Philippines, why so serious?

MANILA, Philippines - Louis C.K. is my favorite comedian of all time. Of all his running gags, the one I love most is his rants about his little daughter whom he calls a “f***ng a**hole”. If you haven’t watched this routine or any of his stand-ups before, then I beg you to go to YouTube right now, search “Louis CK 4-year-old,” and laugh your lungs out.

I bet there’s a huge chance you’ll find it funny. First of all, I just told you it’s funny, so your expectations are already colored by my recommendation. Secondly, even if you completely ignored my opinion (highly likely) you’d be able to watch it with the open-mindedness of a stand-up comedy audience member and respond in the same way the audience in the video responds — which is with shock, followed by hysterical laughter.

If I told you that this routine was revolting, via Twitter, after dozens of other people tweeted the same thing, then maybe you’d form a different opinion.

Oh no, did I just formulate a thought exercise? I’m sorry. I just wanted to introduce you all to the comic genius of Louis C.K. because I think he’s the most hilarious person on earth and Pinoys generally love to laugh. But I guess we’re all in a deconstructionist mood lately when it comes to humor, analyzing whether something’s funny or offensive, and railing against the evils of political incorrectness and whatnot. I think I’m getting caught up in the zeitgeist.

Tragedy + time

I consider myself more than a fan of comedy — perhaps a connoisseur, if that’s possible. The “tragedy + time” formula is mostly true, because we do need the perspective offered by distance to properly laugh at things. But there’s also something I’ve noticed: comedy is always ruined by explanation. It’s either you get it or you don’t; or worse, you get offended by it. If I told you the reason Louis C.K.’s jokes about his daughter are so hilarious is because it’s an extremely absurd version of the truth, and is, in fact, so absurd that there’s no way he hates his daughter, then I just ruined the joke for you (sorry).

That’s essentially what happened when Vice Ganda apologists explained her unfunny joke just to provide the necessary backlash to the backlash (a “no pun intended” here would ruin another joke, but there isn’t one, really). It was amusing to see the defenders of comedy launch a crusade in the name of Vice Ganda, who I can’t even remember being funny once. But I guess they were left with no choice. What puzzled me most was that they were so eager to defend rape jokes when it wasn’t even a rape joke that was said but a bold movie joke. But the debate has long expired; the joke, already lame to begin with, has already been undeservedly defended and robbed of its context.

So, when Pol Medina Jr. took heat for his slightly funnier Catholic schoolgirl comic strip, the comedy defenders multiplied by the hundreds, joined by progressives who will unimaginably object to everything the Catholic Church says. Medina is considered a social commentator, more highbrow than Vice Ganda, definitely easier to get behind. But because his joke echoed across social media, too, he wasn’t exempt from the political correctness police, who accused him of being as bigoted towards lesbians as the Catholic Church is.

People dissected the joke on the operating tables of their social media accounts, the innards of context spilling out of their news feeds, the mess sterilized by political correctness. Ah, social media! That overly self-conscious avatar of people’s id disguised as their super-ego.

Drinking session jokes

I like jokes better when they are passed around in school campuses, school buses, and beer-drinking sessions around the neighborhood. They just sound funnier and everyone listening to them just seems so relaxed. Most importantly, the jokes matter less. We don’t go home thinking that our friends hate fat people or that “boy bastos” is a model for the youth of the country. We’re all aware of their ridiculousness.

Pol Medina Jr.’s Pugad Baboy series taps into this Pinoy sense of humor bred in streets and inuman tables across the country. It owes its success to the countless Filipinos who get the jokes and the ironic meanness behind them, having spent their entire lives learning that sensibility. Incidentally, Vice Ganda owes his success to comedy-bar humor, which traces its roots from a type of gay insult comedy that Pinoys practically invented. They get the ironic meanness behind it too.

There are a lot of great things about social media that I sometimes tend to overlook how problematic it can be, like how inaccurately it reflects reality and our honest selves. At its best, its sense of community feels reassuring; at its worst, its mixture of political correctness and mob mentality is hilarious. But that’s just my sense of humor, I guess.

Worth defending

That’s the thing about comedy — it never feels worth defending. It just doesn’t matter. If people get hurt, their indignation always takes precedence over comedy’s purpose, which is to amuse. Medina felt his apology wasn’t enough so he resigned, as has humor’s place in this politically correct world a long time ago.

There’s really no sense in either defending or protesting his anti-Catholic joke, or anti-lesbian joke, or pretty Catholic schoolgirl joke, whatever that was. I don’t see the upside in analyzing jokes and deconstructing them to find any traces of oppression, misogyny or religious hatred. I feel like whatever righteousness exists in the world ought to be reserved for works that are more consequential by people who can definitively influence the way we live.

But because of a protest, a suspension, and now a resignation, we’re all suddenly talking about freedom of speech when it didn’t have to be that complicated. Ideally, I wish everyone would laugh at the same jokes but that obviously isn’t how the world works. At the very least I wish unfunny jokes would just be met with the response they actually deserve — stony silence.

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Tweet the author @colonialmental.