Gilbert, Inside Jokes, and Speed Racer

This past Sunday night, my housemate Rachel and I stayed up late watching a quaint made-for-TV mystery movie series instead of completing the various readings we each had to do. We were so deep in procrastination, it seemed, that we were actively doing something we really didn’t want to do instead. The heroine’s name was Aurora Teagarden, if that gives any indication. (There is no word that can aptly describe the experience of watching a Hallmark Movies and Mysteries “Aurora Teagarden” adaptation at midnight—no word that can encompass the experience of watching a spunky, blonde librarian somehow outsmart the entire police force of her town, solve murders where the body is never actually shown, and interact with her sorta-boyfriend as though she were not, in fact, a grown thirty-something woman, but instead a middleschooler with a crush. All set to a bizarrely inappropriate light-hearted soundtrack. Yet we watched on.)

We were on the second Aurora Teagarden mystery when what I can only call delirium set in. Some background is necessary, though; during the snow day the previous Tuesday, the same friend and I had spent the day off having an extended movie night. I chose my favorite ridiculous high school-summer blockbuster (Pacific Rim), our other friend chose the bizarre 2008 Wachowski siblings’ Speed Racer, and Rachel chose Fifty Shades Darker. (The fact that it was the clean cut of the last one only added to the experience, as did the fact that the stream had obviously been filmed in a movie theater and people in the audience kept standing up and blocking the screen.)

But the delirium. The movies were all fresh in our minds, which may explain it, as may madness brought on by over-exposure to Ms. Teagarden’s twee charms, or simply being over-tired, but somehow we ended up spending the next two hours photoshopping lines of poetry over screenshots of Speed Racer and Fifty Shades via a “Meme Generator” and laughing until we couldn’t breathe. The results are, objectively, not funny to anyone but the two of us. Examples follow:

          It wasn’t until I had begun to edit Byron over a screencap of Charlie Day’s character mind-melding with a giant alien in Pacific Rim, and Rachel continued our Ginsberg trend but now over the plucky Aurora Teagarden, that she stopped, looked at me, and said “This is would be totally incomprehensible to anyone but us. It’s like a secret spy code.” I’d spent most of my childhood wanting to be a spy, and now I was finally getting my wish granted through lines of verse and Jamie Dornan’s brooding looks into the distance. It was poetic.

            But the code part is not the part that struck me; it was what she said about our bad edits being incomprehensible to literally anyone else. She was right. They were incredibly niche; absurd. Not only was it necessary to have seen the movies, but it was also necessary to have seen them enough to associate feelings with the certain scenes that could then be summarized in lines of famous poetry. (And recognition of the poetry itself was also required for the full experience.) In short, it was a standard “inside joke” experience.

            It got me thinking about humor on the larger scale, particularly the kind we’ve been discussing in class lately. When we read the Sedaris essays, we talked a lot about relatability and the need to have some sort of emotional understanding of the situation in order to find it truly funny. The same could be said for Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings; at times “Madea” commented on how you needed be black to fully understand what she was talking about (and if you weren’t, to go ask one of your black friends). I don’t presume to inflate a mutual fascination with a movie to the scale of actual life experiences, of course, but there is the same underlying idea throughout: you must have a basic understanding, if not a basic relationship, with the stuff that makes up the humor.

            I think the same could be said for a lot of the humor in Eat, Pray, Love as well. As a sophomore in college, I haven’t gone through nearly as much as Gilbert has. I haven’t been married for eight years and subsequently gone through a bitter divorce, been a published author, been outside the country, or lived in New York City. I’m also nineteen as opposed to her mid-thirties status in the memoir. There are some aspects of Eat, Pray, Love, I feel, that require this shared understanding in order to be funny. For example—I couldn’t fully grasp the homesickness that Gilbert discussed in regard to NYC while she was abroad, nor her helplessness and ennui when she felt trapped in her marriage and the expectations for her to have a baby. Gilbert discussed, and ultimately joked, about both, and they both seemed like occasions in which an experience of the situation (or a similar one) was necessary to fully understand. However—on the other hand, so much of what Gilbert talked about was universally relatable. While what is most likely a very small portion of us have traveled to India to find a solution for it, nearly everyone has struggled with finding peace with themselves. Nearly everyone has struggled with loneliness, or depression, or heartbreak; nearly everyone has struggled with the nature, or existence, of a higher power. It’s the emotional experiences Gilbert describes with a humorous tone, not necessarily the physical ones, which can make the book relatable. It’s a shared understanding.

