Here’s the number one reason you should go
see The
Aristocrats: Every dollar this
movie takes in is a smacking “Fuck you!” in the faces of the moral-majority,
holier-than-Jesus, nanny-state,
culture-dictating,
hypocritical
conservatives
and their ilk. (But here’s a
caveat: as the movie’s producers, Penn
Jillette and Paul Provenza, like to say, if you’ve ever been offended
by a
joke, don’t see this movie.) Number
two (hee hee, I said “number two!”) is
that it’s side-splittingly hilarious.
Yes, it’s unbelievably offensive, and truly, if you are offended
by
words, skip the movie and just send the $9.50 to the ACLU.
But it’s just
words. Filthy words, granted – I was
having a hard time imagining something they could say that would truly
shock
and disgust me, and they found something… several times. But
still, I laughed so hard I think I hurt myself.
This might be the place to explain to some of you that this is not a remake of Disney’s The Aristocats. This movie is roughly 90 comics telling, riffing on, explaining, or (in Jon Stewart’s case) distancing themselves from an old vaudeville joke that apparently has been a backstage favorite of comics but was never told on stage until Gilbert Gottfried told it at a roast shortly after 9/11. The joke itself barely matters; the punchline – “We’re ‘The Aristocrats’!” – isn’t even funny. It’s all in the set-up. Which leads to another caveat: you will be much more interested in this movie if you’re a fan of stand-up comedy. I recognized most of the comedians from old Comedy Central clip shows; Provenza himself I remember from a show called “Comics Only,” where it was just him and a stand-up guest talking, and they had no audience, so they tried to make the crew crack up, which was pretty tough. Actually, that’s sort of the ideal training ground for this film, which is all about the ultimate inside joke.
I couldn’t help wondering why this movie was even showing in theaters; it feels like TV. But somehow it’s more satisfying to see it in the theater, if only for the political statement, sort of like paying to see Fahrenheit 9/11 in the theater, except not depressing. The movie is too quick to cut off comics – very few of them get to tell the joke all the way through, and while listening to 10 or 20 full versions of the joke in a row wouldn’t work, a lot of times it seems like just when the comic is really getting into it… cut, next guy. That quick editing works to keep you off balance, though, and prevents you from really thinking too hard about what you’ve just heard (or, god forbid, envisioning what the words describe).
So, if you ever wanted to know:
-- What happens when the Smothers Brothers try to work blue?
-- Can a mime tell a dirty joke?
-- How did Gilbert Gottfried unite the country (or, at least, a roomful of comics) after 9/11?
-- Is Emo Philips still alive?
then this movie answers your prayers.
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