In this brutal culture war, to laugh at comedy will soon be verboten
Humour has never been more perilous. Banter itself has now been put on watch by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission as a potentially sackable impulse.
Jokes have become politically incorrect bombs waiting to explode. I’m not the only one now who thinks twice before I wisecrack, especially in public.
Well, the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day is a particularly dodgy moment – by any standards – to indulge in levity. Which is why I found myself surprised to be laughing loudly along to the japes and jokes of Jojo Rabbit, the best film I’ve seen in ages, despite it being a tragicomedy about Nazis and Jews in the final stretch of the war.
The film, directed by Taika Waititi, centres on a 10-yearold recruited to a Hitler Youth training camp for small boys (children were sent to the front lines at the bitter end of the war). He is a fervent nationalist, a devout boy Nazi and has Adolf Hitler, played by Waititi, as an imaginary friend.
This Hitler is a camp fool who mixes millennial-speak, kitsch commando barking and, of course, lunatic anti-Semitic blustering.
Just as ridiculous as the made-up Hitler are his real-life (and more sinister) underlings, reeling off their Heils. We laugh at them, not with them, of course. I felt that Waititi had succeeded perfectly in capturing the ludicrous
idiocy of the Nazis in all their numbskulled, banal evil.
Our hero gains the nickname Jojo Rabbit when he can’t bring himself to wring a bunny’s neck in a training exercise.
Sent home after he misfires a grenade, scars all over his face, he discovers that his beautiful, strong and characterful mother (Scarlett Johansson) has been hiding a Jewish girl called Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) behind a wall upstairs.
After a period of antagonistic brinkmanship with Elsa, they form a deep bond. Elsa is extremely witty (more laughing from me), and Jojo’s interactions with her see him move from antihero to hero.
I spent the first half of the film laughing, and the second half semi-crying, and still laughing. I left the cinema with a fist-punch. The appearance of Jojo Rabbit shows that risky humour – humour that deals in the most serious matters possible – hasn’t been entirely stamped out.
Most importantly, the film was a reminder to the prim authoritarians policing our culture that humour isn’t just a vehicle for crass offence: it’s also a poignant way of enhancing the horror and gutwrenching sadness of the very darkest stories.
Some critics failed to see why the comedy wasn’t just funny, but also crucial to the film’s explosive sense of life. Their silly loss.