            So it is like an inside joke, in that sense. Things can, of course, still be funny even if you don’t necessarily understand or relate to every single aspect behind it. I’ve never meditated or been to the Ashram, but Gilbert’s humorous description of her struggle with this experience still made me laugh occasionally; I’m not black, but I still thought that Don’t Make A Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings was funny; likewise, you don’t have to watch Speed Racer to realize that there’s something inherently absurd in applying works of literary merit to it. You can still recognize the humor in something even if it doesn’t directly appeal to some physical or emotional experience you’ve had, or an aspect of your identity—but it certainly adds to the experience of the humor if you do.

Richard from Texas Ruins Everything: Failing Subtlety in Eat, Pray, Love

            This past weekend, I participated in my first Evergreen Lock-In.  The Lock-In has a theme and every Evergreen needs to wear a costume that fits that theme.  This year, the theme was the Olympics.  I was paired with another person to represent the French track and field team.  This was difficult for me; I am not currently, nor have I ever been an extremely athletic person.  I did not know what a track star would wear, so I settled on a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt with FRANCE screen-printed boldly on the front.  My partner ran track in high school.  He showed up in a full spandex running outfit (Uniform? Costume? I don’t know the terminology).  A stack of first place medals hung around his neck, all engraved with his name and the events he ran.  He handed me one so we would match a bit better.  I found our pairing to be comical in itself because we were so obviously different, yet we were meant to be the same team.  Early in the evening, we were asked to introduce ourselves in our pairs, saying our name, year, and sport we were representing. When my partner and I stepped forward, he went first. As he said he was representing track, he ran in place, jumped up, and landed in a perfect starting position as if he were about to race.  I looked down at him, then back at my fellow Evergreens.  I paused after saying my name and added, “I’m representing the uhhh field events.” I shrugged and everyone started laughing.  My partner and I were extremely different, and the incongruity of our introductions caused everyone to laugh.  None of this was done on purpose, and the humor in our actions was very subtle so that it made the most sense in the context of that particular event.  If someone were to try and present the moment with different people in a different context, it would likely not have the same level of humor.

            Subtlety in humor is a major part of the humor that is at work in Gilbert’s memoir.  The work itself is not meant to be primarily; in fact, it covers a host of more serious topics, including divorce, depression, and the journey to spiritual enlightenment.  None of these are inherently funny, and when focusing on each topic, humor is never a main focus of the book.  Instead, Gilbert intersperses humor in light commentary throughout the narrative.  For example, when explaining herself and the way she deals with her emotions, she mentioned that David said, “You have the opposite of a poker face.  You have, like…miniature golf face” (Gilbert 41). This observation is funny because it puts an unexpected twist onto a popular adage.  It fits in with the incongruity theory of humor, subverting the expectations of the reader who would not necessarily think that miniature golf would be the opposite of poker.  Quick jokes such as this one are quite common in the book because they fit in the best with the story Gilbert wants to tell. When discussing difficult topics such as divorce and depression, it may be difficult to add humor to the situation, and when it is done incorrectly it can appear insensitive and in bad taste.  Gilbert generally avoids this by keeping the humorous remarks short and to the point.  This keeps the humor from disrupting the overall flow of the story while still making a contribution.

