SALON

Tuesday, Feb 26, 2013 4:29 PM UTC

How to mock a child

Seth MacFarlane and the Onion failed. But mocking kids can be great VIDEO

By

Topics: Video, oscars 2013, Seth MacFarlane, Parenting, The Onion, Quvenzhané Wallis, 2013 Awards Season, 2013 oscars, Adam Mansbach, Go the Fuck to Sleep, Louis CK, South Park, Media Criticism, entertainment news, ,

How to mock a childQuvenzhané Wallis (Credit: Reuters/Adrees Latif)

Hey, everybody who thinks we’re the PC police: It’s not that you can’t make a joke about a child. It’s that the rules of comedy apply no matter the subject matter — you have to be funny about it.

As we all well now know, Oscar night 2013 will be remembered as that time Seth MacFarlane made joshing reference to Quvenzhané Wallis as an imminent object of George Clooney’s sexual attentions, and then the Onion drastically upped the ante by calling her “kind of a cunt.” (They later deleted and apologized for it.) The backlash to both outbursts was swift and loud, followed inevitably by the “Can’t you take a joke?” backlash to the backlash.

One of the most agonizing side effects of a controversial comedy routine – generally a crude one that involves violence, tragedy, or is at the expense a minority group  – is the scramble to explain why some things are funny and some are not. And explaining a joke is only slightly more magic-defusing than watching how sausage is made. Comedy is alchemy. The minute we say, “That’s not funny because…” we risk the approbation of those who’d call us humorless scolds, uptight and fussy party poopers.

Yet we need to put to rest the notion right now that everybody who was offended by MacFarlane and the Onion can’t possibly get the joke. We do. It’s a very easy one to get, in fact, because it comes from a long and successful comic tradition – that of exposing children as the annoying little pains in the butt they so often are.

As the mother of a little girl the same age as Quvenzhané Wallis, I’d like to state that the “Kids are jerks” motif is a personal favorite. (Well, that and baby rape, which I’m on record as declaring hilarious.) Years ago, a friend and I had the $1 million idea to make T-shirts that read, “My baby is a dick and so is yours.” Mockery that comes at the expense of a child is often doubly funny, because it subverts our protective instincts toward the small and vulnerable, and because it lets us share in the unspoken great truth that there are moments when children can be absolutely terrible, unlovable little human beings. Nearly 80 years on, W. C. Fields kicking a baby is still a thing of comic perfection.

“The Little Rascals” relied heavily on the terribleness of kids – as “South Park” brilliantly does now. For years, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” thrived largely on the pleasure we derive from watching children fall down and/or cry. See also: most of current-day YouTube.

Author Adam Mansbach had a runaway best seller that when he created a fanciful bedtime tale imploring tots to “Go the F**k to Sleep.” Allie Hagan’s satiric Suri’s Burn Book irresistibly imagines the progeny of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes as a bitchy fashion blogger. “Louie” reliably paints the protagonist’s daughters as completely deserving of the middle fingers he flips behind their backs, and star Louie C.K. once memorably did a whole routine about what an “asshole” his then-4-year-old daughter was. Last fall, for the Emmys, the cast of “Modern Family” did a bit that revealed tiny co-star Aubrey Anderson-Emmons as a racist, homophobic “monster.” It was delightful.

And the Onion, which failed in the eyes of so many on Sunday night, has in the past wittily reported that “Bully Not So Tough Since Being Molested”  and that “Babies Are Stupid” to such an extreme degree that when left out in the rain, they’ll just drown.

There isn’t much about any of those things that isn’t as mean and shocking – if not exponentially moreso – than a simple crack about Quvenzhané Wallis being a “cunt.” They’re also all a hell of a lot funnier. Why? They have context. The days you can’t get out of the house when your preschooler won’t put on her shoes, or when your toddler won’t let you get a decent sleep, you know what? You do regard her as a bit of an asshole. That’s a joke. Comedy that taps into the adversarial subtext of our relationship with children can be beyond great – it can be downright liberating. But you can’t say any old shocking thing and hide behind the idea that it’s automatically daring or clever. You can’t shrug that “Hey, it’s satire” if there’s no craft or timing contained within it. It’s not a joke if you don’t land the joke. And calling a little girl a vile name, in and of itself, is about as on the money as your average Internet troll’s material.

So I will continue to laugh at the scathing art criticism of I Am Better Than Your Kids. I will eagerly await the next video of a terrified baby on YouTube. And I will hold out the hope that the Onion will get back to the business of telling us what utter dopes babies are. Because that’s entertainment.

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 32 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( profile | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Would we give up burgers to stop climate change? New study suggests if we reduce our intake of animal products by 25%, we can halt climate change
347 points348 points | 122 comments
vote
Facebook has been used to find ex-lovers, childhood BFFs or the one who got away. He used it to find the guy who, without his consent, made him his drug mule.
225 points226 points | 21 comments
vote
“This could be a career ender for Michele Bachmann”
134 points135 points | 53 comments
vote
Poll: 3 in 10 voters say “armed revolution might be necessary” - 29% say they believe they'll have to act "in order to protect our liberties" in the next few years
48 points49 points | 16 comments
vote
Capitalism, not feminism, killed home cooking–and fixing our broken food system is gonna take a lot more than some privileged women embracing “new domesticity”
34 points35 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations