Humour: The new funny of 2020

Everything’s changing, and amusement isn’t what it used to be

Sadcom. I know I’m late to the entertainment party, as ever, but what a superb term this is. Move over Friends, Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother. Move in Wes Anderson, Fleabag and Succession. ’Tis the season to be ruefully jolly, if at all. The lockdown’s made me think about the humour question quite seriously, for a change. What kind of joke can one make, which is darkly funny without being tone deaf? Now here’s a question more sleep-denying than ‘What specific rules have been relaxed for those who live in the Red Zone?’

Many of the laughs in these lean times are being transmitted digitally (Photo imaging: Parth Garg)

To meme or not to meme

Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix Special, Nanette, shattered the whole idea of what a stand-up comic is expected to do. It questioned the notion of humour placating an audience, and ultimately making them comfortable with injustice or trauma. Unfortunately or not, the meme factory hasn’t received the memo. The term off-colour doesn’t quite begin to describe the various shades of humour one has encountered in these monochromatic times. I’ve smiled, laughed, cringed my way through a million forwards, later wondering whether this collective coping mechanism is, well, a backward one. While we try to comprehend the enormity of human loss and suffering, we also allow ourselves the distraction of a crude joke. But if you’re like me, every laugh is followed by an agonising analysis. Am I insensitive? Despicable? Evil?

Do you follow up every laugh by an agonising self-analysis? Am I insensitive? Despicable? Evil?

Luckily, another meme comes pinging merrily in. You smile, you hit forward, and you move on to another round of dishes that proliferate like humans in lockdown. One of the many reasons that I miss Sudha, the cleaning lady, is for her towering kitchen sculptures made up of dishes in the drying tray. I did it! I just made a lockdown joke that isn’t insensitive. I think. Or is it?

The laptopper’s guide to adversity

Many of the laughs in these lean times are being transmitted digitally, like a… no I won’t say it. I’ve been part of two videos made for friends – one recovering from surgery, another celebrating a quiet birthday. They’ve taught me that everyone enjoys seeing themselves in a video – even though some do it grudgingly and others, disastrously. To dance and lip sync with abandon, dressed in rags and holding up props like mops and brooms, delivers cheap thrills. And every surprise is doubly surprising in these times of sensory deprivation. Such are the lessons we laptoppers learn from adversity.

There is a temporary intimacy that a shared Zoom invitation creates between the meeting attendees. My favourite Zoom story, however, takes intimacy to a whole new level. A friend was attending one session with about 800 industry peers, when someone decided to make, let us say, anatomical sketches on the shared screen paired with graphic commands. So much better than meetings in the real world, where the only fun part is guessing which biscuits will be served at the halfway mark.

Cooking with filters

And then there are the What-the-hell-am-I-doing-here? laughs in the kitchen. The mirth that comes from stopping for a moment while baking banana bread, or right after taking a sourdough loaf out of the oven. When you’re sprinkling the chocolate flakes on the pudding or squeezing a lemon wedge into your mojito. ‘Who is this?’ you ask yourself surrounded by appliances and implements that you never knew existed in your home, leafing through recipes that were, until recently, as Greek to you as the moussaka you’re planning for dinner. But you laugh. And you dust off your shirt. And you post a filtered picture of your latest triumph on Instagram for an over-saturated audience. Ha.

As we brace ourselves for an uncertain future, I can’t help but snigger at all the sacred rules that have been upended by the pandemic. Bosses who insist on their employees being stuck to their swivel chairs. HR’s chilling missives about workplace etiquette. Parents rationing screen time for teens. Lovers rationing alone time with each other. If we ever get out of this (joke, joke), I’d love to see oppressive rules and systems thrown out the window. And that there’s compassion in our humour. After all, there’s a thin line between being wicked and being cruel. About as thin as the rotis I’m rolling out these days. *cue ISO-approved laughter*

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From HT Brunch, May 17, 2020

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