The Film as a Joke

This is Spinal Tap is a mocumentary about a 1980’s band on tour, dealing with issues prevalent even to today’s musical industry. Where the credit for the film’s humor lies is mostly with the genre. The mocumentary formula works very similarly to how Critchley would describe one type of joke. The film, appearing as a documentary, aims to tell a true, familiar, and especially believable story, and within the story the fabric of the medium is often broken. Something not usual, excessive problems or unnatural reactions will allow the viewer to recognize a specific joke and… well… laugh, either at the characters or at the situation.

One of the films resonating jokes deals with the situation they find themselves in with their set for the song “Stonehenge.” When specifying the details of the size of the stones that are to descend during the song, Nigel (Christopher Guest), the main figurehead for the band, accidentally indicates inches instead of feet, producing some miniature stones. The situation in itself is somewhat a joke, but the punch line lies in their dealing with the situation. This builds tension, yet in a way we know that due to the nature of the film we are being told a joke. Mistakes like these may happen in the industry, keeping us still grounded in the “real world.” So to end the tension of the situation, instead of practically dealing with the small stones, they simply have two dwarves come out on stage and river dance around the small stones. Critchley would say “tension is created in the listener and I follow along willingly with the story that is being recounted. When the punch-line kicks in, and the little bubble of tension pops, I experience an affect that can be described as pleasure, and I laugh or just smile” creating this “phenomenology” of a joke.

Jokes like this one are seen constantly throughout the film; however, there are also more socially critical jokes at hand. At one point in the film, the band puts out an idea for an album cover being a man holding a leash attached to a woman crawling on all fours. The tension built in this scenario is not so much situational, but social. While the joke still follows the basic structure and phenomenology, the tension is released in an almost cynical way. When first being confronted about the image being sexist, Nigel replies “what’s wrong with being sexy?” Here we are not only laughing with relief in the situation’s tension bursting, but laughing at Nigel for having no educated outlook in the problems of sexism during the time. The joke definitely comments on views most likely held by bands of that time, but also can be carried into today’s music. In a similarly stupid manner, the band faces other problems such as racism in suggesting “the Black Album” as an album title. Other jokes rely heavily on sexuality and a masculine ideal for competition, even in terms of masculinity… as one member is stopped at a metal detector for having a cucumber wrapped in tinfoil in his pants.

Again, the genre is a perfect platform for joke telling, with interviews, clips, and cutaways. We, as viewers, really go along for the ride of jokes through story telling. “A guy walked into a bar” type scenarios are constantly being set up, where the outcome and punch line are completely up to the creativity of the writer and director of the film. This really makes the film a joke in itself. I’ve had people say, “I thought that movie was a real documentary” and ultimately say “until that one point when…” where the tension of buying into the story as reality is broken and you immediately lose any trust you may have had with the filmmaker. So this phenomenology as described by Critchley can be carried over to the film as a whole, bringing up some metaphysical ideas that could be written about in an entirely new post. Basically it just brings up thoughts about jokes within jokes as well as any ideas of the construct of perceived reality being broken due to the nature of any film with the genre “mocumentary.”

Overall, I would suggest the film as the humor is well constructed and at points pretty smart. There is almost a cult following of the film in that it ties a group of people together by its quirky sense of humor and jokes that resonate through the film and into real life.