Impersonation in the Human's Humor Consciousness

The recent State of the Union speech gave many of us Americans--at least 50 percent of us--a fresh, positive idea of President Obama and the direction of the country under his leadership. Luckily, the president may be able to rest his mind a little bit with respect to worrying about his reputation or personality being critiqued; half of the Gallup-polled Americans appear to like where he seems to be taking us as a nation. The kids in the back seat of his family van are calm for the most part. However, Obama himself and many other political figures (not to mention celebrity figures outside of the political sphere) have endured the jabs and the mockery of other individuals, typically comedians. In my personal opinion, the most fascinating and relevant of these genres of comedic satire of elected officials is that of impersonation. In this post, I'll discuss the relevancy of the art of imitating public political figures in contemporary society and ask some questions about just why this art captivates us humans and how much scoffing politicians may owe to its effectiveness in swaying an audience.

Although we typically see impersonation as a biased representation of an official to poke fun at his or her flaws, the art of impersonation itself doesn't necessarily have roots in man's malicious feelings towards another man or woman. I, myself can remember when my mother would be on the phone with my relatives in Quebec and, unable to speak or understand French at the time, I mimicked her high-pitched, sing-songy language and body language for fun. I never meant to make my mom feel bad; my four year-old self and 17 year-old sisters simply thought it was funny.
(By the way, Mom was a good sport.)
All the same, this brings us back to the implications for impersonating our more (or less, depending on your political alignment) respected political figures. Are all of these impersonations, say, by Tina Fey of Sarah Palin in SNL, meant to be negative? Many would argue that they have to be central in alignment in some cases. As Amy Poehler points out in her comment in the above article about SNL's coverage of the 2008 election, "the minute you sit down and say, "I'm going to write an important political piece," you're doomed." The public wants to be entertained, not necessarily swayed in any particular way. That may be why President Bush was so comfortable with allowing his most famous impersonator into the 2006 White House Correspondents dinner , surrounded by media men and women who could have "less-than-favorable" views of him. The comedian even points out, serving as President Bush's inner thoughts, more or less, that he has surrounded himself in this room with people who don't like him. He notes how these people are simply chomping at the bit waiting for him to have a verbal slip-up--another "new-cyuh-luhr" (nuclear) mispronunciation, for example. For most of us, the presence of this comedian/doppelganger not only showed the fact that President Bush was a good sport and wanted to appear as though he took his criticism lightly (whether that's a good or a bad thing), but that even a comedian who makes someone look bad doesn't necessarily have an adverse effect towards the imitated individual in the eyes of the viewer. Now, it would be hard to understand just what was the impact of this comedic impressionist on George W. Bush's career as President. It was probably minuscule. Perhaps before we contemplate what role humor serves in the realm of politics--perhaps as an escape, or to elevate one's sense of political righteousness, or simply as emotional therapy due to a negative state of national existence--we need to understand why we keep the art around at all.

Why do we even find impersonation funny? Is it related to some old gene or experience embedded in the more animalistic sections of the human brain? At least one other animal mimics things: the mimic octopus impersonates other animals so as to avoid predatory danger. Perhaps the human finds impersonation so hilarious because it doesn't need it anymore. Humans look so diverse and their needs are so distinct, in some cases, that the need to camouflage or impersonate other beings or objects has disappeared; to see someone do as such may have become so bizarre and otherworldly that it has become humorous. Please, readers, if you ever agree with me without doing research of your own, do not take that last bit to be scientific truth. It was merely a preliminary guess as to why we are fascinated by mimicry. All the same, as a follower of how we implement language and expression and as an impersonating comedian, myself, I think a knowledge of what triggers a human attraction to comedic impressions may unlock a wealth of new ways of generating laughter and positive or negative sentiment for or against a candidate. What if candidates themselves were to impersonate themselves, or advisers, or be more comedic in their outlook on politics when necessary? After all, Obama made his now-"famous" comment on the bureaucratic nightmare that is the jurisdiction of salmon waters only days ago, and it remains something that sticks with viewers more strongly than some of his more substantial talking points, such as, I don't know...uhh...education(?).

