Glen: Say, that reminds me--how many Polacks does it take to screw in a light bulb?
H.I. McDonnough: I dunno, Glen. One?
G: Naw, it takes three. [Gasps with laughter.]
H: [Looks puzzled]
G: No, wait! I told it wrong. Here, I'm starting again. How come it takes so many Polacks to screw in a light bulb?
H: I dunno, Glen. How come?
G: Because they're so darn stupid. [Gasps with laughter.] Get it?

In Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers do not make fun of any of the usual targets of malicious humor. Instead, they make fun of bad humor itself. And they don't just make fun of bad humor; they make world-class jokes at its expense. It may be politically correct to avoid Polack jokes entirely, but it's far more socially effective (and far more hilarious) to demonstrate why such jokes aren't funny.

The reason I have chosen to write about Raising Arizona as my contribution to "The Great One-liner Write Off" is that my life really was changed when I heard Glen explain that the reason it takes so many Polacks to change a light bulb is that "They're so darn stupid." I had heard thousands of Polack jokes in my life to that point--none of them funny. The punchline was always simply a coded way of asserting that Polacks are stupid, which is A) not true, and B) not funny even if it is true. When I heard Glen's minimalist punchline, the scales fell from my eyes. I realized that the best jokes are jokes about the way we tell jokes, that the best humor is meta-humor.

Although I consider myself to be something of an admirer of intelligence, I have never been so callous as to imagine that stupid people are at fault for their own stupidity. The wiring of our brains is beyond our control, and it's never good manners to point and laugh at a stupid person for being stupid . . .

unless that person is being maliciously stupid. The beauty of the character of Glen is that even though he is too stupid to be able to tell a Polack joke correctly, he still wants desperately to imagine that there are people in the world who are intellectually inferior to him. His inability to make it through anything as simple-minded and unchallenging as a racist joke is only funny because he is mean-spirited enough to want to make it through a racist joke to begin with.

People complain that there's nothing left to make fun of in a politically correct world. Nonsense. We can make fun of the fact that we have allowed laughter--that most pure and spontaneous of our human expressions--to be contaminated by sadism. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes claims that we laugh because we feel superior to something. In Raising Arizona, the Coen Brothers suggest that the only thing that we should bother feeling superior to is bad humor. Raising Arizona is an important testament to the fact that wit is alive and well, that we still know how to rejoice in our ability to make ourselves laugh, that no one has to fall down and go boom in order for us to guffaw.

Although there is no humor to be found in the fact that "the Pope wears a funny hat" (as Glen says), there is almost always humor in irony. It is funny that the social impulses of Edwina McDonnough (Holly Hunter) that drive her to join the police force and to desire maternity are the same impulses that drive her to abduct a child from another family. Her desire to be a nurturing influence in her own sphere results in her becoming a disruptive force in the family of Nathan and Florence Arizona and their quintuplets. The viewers are no better than Edwina; we understand how our humanity prompts us to instances of inhumanity. Nevertheless, we can appreciate the humor in the situation of a policewoman-turned-kidnapper who still insists on feeling superior to such criminal lowlifes as Gale and Evelle Snopes (John Goodman and William Forsythe) who have just broken out of jail and crashed the McDonnoughs' trailer home.

Although the Arizonas offer a hefty reward for their baby (Nathan, Jr.), the plot of Raising Arizona never manages to be about money for long. Glen wants to turn the McDonnoughs in for the reward, but his wife Dot (Frances McDormand) would rather blackmail the McDonnoughs into turning the child over to her. And when the baby is abducted by two hardened criminals (the Snopes) for the reward money, they end up falling so head-over-heels in love with the tyke that they rechristen him "Gale, Jr." and swear never to give him up.

Despite an awful lot of nefarious activity (robbery, kidnapping, and gunplay), the devotion that virtually all the characters in Raising Arizona demonstrate to the abducted child is a celebration of life. It's such a heartwarmingly hilarious movie because it shows us what fools we are for love--and what foolish questions we will ask on behalf of those we love. In an effort to appease Junior with a balloon, Evelle asks a shopkeeper whether the balloons he sells blow up into funny shapes. "No," says the shopkeeper, "not unless round is funny."

