die fborfw

Something happened recently when I saw the photo in the paper of a wildly gesticulating Michael Richards silhouetted against a comedy club sign that read "Laugh": I began to think about contemporary comedy -- about Borat, Seinfield, Curb Your Enthusiasm and even the hit British sitcom The Office.

It seems like a coincidence that the comedian who played Kramer on Seinfeld is the latest celebrity to have an attack of racist Tourette's syndrome.

But is it just a coincidence, or is there a connection between our favourite contemporary comedies and racism?

Don't get me wrong. I don't support censorship. I'm a big fan of camp, and of any comedy that pushes the envelope. (In fact, I was inspired by the early films of John Waters, such as Pink Flamingos, to create my own version of camp at Toronto's Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.)

But because commercial entertainment is a mega-business that must please a mass audience, it may tell us something deeper about the attitudes that permeate our culture.

For example, what made the manager David Brent in The Office so funny? Sure, he's a bad boss -- but significantly, he often puts his foot in his mouth by making racist and sexist remarks. George Findlay on Canada's own The Newsroom, Ken Finkleman's character, is famously politically incorrect.

Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm has the same problem -- he just can't seem to figure out what's wrong with commenting on the neighbour woman's fat, black behind, or ridiculing an effeminate shoe salesman.

They call this genre "cringe" comedy, and the newly crowned king of cringe is Sasha Baron Cohen. His Borat character covers all the bases: He is homophobic, unabashedly anti-Semitic and misogynist, fearing homosexuals, celebrating "the running of the Jews" and shoving a woman (Pamela Anderson) into a bag, for easy-access molestation.

Critics remind us that we're not supposed to like these politically incorrect men. And for the most part, we don't. But we can't stop laughing at them. Why?

I think it all started with Seinfeld. The show is supposedly about nothing, and yes, on the most basic level it is a comedy of nuisance: Seinfeld can't stand that girl with "man hands" or the "low talker." But in some episodes -- often the most hilarious -- the irritations take on a more sinister character.

How does Elaine, for example, inform a disabled stroke victim that she can't take care of him any more? She just tells him that he's boring her to distraction because they have nothing in common.

In one famous episode, George and Jerry are mistaken for homosexuals. They deny it, each time hilariously assuring us, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." This is funny because we know that there most definitely is something wrong, in our culture, with being a homosexual, and that no straight men -- especially effete metrosexuals like Jerry and George -- wish to be mistaken for one.

What a pain, the episode seems to be saying, that we have to go through the tiresome charade of apologizing for our real feelings, in order to be politically correct! We're all homophobic. So get used to it and stop whining, okay?

After 40 years or so of being told by feminists, gay liberationists and anti-racists to watch our tongues, there is a tremendous sense of freedom in watching Seinfeld and George question why, after all, we can't just be openly homophobic.

In my opinion, this plea for a verbal loosening of the stays has now come to a crashing climax. Witness the unabashed joy audiences experience watching Borat call women whores and remind us that all Jews have long noses.

We're assured that these comedies are not racist, misogynist or homophobic -- that, in fact, Borat is making fun of racism. Borat is a modern, self-aware, camp creation, critics say.

There are several problems with this argument. First, the dumb racist Borat is the epitome of a foreigner. The film's primary ridicule is not aimed at complacent Westerners, but at the very opposite -- an ignorant Arab or Muslim. Also, Borat's humour is miles away from camp's style of offensiveness. Camp celebrates not common prejudices, but society's outsiders and their right to acceptance.

More importantly, not everyone watching Borat is a Cambridge-educated expert on postmodern theory, as Sasha Baron Cohen is. After catching the flick in the small Ontario town where I live, I overheard two kids in the men's washroom sharing their glee -- "Hey," one kid said to the other, "that 'running of the Jews,' wasn't it great?"

I detected no irony in their appreciation; they seemed to be in awe of those who can speak racism out loud.

Of course, commercial writers and performers are not responsible for the cultural climate that created them. And perhaps these comedians are right -- trying to hide our prejudices doesn't work.

But since we have not found a more satisfactory solution than to mask them with political correctness, these satires leave us celebrating our relentless anger at those who are different from us or who lack our privilege.

Whatever you think of the messengers, the message this entertainment sends us has not been fully acknowledged: Hatred is alive and well. And, heck, we love it.

I hesitate to agree with the verbally incontinent Michael Richards, who said during his outburst: "It shocks you, it shocks you," because it refers to "what lays buried."

But perhaps our hatred lies not quite so buried as we had thought. However, I support die fborfw. It's not hate disguised as comedy but comedy disguised as hate.