No laughing matter? Comedy and the politics of the terrorist/victim

Abstract

This essay explores the ways in which the teen stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay (Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg 2008, USA) creates proximity to the ‘terrorist’ figure and by doing so, raise important questions about anxiety and ethnic difference in a post-9/11 US imagination. Through an analysis of the film, and a brief engagement with the 2010 Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert-initiated Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, this paper considers the emerging visibility of the Arab, Muslim, and/or suspected war-on-terror terrorist who could be reinterpreted through the framework of victimhood. In doing so, the article examines ownership of the status of victim and the way humor can contest the limitations of the definition of the victim.

Notes

1. For a selection of images, see The 100 best signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, Buzzfeed. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-100-best-signs-at-the-rally-to-restore-sanity.

2. The ‘Guantánamo Baywatch’ episodes can be seen at The Daily Show website: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-10-2008/guantanamo-baywatch and http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-may-19-2009/guantanamo-baywatch‐‐‐the-final-season.

3. For example, Murat Kurnaz was held at various extrajudicial sites and at a US military base in Kandahar, Afghanistan before being detained at Guantánamo for a number of years. His book, Five years of my life: An innocent man in Guantánamo details his experiences at these facilities.

4. In her 2008 article on Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantánamo Bay, Judith Boyd suggests that the film's focus on bodily humor effectively ‘appeals to the lowest common denominator of American culture’. Lynn Spigel (2004) also delineates a post-9/11 change in Hollywood, for example, wherein the modus operandi was ‘tastefulness’ – violent movies but also light: ‘Light entertainment and “diversions” of all kinds also didn't feel right.’ According to Spigel, this sensitivity did not last for long, but it is interesting to consider the trajectory from this point to the graphic stoner and bodily humour of Harold and Kumar.

5. The website of the Joint Task Force Guantánamo Mission prominently displays the slogan ‘Safe, Humane, Legal, Transparent’. http://www.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil/index.html. Violation of specified rules results in expulsion from the base and possible criminal prosecution if classified information is disseminated. Rules from the pages-long agreement include: ‘When photography of detainees is permitted, only photos from mid-chest level and below will be permitted… All front facial images at distances are prohibited.’ (Miami Herald 2008).

6. Additional images from military sources can be seen at the Joint Task Force Guantánamo Bay website. http://www.defenselink.mil/home/features/2007/1107_JTF_Guantanamo/photos1.html. The photographer Richard Ross included a selection of photographs of Guantánamo Bay in his Architecture of Authority project. http://www.richardross.net/portfolios/12941-architecture-of-authority.

7. International outrage included questioning the methods being employed. See Gallagher 2002, Sennott 2002, and Mirror 2002.

8. The poster is available at http://www.amnestyusa.org/stoptorture/hkflyerfinal.pdf.

9. Numerous reviews also saw Harold and Kumar as being an indictment of the policies of the Bush administration. For example, Steve Rose (2008) wrote, ‘A multitude of American film-makers have tried, and failed, to engage with the whole War On Terror era, but Harold and Kumar allows audiences to laugh at it for the first time – it felt like a cathartic sigh of relief at the coming end of the Bush presidency’.