            Although most of the humor in the story is expertly placed in such a way that it does not interfere with the overall message of the story, there was one section where I do not think that the humor functioned in a way that was constructive.  While she was in India, Gilbert frequently mentioned Richard from Texas and the strange things he would say while giving spiritual insight.  These moments felt very forced to me.  His presence does not fit in with the general feelings that Gilbert is dealing with at the Ashram, even though he is giving guidance that fits in with the teachings of the Guru.  For example, he tells Gilbert, “You’re like a dog at the dump, baby—you’re lickin’ at an empty tin can, trying to get more nutrition out of it. And if you’re not careful, that can’s gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable” (Gilbert 150).  This is important advice pertaining to Gilbert and her relationship troubles that are preventing her from moving forward in her life, but it is prevented in a very quirky and ridiculous metaphor.  It does not fit in with the deep and introspective theme of the section of the book.  The incongruity is so apparent that it is too much to accept as a small comical instance.  Combined with the constant recurrence of Richard’s remarks, the fall flat in my mind.  It is not convincingly funny because it does not fit well with the rest of the section of this book.  The comments seemed forced and unreal, which prevented me from laughing at them after Richard’s introduction.  This made me question the validity of the entire story.  When one of the main characters is unbelievable, the whole story can start to fall apart.  I stayed skeptical for the rest of the reading because of my dislike of one character, but Richard ruined the subtlety of humor that had been established throughout the first half of the story.

Gilbert Anxiety

Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love tells the story of Elizabeth’s journey across the world to find balance in her life. I understood this nonfiction as a great adventure tale as well as a self-help book. Obviously not everyone is going drop everything and everyone in their life travel for a year, but everyone goes through the same basic problems. Everyone struggles with their health and body image, spirituality, and relationships. Elizabeth’s struggle to find balance and love in her life is extremely relatable to the reader, and that is a major reason why the book is so funny. Gilbert’s anxiety, constant whining and uncertainty made me think of the days when I was choosing a major. I could not decide on a major for my life. I remember people asking me the same questions; What kind of person are you? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What makes you happy? I obviously did not know the answer to any of them. Since I could not decide on a major that was my passion, like music or writing, I decided to pick something I was good at; Accounting. Who knows, maybe I will come out with my own Eat Pray Love after my nervous breakdown in the bathroom in some accounting firm I’ll be working for.

I see Elizabeth as the hero in her own story. She is stuck in a tragic life, moves away and overcomes obstacles, and finally learns something about herself. I find humor in the story because most people around are so much better than her at what she is trying to accomplish. I thought the Italians were hilarious because they were so laid back and cracked jokes, while Elizabeth was wound a little tight. I personally found Luca spaghetti and the “art of doing nothing” to be hilarious (61-62). Luca is funny because everyone may know someone like him, and he is such a foreign character to Elizabeth. (I also found the miller light and break joke to be funny). Richard is another good example of someone who is simply better at Elizabeth. Richard seems to be very wise and laid back while Elizabeth is struggling with her meditations, and he eventually helps her to find peace. Richard often puts down Elizabeth for being stressed out and fixated on her past. This may be the superiority theory in action, even though he is just trying to help her.

I found Eat Pray Love to be a very insightful book, and I thought it was very interesting. It is very

Relatable to the reader, because Gilbert is addressing humanity’s most common problems. However I think it would be extremely funny if Madea were to meet Elizabeth Gilbert in the midst of her crisis.

Relatable Gilbert

One thing that struck me about Eat, Pray, Love is the way Elizabeth Gilbert tells her story. I found myself identifying with just about everything she said simply because she tells her stories the same way my friends and I do. For instance, my fiancé, Jason, was a very thoughtful child—a born philosophy major. When I read the part of EPL when Liz turns ten it actually made me laugh out loud because the same thing happened to him when he turned ten. They used the same phrase when describing their experiences— “metaphysical crisis” (151). They both take somewhat serious events in the life of a child and turn it into a humorous story. The way Jason tells it, he was all ready to have his tenth birthday party, but when his friends started arriving he ran into his room and burst into tears under the weight of all of the change. When he tells the story, and when Gilbert tells her version, you can see the tiny child with wide, tear-filled eyes contemplating their own mortality. Explaining it like this in a blog post doesn’t do a good job of conveying just how silly the stories are to the audience despite the serious subject matter of the tale.

