Harlan Ellison's Watching

by Harlan Ellison

  Dear Dr. Madaro:

  Sorry it took me from May till now to respond to your charming note. I've been busy.

  Apart from the usual umbrage taken by those who puff up their chests in letters because they think they are safe from actual, slap-in-the-face retribution for unsolicited rudeness, your rush to the defense of all Italians everywhere, since the dawn of time till the final tick of eternity (one presumes), is touching. Imbecile, but touching.

  Nonetheless, I will reply to your snitty remarks as if they made sense. I do this in the spirit of kindness toward the afflicted; something like social work among the intellectually impacted.

  I had not realized that merely by claiming ownership of the appellation "sociologist" one was accorded the right to issue obiter dicta on all human behavior. But as you not only manifest a need to make such pronouncements, but apparently are unfamiliar with a commonplace in large Italian families that I and a number of my Italian-American friends have experienced firsthand, let me poke a pinhole in the darkness and permit the light of new data to illuminate your store of taxonomical minutiae:

  In large Italian families (and to very nearly the same degree in Jewish families of any size), unless they are extremely wealthy and have a plethora of bathrooms, members of the household bang on the door to the toilet and demand immediate access, at any hour of the day or night, even if you sneak in at 4 AM to read Thomas Hardy or Playboy.

  There is a bewildering manifestation of some sort of specialized telepathy in this matter. Even if dead asleep or outside in the yard, members of large Italian families (and to lesser degree in Jewish families of any size) rise as if under the voodoo command, and rush to the potty to bang on the door and demand immediate access. Silent as the grave, as one may keep, they know you are in there, and the banging commences.

  This is a fact of life. Sorry you never caught up with it in your pursuit of the title "sociologist." Sometime maybe I'll explain to you why women put a roll of toilet paper on the roller one way, and men do it the other way. But enough education is enough. We mustn't strain, don't you agree?

  And in conclusion: as a Jew who was raised in and around many Italian families, I assure you my offhand comment was made on the basis of experience in the field. It was not offered as a veiled slur against Italians. I know what a tough time you have keeping Italian names off the gangster characters in TV shows, and I don't want you to think I was trying to add to your burden. Yet I confess to a sinister subliminal resentment of Italians, based no doubt on my having discovered that Columbus was a Jew, and his discovery of America was likely his way of finding a place for his people safe from the Inquisition, and the resultant animus I harbor deep within myself at Italian Catholics copping the credit for yet another superlative act by the lowly Semite.

  Is that what you were fishing for? Yours in unbridled bigotry, with the hope that the next time you try for "cultured prose" you scribble a note deserving of something better than a C-.

  For those of you who seek the core of the argument, your reward is at hand.

  There is far less humor written in the genre of sf than in almost any other category of fiction I can think of, with the possible exceptions of the western, the heavy-breathing bodice-rippers (unless you interpret them not at face-value but as hilarious put-ons from word one), and the Dostoevskian angst-klatsch. I submit that's because those who write this stuff understand a priori that the audience is muy serioso, and the giggles won't go down smoothly. If one tries to name the writers of sf who have made a mark with humor, the list is not a long one. De Camp, Reynolds, Fred Brown, Geo. Alec Effinger, Harvey Jacobs, Bob Sheckley, sometimes Dick Lupoff, and perhaps a few more whose names escape me at the moment, with absolutely no intent to ignore those equally as proficient but simply absent from recall as I write this.

  (I have to write apologia like that. You do send mail.)

  And though you'll get no argument from me that humor is a specialized way of thinking and writing, nonetheless it is self-evident from existing evidence of sixty-one years of material published as scientifiction, sf, sci-fi, or science fiction, that this is not a canon overbrimming with yocks.

  As I wrote earlier in this essay, possibly years earlier in this essay, a "sense of humor" is not the problem. It is the Gobi aridity of what does pass for a sense of humor among fans and readers. It is the absence of True Wit. And so we will understand, in the General Semantics sense, what is meant by "humor" and what is meant by "wit," which are no more the same thing than "morality" is the same as "ethics," I adjure you to pay heed to my lexicological chums from the unabridged Random House Dictionary of the English Language.

