Saturday Night Live and Philosophy

Deep Thoughts Through the Decades

William Irwin, William Irwin

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119538684
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This hilarious cast of star philosophers will make you laugh while you think as they explore the moral conundrums, ridiculous paradoxes, and wild implications of Saturday Night Live

Comedian-philosophers from Socrates to Sartre have always prodded and provoked us, critiquing our most sacred institutions and urging us to examine ourselves in the process. In Saturday Night Live and Philosophy, a star-studded cast of philosophers takes a close look at the "deep thoughts" beneath the surface of NBC's award-winning late-night variety show and its hosts' zany antics. In this book, philosophy and comedy join forces, just like the Ambiguously Gay Duo, to explore the meaning of life itself through the riffs and beats of the subversive parody that gives the show its razor-sharp wit and undeniable cultural and political significance. Our guest hosts raise some eyebrows with questions like:

• Is Weekend Update Fake News?
• Does SNL upset dominant paradigms or trap us in political bubbles?
• When it comes to SNL, how can we tell the difference between satire, smart-assery, and seriousness?
• Is the Ladies Man too stupid for moral responsibility?
• What is the benefit of jokes that cause outrage?
• The Church Lady has a bad case of moral superiority. How about you?
• What can Wayne and Garth teach us about living a happy life?

Part I
THE OPENING MONOLOGUE

1
Chase’s Ford vs. Belushi’s Samurai: Why Is it OK to Punch Up But Not Down?

Ruth Tallman

Since its inception, SNL has displayed a willingness – even eagerness – to take comedic shots at public figures – and it seems no status is so exalted as to earn someone a pass. No sitting president has been immune from SNL’s mockery – and in recent election cycles all major contenders for the White House have been lampooned as well. Supreme Court justices have taken their turns, as have senators and congress people. Popes – heck, even Jesus Christ himself – have been the subject of SNL’s playful mirth. The question we’ll consider in this chapter is – why do we find this acceptable? Why does no one mind that irreverent young comedians don funny wigs and make up to poke fun at political and religious leaders on national television? Where’s the respect? We’ll also consider how it could be that sometimes, a joke that targets people who aren’t that powerful at all seems to violate moral norms in a way that jokes targeting the most powerful among us do not.

Radical Autonomism

Ethical comedy might sound like an oxymoron – many people hold the belief that, if it’s part of a comedic act, it’s somehow immune to moral criticism. This view has deep roots in aesthetics, or the philosophy of art. Radical autonomism is the position that moral categories simply do not apply to works of art – and that only aesthetic categories are appropriate. The British art critic Clive Bell (1881–1964) was a strong proponent of autonomism. On this view, the purpose of a work of art is to stimulate aesthetic responses in the audience. Aesthetic emotions are necessarily good, on this view, so a work of art is good or bad to the extent that it does or does not produce aesthetic emotions in the audience. Generally, the aesthetic emotion a work of comedic art is aimed at producing is humor. Thus, the grounds by which it would be appropriate to judge the work would simply be, “is it funny?” On the other hand, “is it mean, hurtful, or disrespectful?” are inappropriate questions to ask about a work of art. Autonomism sees art as set apart from ordinary life, and its rules. What might be negatively judged in the real world due to moral considerations gets a pass when it’s presented as part of a work of art. While this may sound a bit strange, consider how different our reaction might have been if, in an interview, Chevy Chase described sitting president Gerald Ford as a bumbling idiot who couldn’t walk across a room without tripping over his own feet. This sounds harsh and disrespectful, particularly when said of a president while in office. Yet, isn’t that exactly the sentiment Chase conveyed each Saturday night as he stumbled across the stage in the character of President Ford?