Another aspect of the novel that struck me was how Gilbert dealt with anxiety, loneliness, and depression. As someone who suffers from acute anxiety, I can truly relate to feeling like they’ve “been living in a giant trash compactor of anxiety” at certain points throughout my life (29). While going on a soul-searching journey after a messy divorce isn’t exactly comparable to adjusting to life in college (800 miles from home), I found myself drawing quite a few comparisons between how Gilbert and I describe that feeling to others. I tend to use humor to lighten the seriousness of those feelings as to not make other people feel uncomfortable. I’ve even personified the feelings of depression and loneliness to better describe the feelings to others, though I’ve never gone so far as to give them their own little personalities. Again, she takes something serious and tells the story through a humorous lens to make the reader more receptive to what she has to say.

Gilbert’s method of story-telling is similar to the other authors we’ve read in class. A common theme seems to be cropping up: veiling the serious with humor to make it more palatable for audiences. Making people comfortable seems to be in the forefront of these authors’ minds as they impart their wisdom to the reader. They want to make their experiences as universal as possible while still retaining the authenticity needed to make their works unique to them. Eat, Pray, Love succeeds in this because the three sections of the book are universal experiences in themselves. Everyone has eaten, prayed, and loved—or at least had some experience in at least one of these areas. Since the themes of the novel are already so familiar, the story feels like it’s being told be a close friend instead of just another author. In my opinion, Gilbert succeeds more than the rest at this endeavor because she is telling the most relatable story.

Gilbert and Framing

           One of the things that I do every single weekend, is that I watch Chelsea play soccer on TV, sometimes I will even wake up at 7am on a Saturday just to watch the games, which as any college student knows, is quite a sacrifice. Some of my best memories, and the funniest, come from watching the games with my father, who supports Everton, another team in the English Premier League. When these teams play each other my Dad and I both sit down in our family room, both in our jerseys, intently watching the game, and as any good soccer fans do, exchanging banter. Now most of it simply cannot be shared here, as it often involves some more colorful language, and is also quite long, I have been known to launch into twenty minute tirades against Chelsea players if one of them makes a costly mistake. Usually these comments are not intentionally funny, however, there are times when one of us will say something that causes the both of us to stop watching entirely and start laughing. A few years back Chelsea and Everton were playing and my Dad and I were on separate couches in the living room, fearing that sitting to close to the other would somehow cause bad luck for our respective teams. One of the Chelsea players was sporting a particularly awful and messy peroxide blonde hair cut, but eventually went on to score against Everton which prompted my father to exclaim “how the hell did we let him score!! He’s impossible to miss with that god-awful haircut, did he blind the defenders or something?? We really just let someone who looks that absurdly stupid score against us” and naturally that had to be shortened from its original length, and censored a little bit, but sitting there listening to my father throw insult after insult after this man who, in reality, is just doing his job, was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. Outside of the two of us no one else thought it was that funny, my brother was mad because we woke him up too early with our screaming, and my mom was still only on her first cup of coffee which meant that she still had at least an hour before she wanted to hear any loud noise coming from anyone in the house. Yet there my father and I were, both laughing over my father yelling at a man that was thousands of miles away for doing his job. Looking back on this, this moment does have some limiting factors which may keep others from finding it just as funny as I do. First it was a moment between me and my father which does tend to make it more personal, but it also must be seen through the lens of a soccer fan, throwing insults at the players is just part of the game, and whether that is good or bad simply has not been determined yet, and probably will not be because all the fans are too busy yelling. At the same time, I was also not expecting my father to launch into that kind of deluge of insults, given that most of the time he was rather measured with his celebrations or his exclamations. This sudden outburst was entirely incongruous given my father’s previous behavior and caught me entirely off guard, and likely made it that much funnier to me simply because I was not expecting it at all. Some outside observer, given that they had the skills, would likely be able to frame this moment in a much more humorous way than I could her, and end up with something like the old Italian Mans tirade on page 69 in Eat, Pray, Love.