  hu*mor (hyMM'mar or, often, yMM'-), n. 1. a comic quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation. 2. the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical: His humor buoyed him up through many depressing situations. 3. the faculty of expressing the amusing or comical: The author's humor came across better in the book than in the movie. 4. comical writing or talk in general; comical books, skits, plays, etc. 5. humors, amusing or comical features: humors of the occasion. 6. mental disposition or temperament. 7. a temporary mood or frame of mind: He's in a bad humor today. 8. a capricious or freakish inclination; whim or caprice; odd trait. 9. Old Physiol. one of the four elemental fluids of the body, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, regarded as determining, by their relative proportions, a person's physical and mental constitution. 10. Biol. any animal or plant fluid, whether natural or morbid, such as the blood or lymph. 11. out of humor, displeased; dissatisfied; cross: The chef is feeling out of humor again and will have to be pampered, -v.t. 12. to comply with the humor or mood of in order to soothe or make content or more agreeable: to humor a child. 13. to adapt or accommodate oneself to. Also, esp. Brit., humour. [ME (h)umour < AF < L (h)umor- (s. of (h)umor) moisture, fluid (medical L: body fluid), equiv. to um(ere) to wet + -or -OR'] -hu'mor*ful, adj. -hu*mor*less, adj. -hu'mor*less*ness, n. -Syn. 3. HUMOR, WIT are contrasting terms that agree in referring to an ability to perceive and express a sense of the clever or amusing. HUMOR consists principally in the recognition and expression of incongruities or peculiarities present in a situation or character. It is frequently used to illustrate some fundamental absurdity in human nature or conduct, and is generally thought of as more kindly than wit: a genial and mellow type of humor; his biting wit. WIT is a purely intellectual manifestation of cleverness and quickness of apprehension in discovering analogies between things really unlike, and expressing them in brief, diverting, and often sharp observations or remarks. 8. fancy, vagary. 12. HUMOR, GRATIFY, INDULGE imply attempting to satisfy the wishes or whims of (oneself or others). TO HUMOR is to comply with the mood, fancy, or caprice of another, as in order to satisfy, soothe, or manage: to humor an invalid, a child. TO GRATIFY is to please by satisfying the likings or desires: to gratify someone by praising him. INDULGE suggests a yielding to wishes by way of favor or complaisance, and may imply a habitual or excessive yielding to whims: to indulge an unreasonable demand; to indulge an irresponsible son. -Ant. 12. discipline, restrain.

  wit1 (wit), n. 1. the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas which awaken amusement and pleasure. 2. speech or writing showing such perception and expression. 3. a person having or noted for such perception and expression. 4. understanding, intelligence, or sagacity: He doesn't have wit enough to come in out of the rain. 5. Usually, wits. a. mental abilities or powers of intelligent observation, keen perception, ingenious contrivance, etc.: using one's wits to get ahead. b. mental faculties; senses: to lose one's wits. 6. at one's wit's end. See end1 (def. 23). 7. keep or have one's wits about one, to remain alert and observant; be prepared for or equal to anything: It pays to keep your wits about you if you plan to drive at night. 8. live by one's wits, to provide for oneself by employing ingenuity or cunning; live precariously: He traveled around the world, living by his wits. [ME, OE; c. G Witz, leel vit; akin to WIT2] Syn. 1. drollery, facetiousness, waggishness, r
epartee. See humor. 4. wisdom, sense, mind.

  Now if you have paid close attention to the section in, the definition of humor noted as Syn. 3, you and I will both share an understanding of why "sense of humor" isn't the problem, but "true wit" is. Because most of what passes for humor in this genre is a sorry adumbration of that which we find howlingly funny in other literary forms.

  In the vast archives of sf we find an inadequate portion of caricature and burlesque; absurdity and buffoonery (at least of the intentional sort); ridicule and farce; satire and high comedy; burlesque and black humor; overstatement and engrossment; travesty, sarcasm, slapstick and drollery. There are some exceptions, of course. There are and have been writers who could not keep a straight face as they wrote some of this longwinded, far-flung, heroically self-important fustian . . . and they have palliated the pomposity of it all. But even those who have done it well, done it well enough so that we actually smiled once in a while as we read, and even more rarely laughed out loud at the printed page—laughing with the author's invention, rather than at it—have done it as five-finger exercise. No decent living can be made from humor in this field, not even by a Sheckley or a Goulart or a Harrison.

  Try to recall the last full-length comic novel you read that could be counted as science fiction. Sheckley and Goulart come immediately to mind and then pffft! Spinrad, who reads a lot of this stuff, when I called him to jog my memory in case some prominent practitioner had slipped through the interstices, came up with the same list I'd already assembled, and stressed Effinger. So I called Effinger to see how well he'd done with humor, and he said, "Are you kidding? They hate my funny stuff. They send me letters asking me why such-and-such is supposed to be funny. I write it to amuse myself. It's hard enough making a paycheck with the serious stuff, but why get myself creamed on purpose trying to make fans laugh? Most of them don't get the point, anyhow."

  But fans do enjoy one form of humor. And that is the saddest part of it all.

  The form of humor that fans dote on, that they slaver over, that they indulge in among themselves, that they slather across fanzine pages, that they interlineate and cross-quote, that they revere and unmercifully visit on the rest of us is . . .

  The pun.

  That most witless thalidomide bastard of True Wit. That intellectually-debased sediment found at the lowest level of humor. That coarse-surfaced imposition on our good offices that never produces a titter, a giggle, a chuckle or a laugh, but which takes as a measure of its effectiveness . . . a groan of pain. The pun is what sf fans and readers hoist banners in aid of.

  But (as film historian and sf reader Bill Warren pointed out, when I called to read him the preceding pages) fans don't even do real puns. They change one letter of a word and think "sci-fri" is hilarious. Kindergarten word-play.

  There are some things in this life that one definitely does not do.

  You don't make jokes about air piracy as you go through the metal detector of O'Hare Airport. You don't drive down to East L. A. and scream Puto pendejo! at a Chicano street gang. You don't eat unidentifiable mushrooms while on a forest stroll. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with Jim.

