(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In September, the band Turboneger made headlines when vocalist Hank Von Helvete in front of 1500 spectators at the Arena in Stockholm told an unusually dirty story that took place in the theater of Happy-Tom and Euroboy back home in Norway. One day a Swedish family – a mother, a father, two daughters, a son and a dog – come to the theater in a limousine, and ask to be hired. The Turbo guys are skeptical, but give the family a chance to show what they can do. They get a mildly dirty performance with animal sex, pedophilia and incest as some of the ingredients. 'Wow, that was a bit of a show. What are your names?" asks the two members, still according to Hank Von Helvete. "We call ourselves the Swedish royal family" is the answer – to unrestrained cheers from the audience.
The insult to majesty created a stir in both Norwegian and Swedish media, but few admitted that this was Turboneger's version of an old American showbiz joke. In the fresh documentary The Aristocrats, which has its Norwegian premiere on Friday 25 November, around 100 American and British comedians get to tell their opinions and experiences with just this joke. Here they can frolic in the worst orgy of semen, blood, urine, feces and all sorts of social taboos, and then ease the pressure with the – by many – expected punchline that comes as the artist says that his number is called "the aristocrats" . The moral is simple: you can get away with the worst pig jokes and perversities, just make sure you kick up in the end. Against aristocrats, rich people, intellectual snobs – or the Swedish royal family. As Monty Python's Eric Idle points out in the film, it's absurd that the aristocrat joke has taken hold in the noble United States, and as one of the other comedians himself says: The first time he heard the joke, he did not know what an aristocrat is.
But the point of the aristocrat joke is not the end point, it is the way to it. And here the goal is to be as nasty, tasteless and excessive as possible. This is the comedian's own joke, which is rarely publicly publicized, but has served as a guild symbol, a kind of secret handshake, for comedians for a number of years. It's a joke with tight frames and a slack punchline, but with a sea of opportunities for improvisation, bursting and creativity. It shows which comedians are John Coltrane and which ones still play in school music.
The Aristocrats has also become a tribute to American comedy history. Here, 100 comedians and backers are interviewed, from veterans like Don Rickles and Phyllis Diller, pioneers like George Carlin, celebrities like Robin Williams and Jason Alexander, and fresh heroes like Chris Rock and Jon Stewart. And when everyone makes their variations with the same joke, they also showcase a variety of humor techniques: belly speaking, miming, animation and magical humor. We get one, among other things South Parkversion, an animation series that has done its job to break the taboo boundaries. For the "shut your fucking face, uncle-fucker" song in the movie South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut it must be extra heavy to shock or disgust this viewer in any case. But it's coming. For example, Bob Saget, in Norway, is best known as the smooth host America's Funniest Home Videos, unleashes a multi-minute version. Or when Andy Dick gets graphic and creative in his homosexual scenes.
The film is possibly a little content to swoon in well-known comic book narratives, and it is only rarely that the filmmakers try to go beyond the story and motivations around the joke to see the larger context. But when journalist Frank DiGiacomo talks about when comedian Gilbert Godfried took the chance to tell the joke on a televised party performance with Hugh Hefner as the host, just weeks after 11. September, we understand one of the joke's many features. At this time there was no stand-up show in New York, and the comedians at the party were very cautious and restrained. So when Godfried suddenly got rid of the pig joke over all the pig jokes, he simply showed the assembly that it was still allowed to laugh. And possible. The audience, many of them comedians, crack up in laughter and several of the film's contributors still talk about the rise with awe. To the extent that it actually becomes an anti-climax when we finally get to see the footage of Godfried. But then we have already heard the same joke for a very short hour, so it is no wonder it suddenly appears sweet and innocent.
And Turboneger? "Next time, maybe, we will end the story with: 'We call ourselves Feeling on the shore!'," Thomas "Happy-Tom" Seltzer told VG. I'm already looking forward to new versions.
