Last night, as a member of the studio audience, I attended a taping of The Half Hour News Hour at FOX Studios on Pico Blvd. in West Los Angeles.
Humor, as many are aware, is a controversial and enigmatic phenomena of the human condition, wherein a built in defense mechanism in individuals resorts to laughter. The laughter is often a reaction to the observation of a painful experience to another human being.
To say that humor is often insensitive and at the expense of someone’s feelings is stating the obvious to those familiar with “comedy.â€Â
Tragically, the person unable to laugh at a certain joke is often the person experiencing the painful experience, or a person who has experienced a similar painful experience.
All that being said, during last nights taping, a segment depicted a male being hit in the groin area, not once, but three times. Audience members at the taping of the show were encouraged, and expected, to laugh at the jokes as they were staged and taped. Sadly, the joke depicting violence against a man was staged not once, but twice. Evidently, there was something wrong with the taping of the first take. During the taping of the retake, I sat with arms folded across my chest and not a chuckle or even a smile came from me.
Obviously, there must be something wrong with my sense of humor, since the rest of the audience had no problem in laughing with great enthusiasm at the skit. I have my doubts there would have been that kind of laughter if it had been a woman who was sexually assaulted with a hit in the crotch, or to the breast.
I suspect depictions of similar hateful violence against women would draw immediate boos from any audience and loud protests in front of the studios main entrance. Unfortunately, there is no need for any “entertainment†studio to worry about any such protests over their depiction of violence against men. There is no taxpayer funded, multi-billion dollar budget concerned with violence against men as there is concerned with violence against women.
Sadly, as evidenced by what is considered acceptable humor, we witness the reinforcement of the disposability of males through all forms of socially accepted forms of violence. Men are over 97% of deaths and casualties in the current war in Iraq. Men are over 94% of Industrial deaths and accidents. Men are approximately 76% of all homicides. Men are 75% of the roughly 25,000 annual suicides.
It appears that men have long been acquiescent to the disposability expectations built into their male role as even health care (or lack thereof) reflects this cruel reality. According to the CDC, of the 15 leading causes of death by disease, men lead in 12 categories, are tied in 1, and trail women in only two.
Humor, as evidenced by the reaction of the audience to the depiction of the violent hate crime against a man, is indeed a mask for the pain and suffering endured by the entire male gender in America. As English poet George Gorden, Lord Byron once wrote, “and if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’tis that I may not weep.”
In my opinion, my sense of humor is not fit for the tawdry, male bashing humor widely broadcast on TV comedies like the one I saw being taped last night. You won’t find me in the audience of such trashy (in my opinion) TV comedies ever again. I do not mourn the loss, but will merely fill that time slot with more male life affirming choices.