  While in Paris, during a sober interview on French television, because I was pissed at Parisian rudeness, I vouchsafed the opinion that the one thing the French know nothing about is love. You can tell the French that their cooking sucks, that their army is comprised of cowards, or that their admiration for Jerry Lewis proves they have no taste, but you do not tell them they don't understand love. There remains a warrant for my arrest, still valid in France.

  Similarly, one does not tell fans they have no sense of humor. That fans are clever beyond belief is Accepted Wisdom with which one does not tamper. To write an essay of this length, pointing out what nearly every sf professional, knows but will never say aloud, is tantamount to suicide.

  But because that is so, in my view, it explains why sf fans and readers have championed one of the worst films in recent memory, Spaceballs (Brooksfilms/MGM) co-written, produced and directed by Mel Brooks.

  See how it all ties together, however long it took me?

  Spaceballs rivals L'Avventura as the single most obstinately boring film of all time. An invincibly tasteless farrago of lame jokes, obvious parodies, telegraphed punchlines, wretched acting and idiot plot so sad that its funniest bit is a rip-off of Chuck Jones's "One Froggy Evening."

  Mel Brooks. Since The Producers we have watched a Brobdingnagian wit shrink in on itself as if suffering from some hideous malaise, with only one period of remission—Blazing Saddles and Yowng Frankenstein (1973–74)—until it has become dwarfish. And if "dwarfish," the sensibility that has given us Spaceballs goes by the name Dopey. And its confreres are certainly Sleazy, Party, Mockie, Shallow, Sleepy and Tyro. Party makes all the scatological and potty-training remarks; Tyro is in charge of the "home movies" look and sound of the film; Shallow selects the subjects to be satirized; Sleepy is in charge of keeping the boredom quotient high; Sleazy makes all the sophomoric sex comments and the sexist asides as if he had just discovered his wee-wee; and Mockie makes sure there is an abundance of self-hating Jewish references. But Dopey is the governing intelligence, selected by secret ballot on which None of the Above is the lone candidate.

  An incredibly self-conscious movie. One grows weary of the Moonlighting shtick (totemized as "breaking the fourth wall between players and audience") in which characters turn and speak to the camera: "Nice dissolve." And when the head and arm of the Statue of Liberty come spiraling down out of space to the planet, only those who batten on puns can fail to perceive that they are about to see an hommage to Planet of the Apes, and only they laugh when the icons hit the sand and two people in monkey masks ride up. (When I saw this film in the company of a selected fan audience, and they did indeed react as described, it gave me a firm conviction that Brooks had reached precisely the audience he wanted: adolescents, and those who suffer from arrested adolescence.)

  What sort of dribblebrain chooses to parody the Star Wars films (themselves parodies of the first of the trilogy and the totality a parody of the parodic form called "space opera") ten years too late? Hardware Wars, a twelve-minute live-action short written, produced and directed by Ernie Fosselius in 1978 did it all funnier, faster, and with infinitely greater panache.

  The writing is so much succotash that one has to have one's leash jerked to remember that this howling, blithering runamuck was actually directed by something approximating a human intelligence, not just slopped together in a tureen in some biochemistry lab, plugged into a Voss electrostatic generator and shot up with ten million volts of idiocy, at which point it leaped through a casement window and ran off shrieking into the countryside, with a deranged Mel Brooks tearing his hair, rending his flesh, ripping his raiment, and shouting, "It's alive! It's alive!"

  Brooks's direction is an infirm, broken-backed, whimpering creature, shot through the brain and the heart, and left to thrash out its tormented death in the bush. Direction that does not even have the sense to be passively bad, but is Brooks's usual bombastic, farting, geshryingly aggressive one-man Grand Guignol . . . written, directed and acted by Brooks with the same maturity and insight one encounters at lunchtime in a grade school, when one of your playmates turns his eyelids inside-out just as you're biting into your peanutbutter&jelly sandwich.

  Brooks continues to be more interested in—perhaps obsessed with—his own obnoxious comic persona than anything else, to the sacrifice of pacing, content, idea development or even honest humor above the level of the tuchis or bellybutton. He is a greedy talent, unwilling to give up a single ort from the groaning board of his films to other performers, sequential storytelling, or the ultimate primacy of loyalty to the work as a whole. It is a stark demonstration of disrespect for the audience, a loathing that says, "Open your mouth, I wanna pee in it again." He will cut the throat of logic, put out the eyes
of artistic ambition, and disembowel integration of gag with story for the sake of one more booger or fart.

  The moral of this film is: don't trust the coming attractions. (Your physician would refer to them technically as "trailers.") The trailers for Spaceballs were hilarious. Kids, don't try this at home.

  And though Spaceballs made $28 million after 26 days, it is considered a critical and financial basket case. But it has been halloo'ed and praised by flotillas of sf fans and readers. (It is only interesting, I suppose, that Ebert—an ex-fanzine publisher and one-time fan—loved it while Siskel—with whom I seem to agree only when a two-headed calf is born—found it a dreary effort about as momentarily filling as a toxic waste burrito, my words not his.)