I agree with Douglas’ argument that a joke results through an attack on control and it factors into our interpretation of jokes. This is evident in early 2000s films starring actors like Ben Stiller. A lot of these films create comedy from their combination of attacking the control established within the comedy genre and by utilizing jokes that could be interpreted as insults in a different context.
The three main films that come to mind while reading Douglas’ writing were Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (Rawson Marshall Thurber, 2004), Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2001), and Meet the Parents (Jay Roach, 2000)/ Meet the Fockers (Jay Roach, 2004). All of these films utilize the same style of quick dialogue and weave just enough absurdity into the plot lines to make the film humorous without going overboard or causing offense. My theory is that the absurdity of her plot creates a economy in which comments and lines off dialogue that would otherwise be seen as insults are interpreted as jokes because the nonsensical tone of the film makes it clear that the audience is not meant to agree with the comment but rather laugh at the person who made it. Thus, the perpetrator of this insult becomes the subject of ridicule rather than the person on the receiving end of this comment. When Stiller as White Goodman makes misgynistic or fat phobic comments in Dodgeball, the audience laughs because of the absurdity of his character and as a result of their shock that something offensive was actually voiced. The audience comes to hate Goodman as a character but still sit on the edge of their seats to hear what he’ll say next.
As someone who grew up watching these films, I found your take on early 2000s comedies really interesting: I think what’s brilliant about the jokes in the films you talked about is that we’re supposed to laugh at Ben Stiller’s characters because they either do very incoherent and dumb things or make fun of stereotypes (such as in “Zoolander” where his own character is a caricature of male models). I would also add that one of the comical aspects that makes “Meet the Parents” even funnier is that every time Ben Stiller’s character tries to make things right, he paradoxically ends up making them even worse than they were before.
I think another apt Ben Stiller vehicle that fits your economy of absurdity theory is Tropic Thunder (2008). Most of the characters in the film are either out of touch beyond measure or flawed beyond help. As a result some of the most offensive and obscene dialogue and sight gags of the Naughties are produced but due to it being a satire on the nature of Hollywood and self-important celebrity the audience see the characters themselves as the target of the jokes.
The example of shock factor as comedy is interesting to trace the evolution of a joke. According to Freud, jokes brought repressed desires and unsaid thoughts to the surface, but today jokes are a manner of being passive aggressive, insulting or taking digs at a person. Shock is also felt by the audience in a manner similar to an offensive joke, but its blow is lessened in the face of comedy.
I completely agree with your choice of films, especially Zoolander as examples of shock factor and humour. Your post reminded me of many of the Egyptian films I watched growing up specifically one called X-Large (Sherif Arafa, 2011,Egypt) as many of them often make jokes that would be seen as insulting in everyday life or even in any other setting, but similarly to the films you presented examples, the audience is laughing with the characters rather than at them.