Please relay me some of your own opinions on the reason for the hilarity of impersonations! And no, I don't mean the illegal type of impersonation of you that ends up in your money being taken by a crafty criminal. That type is sad. If you have any comments on the more snarky, irreverent genre of impersonation, send them this way, please!

Book Review--the Very Refreshing and Enlightening "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: the Untold History of English"

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue is a name lovingly attributed by author John McWhorter to the nigh-universal, surprisingly graspable brew of a language that is English. Has anyone ever told you that English was easier to learn than other European languages? (McWhorter argues that, technically, they were right.) Have you ever heard that English is quite the cosmopolitan language, with all those “foreigner” words implanted into its vocabulary? (Although whoever said that may be correct about the many connections of English to other languages, they are lacking in the historical reasoning for its roots—and, likely, the sheer magnitude of borrowed, bastardized words and grammatical systems utilized in Modern English). And have you ever read or listened to a stuffy, high-and-mighty, and near-incomprehensible explanation of English linguistics and the “purity” of the language? (If that frustrated you, then this book is for you.)

The breaking with convention displayed in this account of the English’s history and why English is what it is today is presented here to a multitude of readers; for linguists, it will likely be an enlightening reconfiguration of the reason for the state of Modern English. For casual readers, it could be an exciting entrance into a largely unknown world of fluid language, where change is made not by professors but by common-folk adapting to a second language as they move from country to country, only sometimes raping and pillaging along the way (as bands of Europeans both pre-and post-Roman Empire were known to do).

Although you may never have wondered why Anglophones seem to be the only people in the world to use “do” before actions (e.g., “Do you like potatoes?” “No, I definitely do not dig potatoes” instead of “Like you potatoes?”), you will nonetheless find answers while reading this book. Essentially, McWhorter reveals and then richly explains these intricacies about English that make it one of the most unique languages in the world and, paradoxically, one of the most influenced ones as well. (The only other language to use “do” in such a way is Celtic, and their immediate proximity to those old Anglo-Saxons and their resulting influence on English grammar is one aspect of our language that McWhorter uses to highlight English’s lovely bastardization.) Oh, and for all readers bored to tears by history, have no fear, McWhorter has a section designed strictly for you, one that criticizes he grammatical “elite” and those who would lead you to believe that history has left us with a proper, unmoving English to be unwaveringly obeyed by the masses. McWhorter proves--citing the changes English underwent as illiterate Vikings had to learn Britain’s Saxon-Celt-Cornish tongue to buy things, sell things, and procreate with suitably attractive locals--that English HAS no set, unchangeable rules! Prepositions at the end of sentences? Go ahead! Language adapts, and it’s the power of the young, the succeeding generations, that steers the development of how we ought to “properly” speak.

The rules we break in common speech that English teachers cringe at upon hearing are myriad, and McWhorter addresses and uses them all. In fact, he surrenders himself so openly to this type of commoner speech that, at times, his train of thought requires patience and an acceptance of organic language to tolerate and understand; he once made obvious the jarring but common linguistic change of “p” to “f” by writing “fopcorn” and then asking the reader to soak it in, to understand what it was to be a speaker of Proto-Germanic hearing his/her language being butchered (173). Although he quickly went onto a new idea, he brings up the fopcorn example again on page 193. The mind has moved on by then, but like a speaker of casual, almost conversational English, he delivers with the hope and expectation that you’re along for the ride, NOT with the mathematical, repetitive, and stuffy style frequently encountered in linguistic journals.

If you’re not interested in language at all, do not read this book. But if you have to learn about linguistics or have been forced through miles of conventionally oppressive papers on the subject, this is a refreshing and divergent view to be appreciated by commoners and scholars alike. Language as thought, the mobility of language, improper vs. proper English, and many other subjects are covered in this work; and some are both respectful and blatant rejections of what is commonly accepted within the linguistic community. If you have some time to sit down and read an enriching work and are in any way interested in just how strongly you relate to the foreign world around you while still being a speaker of one of the most unique—and easy-to-learn—languages on the planet, then “Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue” is the untold history for you.