Autonomism stems from the belief that there is something very valuable – even sacred – about art and its role in our lives. Works of art provide us with a space where we can play imaginatively with ideas that might be better shied away from in real life. Placing art in a realm in which it may remain immune from moral criticism allows artists to fully develop their creativity. Art thereby creates a safe space in which both artist and audience can explore radical ideas without causing harm in the real world. We can engage in imaginative exploration in fiction without carrying those ideas into reality, where they might cause harm. Because art is, by its very nature, not reality, we can allow what would be morally reprehensible in real life to simply be awesome aesthetic fun in a work of art. It’s a mindset of radical autonomism that allows us to evaluate, for instance, Debbie as a great comedic character, while recognizing that were she to exist in real life she would be, well, a downer.

Radical Moralism

The flip side of radical autonomism is known as radical moralism. The Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was a proponent of this view, which holds that art is good insofar as it promotes good values, and bad to the extent that it promotes bad values. Unlike autonomism, which says aesthetic evaluations are entirely distinct from moral evaluations, radical moralism holds that it’s impossible to separate the two. So, an artwork that promotes immoral beliefs would necessarily be a bad work of art – there’s no way for its aesthetic qualities to redeem it, because radical moralists hold that moral values supersede aesthetic ones. An obvious complication of this view is that we don’t all agree about what constitutes a moral or an immoral belief. Tolstoy had some ideas about this – he saw social inclusivity as good, and elitism and social division as bad. To the extent that high presidential approval ratings promote social unity, then, depictions of the two Presidents Bush by Dana Carvey and Will Ferrell – by most accounts far more lovable in their comedic hands than in real life – would arguably receive high moralist marks from Tolstoy.

Radical moralism traces its roots back to Plato, who was all too aware of art’s power to sway the hearts of its audience. It was the very power of art that scared Plato silly, as he saw art working through emotion (paving the way for Bell and Tolstoy), rather than reason, making it much less controllable or dependable than Plato would like. Plato worried that a rousing work of art could prompt a riot, or give credence to a view or a leader not worthy of rational endorsement (an accusation that has been leveled against the role of Ferrell’s Bush character in the reelection of George W. Bush).¹ Tolstoy seemed to share this worry with Plato, although he was happy to use the emotional efficacy of art to noble advantage, seeing art as having great power to bring about social good.

Moderate Moralism

Splitting the difference between radical autonomism and radical moralism is the view known as moderate moralism, endorsed by contemporary aesthetician Noël Carrol. On this view, moral considerations ought to be applied when evaluating a work of art, but so too should aesthetic considerations, and the significant weight of either could override the other. For instance, a work with troubling moral implications could be so aesthetically captivating that it causes us to forgive, or look past, its moral failings. A work with particularly weighty moral sins might be unable to muster the aesthetic wherewithal to overcome its morally complicating elements. Moderate moralistic considerations are probably in the background when we allow ourselves to snicker at morally questionable jokes on the grounds that they are, in fact, quite funny, while being unwilling to extend the same generosity to a morally questionable joke that is hack or otherwise unfunny.

Who is the Butt of the Joke?

Although there are plenty of radical autonomists in the world today, it’s hard for many people to engage with a work of art such as Saturday Night Live without considering the moral dimensions of its sketches, particularly when those sketches portray characters who have real life counterparts (who are, presumably, subject to moral evaluation, even if the art that portrays them might not be, according to an autonomist). How would a moralist, particularly a moderate moralist, go about evaluating the aesthetic and moral elements of a work of art – in this case, in an SNL sketch? A good starting point is to ask, is there a butt of the joke? Not all jokes have butts. Sketches such as Toonces the Driving Cat do not obviously target anyone; they’re just absurd. To determine if the joke has a butt, ask, is there someone we’re laughing at? Let’s think about some examples. The butt of an impressionist’s joke is usually, pretty straightforwardly, whoever they are doing an impression of. So, the butt of a typical Chase‐as‐Ford pratfall is Gerald Ford, and the butt of Carvey’s famous “read my lips” antics is George H.W. Bush.

When we talk about “punching up” and “punching down,” the person who’s being “punched” is the butt of the joke. So, who is it OK to punch? To answer this question, we need to think about the various individuals and groups involved. We need to ask not just, who is the butt, but also, who is the butt in relation to the audience and to society. And, as we learned on the playground as kids, we should pick on someone our own size. Only bullies (who are actually we...