Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Shocking the old biddies with dogs

The Flatmate and I discovered a documentary called "The Aristocrats" last night, which we had to keep flicking to and from, because I honestly don't think we could have watched it in one go. Made in 2005, it's a documentary about the infamous longstanding dirty joke told amongst comedians, where the premise and punchline are the same, but it's the joke's midsection which the teller reworks to be anything they want, as long as it's completely improvised, is how this is used as a mental stretching exercises. The language and situations described are as foul and nasty as the dirtiest joke you've ever heard, but the shock value is only half the joke. The other half is how cleverly the comic can mix an mix the scatological material with the ultimate perversions. Blood, vomit, incest, bestiality, group sex, necrophilia, etc. are all blended together into a 'shock' joke as extreme as the teller can make it.

The joke involves a person pitching an act to a talent agent. Typically the first line is, "A man walks into a talent agent's office." The man then describes the act. From this point, up to (but not including) the punchline, the teller of the joke is expected to ad-lib the most shocking act they can possibly imagine.

In this documentary, about 100 comedians reminisce, analyze, deconstruct and deliver their own versions of the world's dirties joke. Each story is different, some of which are absolutely hilarious, some made us cringe, and some forced us wrestle for the remote to try and change the channel as soon as possible before the last vestiges of decency got sucked out of our bodies. Watching Carrie Fisher explain how her "mother was the queen of golden showers" was particularly disturbing, especially if you've ever watched "Singing in the Rain".

At our usual morning coffee break in Benugo, I was trying to explain this film to K and P from work, when I noticed this middle aged, extremely middle class, Daily Mail reading posh woman standing next to us, unconvincingly trying to look like she was wasn't eavesdropping on our conversation. Normally trying to freak out middle aged women is not something I do, but this old bat just got on my nerves so I started graphically explaining some of the film. To her credit she stuck around for the incest, group sex, defecation parts, but it was when I said "You know dog-fucking and arse fisting seem to be a very popular topic amongst these people", that she finally gave up, looked at me with a shocked "you working class, dirty, common slut" look in her eye, and ran for her life out the Benugos. She especially didn't seem to appreciate it when she looked back at me in the window and I beamed her a big old smile and a wave.

Ah, who says that TV is a bad influence?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I watched the film, in parts, as well. I had a chuckle over this. I could see that look in her eye. :-)h

Trying to "Panda" said...

yeah it was pretty funny to see this old bat run away :)

BTW, I've checked out your flickr pictures, and they are amazing!