Tom Gunning speaks to the ‘operational aesthetic’ of mischief gags in early cinema, describing a fascination with the ‘process and functioning’ of machines.[1] However, what happens when this curious exploration into the way things work is no longer concerned with a hose or a sausage machine, but with jokes themselves? In his ‘Pirate’s Letter Joke to Glasgow’ (2016), Stewart Lee can be seen to fit the ‘rascal engineer’ archetype; this verbal joke is a mischief device whose purpose is to ‘stop things from working’ or make them work in ‘an explosive counterproductive way’.[2] Lee’s ‘preparatory action’ establishes a typical comedic formula.[3] He reads an absurd letter supposedly written to him by a dissatisfied pirate with a wooden leg; this initial set-up culminates in a half-hearted punch line ‘my foot’, a commonly used dismissive figure of speech that, in this case, somewhat humorously calls back to the pirate’s lack thereof. The audience takes the bait, responding with a moderate laughter, before the joke explosively destructs in a hilarious way that interrupts progressive order. Lee subversively and unreasonably blames the audience for disrupting the normal functioning of the joke, by not being quick or laughing enthusiastically enough, and then goes on to explain the joke by verbalising what has previously gone unsaid. This deconstruction of comedic conventions exposes the normal workings of the comedy vehicle and anarchically revolts against its normal power dynamics. Unlike the mischief gags of early cinema, the audience is also both the victim and the receiver of the blame/punishment. As much of Lee’s audience is already familiar with his work, they anticipate the disastrous results of his preparatory action yet joyfully receive their chastisement having fallen into his trap anyway. Stewart Lee’s play with the machinery of comedy reveals a connection to the structure of mischief gags in early cinema. He is the rascal stepping on the hose and baiting the audience to look at it, before releasing the metaphorical water into the faces of his willing victims.
[1] Tom Gunning, ‘Crazy Machines in the Garden of Forking Paths: Mischief Gags and the Origins of American Film Comedy’, in Classical Hollywood Comedy, ed. Kristine Brunovska Karnick (New York: Routledge, 2013), 88.
[2] Ibid., 101 and 98.
[3] Ibid., 90.
Bibliography
Gunning, Tom, ‘Crazy Machines in the Garden of Forking Paths: Mischief Gags and the Origins of American Film Comedy’, in Classical Hollywood Comedy, ed. Kristine Brunovska Karnick (New York: Routledge, 2013), 87-105.
Filmography
Stewart Lee, ‘Pirate’s Letter Joke to Glasgow & Michael McIntyre’, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW3ZADTaUJc&ab_channel=JimmyLee [16/01/23].