ABSTRACT
I’ll put up with a lot in comedy because I believe funny bones are very personal. What makes one person laugh might have no effect on someone else. Personally, for example, I believe some subjects should be off limits. As far as I’m concerned, child molestation, animal abuse, racism, and misogyny are not funny. Sometimes ethnic, religious, and physical stereotyping are used in movies as gags and joke hooks. That’s when things get precarious. I don’t believe overtly derogatory ethnic, religious, and physical stereotyping is funny, but then there are those times when a screenwriter, as part of a particular ethnic group, does use it to good advantage. Remember the hilarious scene in Annie Hall (written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman) when a Jewish Alvy Singer (Woody Allen), having dinner with Annie’s (Diane Keaton) WASP family, suddenly takes on the persona (complete with earlocks and outfit) of an Hasid sitting down to eat a pork roast. A stereotype, but nevertheless, funny!
