It feels wrong to review this movie in any setting, let alone one as comparatively PG as The Odyssey. I can’t bring myself to link to the YouTube upload of it. The Aristocrats is a 2005 documentary, made by Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette (the louder, taller Penn best known for his connection to Teller) is one of the most obscene recordings ever digitized, and, as the ad campaign is too proud to point out, it undoubtedly would’ve been slapped with an R or higher rating from the MPAA. More importantly, it’s raucously funny. It celebrates testing your limits, and might be the single best dowsing rod for finding out where exactly you personally draw the line. If you can stomach maxed-out depravity, or if you haven’t eaten recently if you can’t, then this is a great mixtape made from comedians of all strokes.
If like me, and I believe like most, you aren’t familiar with the Aristocrats joke, I submit that no finer introduction than this exists. It’s a showbiz classic, dating to vaudeville and perhaps beyond, and its appeal lies not in why it is good but why it is not. To say anything more would spoil the fun. If, after reading the above, you’ve foregone The Aristocrats, don’t worry about it — but if you want to know the joke, you’ll need to climb aboard.
The Aristocrats is a series of retellings of the joke by most of the funnier people who happen to be alive at the time. Each one is different, and just about everyone is some combination of funny, disgusting, clever, unique, and existentially grieving. After a while, it becomes a meta-commentary on how precious comedy really is, and one of its major theses — that one of the reasons comedy is so beautiful is that our natural voice comes out like it rarely can elsewhere when we tell a joke — is naturally supported through all the jollity.
It’s easy to ruin a joke by talking about it, explaining it, dissecting (i.e., systematically butchering) it. What therefore impresses me most about The Aristocrats is that it finds a way of approaching the joke — not only that but sustaining its approach for 90 whole minutes — and building the interest, until it’s elevated the joke itself to entirely new levels. The biggest contributor to this is that it isn't a movie expressly about the Aristocrats, but rather comedy, on the whole, in the abstract, and the things comedy is capable of.
The Aristocrats isn’t needlessly vulgar, say like something from Quentin Tarantino, the Sex Pistols, or a bad libertine novel. Or perhaps more accurately, it isn’t recursively vulgar; the prowess for obscenity on display here doesn’t serve the end of shock value, as though the people making the movie couldn’t display any genuine merit or skill or even effort, but rather treat the very name of their game as ruffling feathers, stirring up trouble, causing unrest for the sake of unrest, etc. That kind of motivation borders on sociopathic. Instead, Penn explains his aim clearly and concisely:
“You can tell right away our flick ain’t for everyone. Our movie uses that four letter word that begins with ‘C.’ Our movie uses that word a lot. A way lot. […] We don’t use it in anger or as mere ejaculation. We don’t even use it as synecdoche. The Aristocrats mean it as the real thing. We’re not just using dirty words; we’re using dirty images, and dirty ideas. And even worse, we’re doing it just for fun. Just for a laugh. The movie’s not for everyone."
As far as I’m concerned, this is a movie for me, and, as far as I’m concerned, the best uses for shock are fun and humor. Those might not seem like high aims, but what do you expect from a joke whose punchline is sometimes “the Sophisticates”?
Half-surprisingly, this movie might be among the most studded, starriest movies ever, at least in the comedy sphere. (Rumor has it Meryl Streep and Robert de Niro were off the day of shooting.) This is because Hollywood sticks together, which, to us onlookers, has two benefits. First, it means at least someone you dig will show up on-screen sooner or later (feel free to check the cast list, but part of the fun is seeing surprise familiar faces, and you’re bound to see someone you recognize). Second, it feels like you’re quite literally being let in on a joke.
This one is great for the dog days when you’ll need to shake things up a little. Invite over anyone you think can handle it and watch it together. You’ll laugh together, groan together, maybe throw up in your mouth together. It’s that sense of togetherness that takes the movie to a new level.
