When It Comes To Comedy, What’s The Limit?

I’m going to tell a story that doesn’t paint me in the best light, but it illustrates a point, so I think it’s okay. A couple months ago, my girlfriend’s six-and-a-half year-old daughter — with whom I get along famously — was sick for what seemed like the fifth or sixth time in just a few weeks. It was tough on the girl and it was stressful for the mom, which was pretty evident as she was telling me about it.

“I think she has Whooping Cough,” my girlfriend said, her voice weary from a lack of sleep and yet another long day working in the cancer ward.

I wanted to help, and because I’m hilarious and clever, I said, “Maybe it’s time to put her down.”

Long, long silence. Uh oh.

“Did you just make a joke about euthanizing my kid?” she asked, her tone somewhere between anger and bemusement. “Because, I have to say, that’s a pretty bold move.”

“Um …” was about the best I could come up with, as I cursed myself for being neither hilarious nor clever, but rather an enormous buffoon who was about to get dumped for such a ridiculous and insensitive comment. “I, uh … I might have.”

Turns out, I didn’t get dumped. I did get chastised, however, though not for the reason you might think.

“Nothing is off limits,” she said, “as long as it’s funny. If the humor outweighs the offensiveness, then it’s fair game.”

She wasn’t pissed at me for joking about putting her daughter out of her misery, she was annoyed that I didn’t make it funnier.

Think about that for a second. Setting aside the fact that I have pretty much won the lottery, it’s an important lesson to understand, especially in the face of certain events that transpired last week and the resulting uproar.

What happened was this: Will Ferrell signed on to star in and produce Reagan, based on a Black List script by Mike Rosolio. Ferrell would play the late president in a project with the following logline: “When Ronald Reagan falls into dementia at the start of his second term, an ambitious intern is tasked with convincing the Commander-In-Chief that he is an actor playing the President in a movie.”

That was Wednesday. On Thursday, the internet went bananas, with Reagan’s children, conservatives, and Alzheimer’s advocates attacking the actor for taking on the role, probably because they assumed that, based on both his past portrayal of George W. Bush on Saturday Night Live and his Ron Burgundy persona, he would do a broad spoof. We’ll never know, because by Friday, he’d backed out, and the project, I would imagine, is pretty much dead, or close to it.

It made me think about what my significant other said, and that made me wonder aloud, how far is too far? When have we crossed over from satire into offensiveness? What, if anything, is off limits? Have we entered a time when we can’t really laugh about things anymore? Do we take ourselves too seriously?

That’s a lengthy list of questions, I know, but the thing is, they’re all relevant. How far is too far? I remember a year and a half ago, when there was all that kerfuffle about The Interview and how it made fun of Kim Jong Un. The reason it didn’t play in major theaters was not because people were touchy about how it treated a foreign leader, but because people were touchy about possibly being attacked in said theaters by North Korean terrorists.

At the time, there were a few ill-informed folks who suggested that the U.S. would never allow another country to make a satirical film about the death of one of our leaders, to which I pointed out two issues with that statement.

1. There was a 2006 flick called Death of a President which imagined and acted out the assassination of George W. Bush — then not quite halfway through his second term — which stirred little to no controversy.
2. We have a little thing in this country called freedom of speech, which allows anyone to make a film, or write a story, or give a speech, or whatever, about pretty much anything, no matter how offensive, as long as it doesn’t incite a riot. Thus, I reasoned, that kind of thing wouldn’t happen here.

Did I mention I’m not so clever? Because I’m starting to feel that way.

So we’re clear, I am not in any way, shape or form equating our 40th president with a ruthless despot responsible for the oppression of his people, but maybe I should, because why is one okay and the other isn’t? This isn’t about politics or political beliefs, it’s about free speech. It’s about what is permissible and what isn’t.

The thing is, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me, especially in light of the frightening level of partisanship dominating both our government and our media (with neither side free of blame), that free speech has evolved from “I may not agree with what you have to say, but will defend to the death your right to say it,” to “I’m all for freedom of speech as long as it aligns with my own beliefs, and if it doesn’t, then you shouldn’t be allowed to say it.”

That’s not what this country was built upon, and if it doesn’t really scare you, as someone who works in a creative industry, then you’re living in a dream world, because it scares the ever living crap out of me.

Why is it not okay to make a satirical movie about Ronald Reagan’s second term? I know that Alzheimer’s is a horrifying disease that steals a person’s dignity as well as their mind, but should that stop us from laughing in its face? It didn’t stop Michael Moore from bullying Charlton Heston in his 2002 Oscar-winning doc Bowling for Columbine, even though Heston was clearly suffering from the disease that would kill him six years later.

Do we now take ourselves so seriously that we’re unable to poke fun at the things that scare us? Is there really not an audience for something like this? Do the people who, let’s face it, wouldn’t see this kind of thing anyway, really get to prevent the rest of us from such an opportunity?

I admit that I haven’t read Rosolio’s script, but I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and certainly not going to leap to the conclusion that it shows a complete and utter disrespect for Reagan.

But even if it does, would that be so bad? Again I ask, how far is too far? What is truly off limits? Is anything? I mean, in the words of one of the smartest people I know, “If the humor outweighs the offensiveness, then it’s fair game.”

Neil Turitz is a filmmaker and journalist who has spent close to two decades in the independent film world and writing about Hollywood. Aside from being a screenwriter/director and Tracking Board columnist, he is also a senior editor at SSN Insider.