What’s better than people getting together and having a good time? People getting together and having a good time…for a good cause! And what’s better than that? Hmm–ya got me there!
If you are blue, I have some advice for you: turn that frown upside down! Into a smile! And if you’re sad, it’s not that bad: make that smile go on for a mile! It would be true even if it didn’t rhyme, but the fact that it does is an example of you having a good time.
Every cloud has a silver lining, even when that cloud is unleashing ecological and humanitarian disaster. This past Friday, people came together and had a grand old time through stand-up comedy at a “Punchline!” show! But they also did it for a good cause, that being tsunami relief. It’s a super way to give the world a helping hand while at the same time having fun and forgetting your own troubles with a healthy dose of Vitamin Laugh!
Do you want to cook yourself up a good time and do it for a good cause? Well, here are the ingredients for that delicious dish: a drop of humor, a smidgeon of compassion, a dram of planning, a flaggle of talent, a pluffert of friends, a sununu of best intentions, and, finally, a shit load of pretending to care about something more than you actually do.
I know what you’re thinking: How could you reveal the secret ingredient!? How could you reveal that inaction is the status quo and that anything slightly beyond that is hailed as a “good cause?” How could you demean the efforts of those who only tried to have a good time while simultaneously helping people in need?
Here’s how: If we really cared about the people in need, we’d hold a show about how this country’s policies around the globe have caused immeasurable suffering and death; how we’ve forced conditions on the Third World that make them unequipped to deal with any type of disaster. We’d hold a show comparing our military budget to our humanitarian aid; comparing publicly funded murder to privately funded relief. We’d hold a show where the only joke would be Coca Cola donating money to India, the same place where communities surrounding bottling plants are plagued with water shortages and poisoned soil caused by high levels of pollutants, including toxic waste. We’d hold a show about how the PR campaign and photo-ops of Bush I, Bush II, and Clinton, three men united by humanitarian concern and a love for bombing Iraq, can’t erase the fact that the White House only offered over $15 million in aid after it was criticized by other countries. We’d hold a show condemning the fact that countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and India pay billions of dollars in debt to massive banks and rich governments, making the relief efforts all the more grueling.
Or we could hold a show about the devastation around the world that we are not raising money for and that the media is not talking about. We could hold a show about Rwanda, Niger, or the People’s Republic of Congo, where 1,000 people die each day from preventable diseases like malaria and diarrhea. We could hold a show about Indonesia, where, before assisting in natural disaster recovery, we supported the murderous disaster that was Suharto, who butchered over a million ethnic Chinese and dissidents in the name of anti-Communism. We could hold a show on Haiti, Venezuela, or Palestine. Or we could hold a show on East St. Louis, Detroit, or Cleveland.
But we don’t. Our entertainment, our laughter, our happiness is more important. And if we can raise a little money on the side for tsunami relief while achieving those things, then I guess we’ve done our part.
Certainly, any amount of charitable giving or humanitarian aid is helpful and an individual can’t be reproached solely because he gave ten dollars when he could have given eleven. Maybe the problem, then, is that feeling of satisfaction, of having “done our part.” When we collect some money by having a stand-up comedy show, when we sign a petition, when we give to a homeless person, a poor person or our cleaning lady, we are performing an act that is pragmatically helpful, but ultimately futile in addressing the systemic disease of vast inequality.
The problem isn’t that we have entertainment and diversions. In fact, you might very well find more truth from a comedian than from any pundit or politician. The problem is that we try to help but refuse to ask questions, that we want to feel good about ourselves but refuse to analyze our own role in the situation.
The United States would like to write its check, send over ex-presidents, and wring its hands of the problems. Our hands, though, are already stained with too much blood, and the problems too inextricably linked with our own interests. It seems nice and feels good to combine charity and comedy. But when you actually think about it, when you actually question it, there really is not much to laugh at.
Leave a Reply