What constitutes extreme performance art? Danger, nudity, profanity? The form, the content, even the performer? In a recently released film, The Aristocrats, this subject is explored and demonstrated by 100 comedic artists of several generations.
 
The theme of the discourse captured by the film is, for those who do not know, a joke, one particular joke that has been a perennial in standup comedy for apparently as long as any living comic can remember. It always begins in the same way, a talent booking agent is approached by a man (Always a male, by the way...) who pitches him an act. The content of this pitch is the heart of the material, and the section where individual performers run wild in their renditions: it is generally an extended exercise in scatology, bad taste of cosmic proportions, and the trampling of taboos. The agent, albeit disgusted, nevertheless has to know what this appalling presentation might be called, and is told, "The Aristocrats."
 
So we have, at the center of this story, an act that you would probably never want to see, in fact, you would not want it to exist and, if it did, it would probably be illegal. But when a skilled comedic performer tells you about it, almost without doubt, you will laugh.  That is one simple reason why people might want to see this movie. It is why we laugh that may not be so simple.
 
The hidden magic of the extreme joke is the alchemy of words that allows the wizard/storyteller to be in two places at once, present with the outrageously vile performance in the narrative, and in the room with his rapt audience, expecting the laugh.
 
Comedy protects us from content by placing the listener wherever it is comfortable at the moment - observing the performer at a distance, in the same position as the narrator, in the story itself (add another level if the comedian is doing a "character," since a choice then also exists between the invented or impersonated narrator and the actual storyteller.) What might be horror if framed in another genre becomes safe to laugh at when we are under the performer's spell.
 
Imagining the equivalent in the fine art world, here is my thought. Two painters are invited by a gallery to be in an exhibition entitled, "Bad Taste." At the opening, a critic enters the first section and is greeted by monumental canvases depicting, in the style of Rubens, modern individuals and families engaged in incest and sexual abuse, poor hygiene, and horrific domestic violence. When asked what he calls the paintings, the artist replies, "The Decadent Fruits of Capitalism and Elitism."
 
The writer moves on the other artist, whose works are long, narrow panels. Displayed both horizontally and vertically, with some even hung askew, they fill the room with long, happy strokes, resembling musical scores, featuring bright colored images of bathroom items, body parts we usually keep covered up, and other naughty things. The critic can't help but laugh. "What do you call these?" he asks the artist. "The Aristocrats, " she replies.

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