Comedy is always cruel

So what should Chris Rock do next?

Do you have any idea how painful it is to slip on a banana peel? The horrifying crack of the sacroiliac as it hits the concrete? The excruciating pain, week after week, that shoots through your body as you futilely search for a comfortable sitting position? The weeks of physical therapy that follow the onstage belly laugh, and the fluctuations between hope and despair during the slow healing process?

Or consider the Coyote’s addictive quest for the roadrunner, as he pours his dwindling finances into the coffers of the Acme company, buying gadget after gadget, and failing again and again to capture the prey he needs to survive. Surely you must have noticed how emaciated he is. Having spent all his money on hunting technology, he obviously has no money left over for food. And yet as he slowly wastes away, he continues to gamble on each new item featured in the Acme catalogue, and endures new contortions and mutilations as each of these items fails to deliver. Nobody laughs when they read Albert Camus’ classic essay on The Myth of Sisyphus. But you, you heartless bastard, you laugh when you see the same story told with a coyote and a roadrunner instead of a man and a boulder, or when you see a clown slip on a banana peel. Just as Will Smith laughed when he first heard Chris Rock’s GI Jane Joke.

When we laugh at someone, we are taking pleasure in their pain, or at the very least getting a pleasure that requires us to ignore their pain. That’s how laughter works…