Humor Under Fire
YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT ONE OF OUR MOST POPULAR contributors to this page, Los Angeles comedian Argus Hamilton, hasn’t appeared for the past three weeks. The reason should be obvious,we think it’s still too early to poke fun at the nation’s predicament.
Argus, on the other hand, doesn’t. We continue to receive his prodigious output of jokes, about a dozen a day, six days a week, each batch now topped with the salutation, “God bless America.” Many of the jokes are bitingly funny. But we worry that too many readers would be more offended than entertained if we ran them now.
Argus isn’t alone in trying to get the nation back on the laugh track. The Onion, a weekly humor publication, last week “tested the limits of taste,” as Dow Jones Newswires put it, with an issue that satirized the terrorist attacks. At the same time, Jerry Seinfeld announced that he, Bill Cosby and other comics will stage a show Oct. 8 at Carnegie Hall to benefit the families of the fallen police officers and firefighters.
To laugh or not to laugh, that is the question. Is it nobler to honor the nation and its victims with solemnity, or emit a hearty guffaw against a sea of troubles?
Hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, I e-mailed Argus to suggest he mark the event by canceling his next column. His response: “Take the day off? Now who’s joking?”
A week later, Argus and I exchanged the following e-mails, which I think sum up the arguments pro and con:
Argus, your “war” jokes are brilliant and please keep them coming. You may have noticed, though, that we didn’t run any last week and we won’t be running them next. This is a temporary condition. Right now, we just can’t bring ourselves to poke fun at what’s going on. This is something we’ve debated internally and we don’t take it lightly (ha ha).
In fact, when we do get back on track I’ll probably write an editorial about returning to normal and maybe running some of your mothballed lines.
I think it’s great that there are people like you who are out there pushing the envelope. I think it’s a sign of America’s greatness that every viewpoint, idea, comment, what have you is out there right now, even amidst a crisis. Keep it comin’.
Argus replied:
Hi, Rick. Thanks for the note. I completely understand the difficult situation in which you find yourself. My mail has run about 50% “how could you?” and 50% “God bless you for helping us cope with these terrible events.”
It’s my belief that humor provides a much-needed release when feelings of unbearable tension and sadness threaten to overwhelm us. But, as always, do what feels right to you.
