Harassment and Comedy
I have some empathy for Senator Franklin's behavior during his prior career as a comedian. I actually have some relevant experience!
I was in the US Navy from 1975 to 1981. At the time, the Navy was working very hard to cope with enormous problems like racism and illicit drug use (with gradual but steady success). This was also during the difficult transition from the draft to the all-volunteer military, which greatly impacted both the number and quality of recruits. To obtain better personnel, the Navy recruited more women into a service that still had rampant problems with sexism and violence against women (as both service members, spouses and even the general public).
In this environment I became know as a good joke teller. I couldn't create or write jokes, but I understood how to deliver them with pinpoint precision, as targeted weapons tailored to whatever audience was present. I told any joke that would get a laugh, no matter the subject or content. This started as a defensive behavior, when my big mouth would get me into fights that only my big mouth could get me out of. Humor, especially self-deprecating humor, could diffuse anger.
Here's an example of my weaponized delivery: Because of my comedy, I was often invited to join my shipmates for a night in the local bars. One of my specialties was calibrating my delivery to the intoxication of those at the table. Occasionally I could sequence and time my jokes to get one person to go from a chuckle to small laugh to a guffaw to a belly laugh and then to "the Technicolor Yawn" (barfing). Which, to sailors, was the funniest thing of all.
I had a friend who was really good at finding new jokes for me. He was a quiet person who loved jokes, but couldn't tell them well at all, even in small groups, due mainly to performance anxiety that would trigger stuttering (he normally never stuttered).
Turned out he was writing some of the jokes he gave me, primarily those focusing on observational humor (the silly things we do) and extrapolations of "normal" behavior to extremes. I wanted to learn to write jokes, and he wanted to learn delivery, so we naturally became collaborators.
We would go anywhere to find a joke, even delving into totally inappropriate areas. A terrible joke in a revolting area would often lead to a far funnier joke in a safer domain. We had a small circle of friends with whom we tested new jokes, mainly to keep our perceptions of "tastefulness" well calibrated (in the sense of drunken Navy culture, a very low bar). More than once we even made them mad at us.
So, I have some understanding of how quickly and easily a search for comedy can veer into overt harassment. How a prank can seem harmless in the moment, yet be abhorrent when later recalled.
Comedy can have a very brutal side, especially during development, and also during delivery. For example, isolating one audience member for abuse to amuse the others. Many comics consider hecklers to be volunteering for this treatment! It's also the venue of last resort, when trying to pump some life into a flop of an evening.
My comedy evaporated when I left the Navy. It turned out I was doing it mainly because there was little else to occupy my free time, and it only really worked in the presence of alcohol.
My friend the joke writer recently retired from a long career in Hollywood. He never did get to tell his own jokes, but hundreds of others have told them for him. I'm honored to have been one of his early tellers.
I still recall one of my friend's longer jokes, a meandering stroll through increasingly silly thoughts intermixed with wry self-observations, where the border between the two would gradually fade until the punch line arrived, which was "Did I just say that with my inner or outer voice?" (Yes, you had to be there.) For me that joke was totally meta, illustrating the dichotomy between thinking about humor and delivering it.
It is all too easy to let wild thoughts become inappropriate words and actions in the real world. Especially if you are (or were) a comedian. It's kind of your job to poke at those boundaries.
That said, any harassment by Franklin as a senator can't possibly be excused (or understood) as a search for humor. His own books (especially his latest) reflect his deep thinking on this very topic, and he is well aware of the incipient dangers.
I was in the US Navy from 1975 to 1981. At the time, the Navy was working very hard to cope with enormous problems like racism and illicit drug use (with gradual but steady success). This was also during the difficult transition from the draft to the all-volunteer military, which greatly impacted both the number and quality of recruits. To obtain better personnel, the Navy recruited more women into a service that still had rampant problems with sexism and violence against women (as both service members, spouses and even the general public).
In this environment I became know as a good joke teller. I couldn't create or write jokes, but I understood how to deliver them with pinpoint precision, as targeted weapons tailored to whatever audience was present. I told any joke that would get a laugh, no matter the subject or content. This started as a defensive behavior, when my big mouth would get me into fights that only my big mouth could get me out of. Humor, especially self-deprecating humor, could diffuse anger.
Here's an example of my weaponized delivery: Because of my comedy, I was often invited to join my shipmates for a night in the local bars. One of my specialties was calibrating my delivery to the intoxication of those at the table. Occasionally I could sequence and time my jokes to get one person to go from a chuckle to small laugh to a guffaw to a belly laugh and then to "the Technicolor Yawn" (barfing). Which, to sailors, was the funniest thing of all.
I had a friend who was really good at finding new jokes for me. He was a quiet person who loved jokes, but couldn't tell them well at all, even in small groups, due mainly to performance anxiety that would trigger stuttering (he normally never stuttered).
Turned out he was writing some of the jokes he gave me, primarily those focusing on observational humor (the silly things we do) and extrapolations of "normal" behavior to extremes. I wanted to learn to write jokes, and he wanted to learn delivery, so we naturally became collaborators.
We would go anywhere to find a joke, even delving into totally inappropriate areas. A terrible joke in a revolting area would often lead to a far funnier joke in a safer domain. We had a small circle of friends with whom we tested new jokes, mainly to keep our perceptions of "tastefulness" well calibrated (in the sense of drunken Navy culture, a very low bar). More than once we even made them mad at us.
So, I have some understanding of how quickly and easily a search for comedy can veer into overt harassment. How a prank can seem harmless in the moment, yet be abhorrent when later recalled.
Comedy can have a very brutal side, especially during development, and also during delivery. For example, isolating one audience member for abuse to amuse the others. Many comics consider hecklers to be volunteering for this treatment! It's also the venue of last resort, when trying to pump some life into a flop of an evening.
My comedy evaporated when I left the Navy. It turned out I was doing it mainly because there was little else to occupy my free time, and it only really worked in the presence of alcohol.
My friend the joke writer recently retired from a long career in Hollywood. He never did get to tell his own jokes, but hundreds of others have told them for him. I'm honored to have been one of his early tellers.
I still recall one of my friend's longer jokes, a meandering stroll through increasingly silly thoughts intermixed with wry self-observations, where the border between the two would gradually fade until the punch line arrived, which was "Did I just say that with my inner or outer voice?" (Yes, you had to be there.) For me that joke was totally meta, illustrating the dichotomy between thinking about humor and delivering it.
It is all too easy to let wild thoughts become inappropriate words and actions in the real world. Especially if you are (or were) a comedian. It's kind of your job to poke at those boundaries.
That said, any harassment by Franklin as a senator can't possibly be excused (or understood) as a search for humor. His own books (especially his latest) reflect his deep thinking on this very topic, and he is well aware of the incipient dangers.
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