The film is full of absolutely unmalicious one-liners prompted by bizarre circumstances rather than sarcastic nastiness. In the middle of one of the funniest chase scenes in cinematic history, H.I. McDonnough forces a man driving a pickup to give him a ride. Because H.I. hasn't completely removed the pantyhose that he put over his head for a convenience store robbery, the driver of the pickup can't prevent himself from observing, "Son, you got a panty on your head."

One of my favorite exchanges in the film occurs between H.I. and his parole board.

Parole Board Member #1: Now you're not just telling us what we want to hear, are you?
H.I.: No sir, no way.
Parole Board Member #2: Coz we just wanna hear the truth.
H.I.: Well then, I guess I am telling you what you wanna hear.
Parole Board Member #1: Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?

When people (such as convicts up for parole) make an effort to say the right thing, they're prevented from doing so because the people asking the questions don't know how to phrase the questions. And when criminals are just trying to rob banks, the fact that they don't listen critically to their own language can lead to confusion:

Gale: Okay! This is a robbery. Everybody freeze. Everybody down on the ground.
People in the bank: [Look puzzled]
Spokesman for people in bank: Well which is it young fella--you want I should freeze or get down on the ground? Cuz if'n I freeze, I can't likely drop. And if'n I drop, I'm gonna be in motion.
Gale: Shut up!
Evelle: Everybody get down on the ground. You can forget all about freezing until you're down on the floor, right Gale?
Gale: How many times do I have to tell you not to use my name? Can't you even try to remember that?
Evelle: [Pause] Not even your code name?
Gale: Oh yeah. My code name. Hear that everybody? We's using code names.

It's true that the Snopes Brothers aren't brilliant people, but we're not laughing at their stupidity; we're laughing at their circumstances. They're trying their very hardest to rob a bank without hurting anybody. They're even looking out for the toddler that they've brought into the bank in a carseat. I find their bank robbery funny not because it goes so poorly, but precisely because I wouldn't have handled it any better. I say stupid things when I'm nervous, and I'm sure that robbing a bank would make me pretty nervous.

Because it's such a heartwarming movie, we know that the McDunnoughs will have to return Junior to the Arizonas before the drama reaches its conclusion. We know that the Snopes Brothers will not get away with their robberies. The plot of Raising Arizona is nothing short of absurd. But the Coens handle their absurd plot the way that writers are supposed to handle absurd plots: they make it unrelentingly funny. They zero in on every shortcoming of every character, every human defect that contributes to the pageantry of the film--and they portray our human foibles lovingly, tenderly, without a trace of sadism. We laugh from our bellies with the characters of Raising Arizona, not at them from some self-important corner of our minds.

We identify with whatever pompous and melodramatic muse it is in H.I.'s psyche that prompts him to write "I cannot tarry" in the farewell letter that he attempts to leave for Edwina. We smile in response to the yodelling of Carter Burwell's inspired score. We know that it's somewhat cheap for the story to end with a dream that promises children and grandchildren to the McDonnoughs, but we also know that sometimes dreams are all we have to sustain us.

Raising Arizona is more than a lesson in why we shouldn't tell Polack jokes; it is an uplifting and life-affirming experience in humor. It makes us laugh out of our love for life rather than (as is more often the case) out of our contempt for some of the people we have to live with. It's special. Fargo ain't got nothin' on this one.




___________________________
The Great One-liner Write Off, cohosted by Caleo and Elvisdo, is not intended to cause or induce any illnesses, accidents or deaths. Each contributor to the write off has been asked to write an essay about a single line from a book or film or record that has made her/him see life from a different perspective. Part of my reason for joining the write off was for the privilege of associating myself with the following crew of gifted writers:

Akamum, Bijou, Bluehawq, Caleo, dandj, Debbie26, Dlamarrx, Elvisdo, Eplovejoy, itztru, Jkkelley, KateTPZ, KingJFS, Kristinafh, kurt_messick, ladydagney1, Lagavulin, Lessaleigh, Levda, machkick, mellkinwa, Nicholmere, NFP, nobody_knows, porcelina22, Repulsemonkey, Sloucho, Smithswoodside, Solid_Snake, telefrog, & Zeira.

Links to their contributions can be found at the following URL:
http://www.geocities.com/bkclark1/index.html

Recommended: Yes