Eat, Pray, Love has, in the 11 years since its first publication, become a book which is known by everyone regardless of whether they have read it. The name has somehow worked its way into the minds of people across the country, partially thanks to the movie starring Julia Roberts, which came out only 4 years after the initial publication in 2006. The book itself is the memoirs of the author Elizabeth Gilbert, as she travels the world trying, in a sense, to find herself after the collapse of her marriage. Through her year long journey Gilbert experiences the various cultures in Italy, India, and Indonesia in a way that most people would only dream of. Gilbert’s memoir style allows readers to experience the vibrancy of Rome or the tranquility of an Indian Ashram vicariously through her writing and her experiences. Where this work excels is in Gilbert’s attention to detail, and her ability to describe a location, or a person, in a way that makes the reader feel as though they had been there themselves. One of the best examples of this comes from her description of Richard from Texas, who is arguably the only humorous part of the entire book. Her description of Richard is incredibly detailed saying that he “moves with the authority of a border town sheriff” and that he had “wide shoulders and giant hands that look like they could do some damage, but a totally relaxed face” (Gilbert, 138). Given the name that Gilbert assigned to him a few lines later, this description makes perfect sense, she is describing a big, laid back Texan, and what the reader gets is exactly that.

            This memoir does, however, have some rather disappointing parts to it. While the author is rather witty, though whether that was added in after to make her look better is probably a good question to ask, she is never actually particularly funny, most of the humor comes from outside sources, and is then framed in a way that it makes the reader laugh. Rather than being the source of the humor in this book, Gilbert seems to just be around while other humorous things are happening. Some of the things that she witnesses, however, are very humorous. The scene she described from the Lazio-Roma game was perhaps the best moment in the entire book, especially for a soccer fan. For most people the idea of an old man cheering for someone one second, and then the next second raining obscenities down upon him is simply unthinkable, but for anyone who has sat through a soccer game, especially one in another country, knows that it is completely normal for someone to be saying “OK, my boy, perfect, brilliant, brilliant” (Gilbert, 69) only to turn around after a missed attempt on goal, or a bad pass, and say some rather horrible things, despite the player wearing the kit of the club that the person supports, and I have to admit, it is something I have been guilty of quite a few times in my life. It is this aspect of humor that Gilbert excels at, somewhat similarly to David Sedaris. Both authors have the ability to take an everyday situation, and frame it in a way that makes it seem humorous, and most importantly, relatable. Throughout this book, most people can find at least one aspect of the book that they can relate to, I myself have a large Texan cousin, who would never be caught dead doing yoga, much less in an Ashram, but can nevertheless espouse folksy wisdom in a manner similar to Richard. I also have plenty of memories of my grandfather watching soccer and launching into a Ukrainian tirade against one of the players on the team that he supports. While one would never expect a 20 year old male to be able to relate to any part of the memoir, the individual stories that Gilbert tells, and the manner in which she frames them, allows the humor to be noticeable by all types of reader. 

The Power of Tyler Perry’s Alter ego

       In Don’ Make a Black Women Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life, Tyler Perry completely takes on the black maternal figure. Instead of just commenting on stereotypes, he dresses up as a 6’ 300lb sassy black old women named Madea and gives advice through her perspective. While Perry’s drag performance is simply hilarious, it also allows him to navigate through gender roles and speak boldly, so he can empower his audience and guide them to self-realization.

            By dressing up as Madea, Perry is able to overstep the boundaries of black masculinity, ignore the restraints of political correctness, and speak with emotional freedom. Madea’s advice to “hold the Frisbee” and hold out on sex would not have the same effect if it came from Tyler Perry himself. In fact, people would read it as Tyler Perry encouraging the suppression of female sexuality and become offended. A completely different message is received when the same advice comes from Madea’s mouth. The reader understands that when Madea is speaking about female sexuality, she means to send a message that femininity is powerful. She says “See, all women are born with the same special power. When the doctor pulls them out and pats them on their behind and says, “It’s a girl,” that lets you know you were born with a powerful weapon.” Madea may begin the chapter with a series of hilarious jokes, but she ends the chapter with meaningful insight. She speaks directly to her audience and shows them the power that they hold as an individual to take charge of their life. In a sense Madea is a type of therapy. She simultaneously relieves her audience with laughter and encourages a sort of self-reflection.

It’s worth noting that you will not find anyone like Madea in our world. Her character is one of a kind and it is her uniqueness that causes her voice to be stuck in our head. Some of Madea’s advice is simply comical such as the chapter “The Miracle of Vaseline” where Madea describes how Vaseline can be used for anything from deodorant to a good car wax. But most of Madea’s advice has some truth to it and I’m glad its stuck in my head.