of Gort, the massive invulnerable robot that protects Michael Rennie in the 1951 version or Keanu Reeves in the 2008 version, both playing Klaatu, and both associated with the line “Klaatu barada nikto” spoken after each is wounded, one at the end of the film and the other at the beginning; yes, Gort, capable of saving or destroying. Yes, the original especially is, in my estimation, a "classic."
Those screen plays were adaptations of “Farewell to the Master,” a short story by Harry Bates. The earlier version made nuclear war the focus; the later version, environmental damage—who would have guessed? Anyway, if you haven’t seen the film—spoiler alert—an alien arrives on the planet with a message of doom: You humans better change your ways, or we’ll destroy you. In the first version, Gort stops every machine on the planet as a warning, thus the title.
Although I prefer to write over watching, I have on rare occasions seen a few minutes of various late night comedy shows. And what I noticed in those brief encounters is something I’ve been hearing other say. Mirth is dead, or, if it isn’t dead, is very much standing still.
As I walked from my office to lab or lecture hall during my career, I passed the lab of a colleague from which laughter spilled into the corridor. He kept his students in stitches while he taught. Good for him and good for them, I always thought. Toward the end of his career, I noticed little or no laughter emanating from his lab. When I asked him about it, he said his students seemed to lack a sense of humor. Shortly after that conversation, he retired, citing that lack of humor was one of the causes. “Time to do other things,” he had said. And I had to agree, as I did not long after that. Over the course of my career I found a decreasing openness to mirth among my students.
Now there could have been many reasons for my observations, none of them scientific. Maybe my colleague's humor and mine were just out-of-date. After all, comedy does often rely on relevance to the lives of the audience. If I listen to a broadcast of a Bob Hope show performed before a military audience during and shortly after World War II and the Korean War, I hear soldiers in the audience responding to jokes that largely go “over my head,” mostly because Hope tailored his jokes to the audience before him. And maybe my colleague and I were just telling jokes that had no relevance to our young audiences. That is definitely a possibility.
But there are some kinds of humor, such as statements about the topic at hand or about objects or stereotypes that transcend generations. And there are puns that derive from language common to young and old alike that, though considered a “lower form” of humor, should strike some funny bone in the brain that speaks the same language. And to my colleague’s and my disappointment, even those seem less effective. Yet, neither of us was unaware of pop culture and that which occupied the nonacademic brains of those young academicians.
And that brings me to my statement that mirth is either dead or standing still. By that I mean I and others have observed that unless humor is directed by the late night talk show host toward only political opponents, there’s little to laugh about. And certainly, there’s no joking about the politicians who belong to the favored class, which, at this time, seems to be the Left. That was particularly true, I believe, during the Obama-Biden administration, and it appears to be true now. So, when former college athlete Gerry Ford tripped on the steps to the plane, it became the make-moment for Chevy Chase’s career, but when Joe Biden fell not once, but twice one the steps to the plane…well, it was a windy day.
I don’t know how you feel about comedy that derives its material from the same source and that fears to borrow from other sources. Personally, I would like to see humor from both sides of the political spectrum and from all sides of the social spectrum. Those who can’t make fun of themselves will ultimately fall into hopeless hubris, the greatest of all human follies.
One of the key components of good humor is unexpectedness. Another is a point of view that turns ordinary perspectives upside down. From what I can tell, there is nothing unexpected in the monologues of the late night talk show hosts. If you expect a joke about a Republican, you will get it. Seems that nothing any Democrat does or says—no matter how absurd, contradictory, or hypocritical—has any humor in it. Unexpectedness is gone, and with it the kind of humor it underlies. At the same time, the snarky hubris that draws on only one source of humor has turned to boring repetition. Might as well read a phone book.
I think Gort has come to the planet, has seen that humans can’t be saved because they will continue to do what they do, and has decided to make the mirth stand still.
Those screen plays were adaptations of “Farewell to the Master,” a short story by Harry Bates. The earlier version made nuclear war the focus; the later version, environmental damage—who would have guessed? Anyway, if you haven’t seen the film—spoiler alert—an alien arrives on the planet with a message of doom: You humans better change your ways, or we’ll destroy you. In the first version, Gort stops every machine on the planet as a warning, thus the title.
Although I prefer to write over watching, I have on rare occasions seen a few minutes of various late night comedy shows. And what I noticed in those brief encounters is something I’ve been hearing other say. Mirth is dead, or, if it isn’t dead, is very much standing still.
As I walked from my office to lab or lecture hall during my career, I passed the lab of a colleague from which laughter spilled into the corridor. He kept his students in stitches while he taught. Good for him and good for them, I always thought. Toward the end of his career, I noticed little or no laughter emanating from his lab. When I asked him about it, he said his students seemed to lack a sense of humor. Shortly after that conversation, he retired, citing that lack of humor was one of the causes. “Time to do other things,” he had said. And I had to agree, as I did not long after that. Over the course of my career I found a decreasing openness to mirth among my students.
Now there could have been many reasons for my observations, none of them scientific. Maybe my colleague's humor and mine were just out-of-date. After all, comedy does often rely on relevance to the lives of the audience. If I listen to a broadcast of a Bob Hope show performed before a military audience during and shortly after World War II and the Korean War, I hear soldiers in the audience responding to jokes that largely go “over my head,” mostly because Hope tailored his jokes to the audience before him. And maybe my colleague and I were just telling jokes that had no relevance to our young audiences. That is definitely a possibility.
But there are some kinds of humor, such as statements about the topic at hand or about objects or stereotypes that transcend generations. And there are puns that derive from language common to young and old alike that, though considered a “lower form” of humor, should strike some funny bone in the brain that speaks the same language. And to my colleague’s and my disappointment, even those seem less effective. Yet, neither of us was unaware of pop culture and that which occupied the nonacademic brains of those young academicians.
And that brings me to my statement that mirth is either dead or standing still. By that I mean I and others have observed that unless humor is directed by the late night talk show host toward only political opponents, there’s little to laugh about. And certainly, there’s no joking about the politicians who belong to the favored class, which, at this time, seems to be the Left. That was particularly true, I believe, during the Obama-Biden administration, and it appears to be true now. So, when former college athlete Gerry Ford tripped on the steps to the plane, it became the make-moment for Chevy Chase’s career, but when Joe Biden fell not once, but twice one the steps to the plane…well, it was a windy day.
I don’t know how you feel about comedy that derives its material from the same source and that fears to borrow from other sources. Personally, I would like to see humor from both sides of the political spectrum and from all sides of the social spectrum. Those who can’t make fun of themselves will ultimately fall into hopeless hubris, the greatest of all human follies.
One of the key components of good humor is unexpectedness. Another is a point of view that turns ordinary perspectives upside down. From what I can tell, there is nothing unexpected in the monologues of the late night talk show hosts. If you expect a joke about a Republican, you will get it. Seems that nothing any Democrat does or says—no matter how absurd, contradictory, or hypocritical—has any humor in it. Unexpectedness is gone, and with it the kind of humor it underlies. At the same time, the snarky hubris that draws on only one source of humor has turned to boring repetition. Might as well read a phone book.
I think Gort has come to the planet, has seen that humans can’t be saved because they will continue to do what they do, and has decided to make the mirth stand still.
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