Because Every Joke is a Tiny Revolution: Hammer & Tickle
Trailer for Ben Lewis’ Hammer & Tickle
Director Ben Lewis’ Hammer & Tickle is a documentary feature demonstrating how in the former Soviet bloc, jokes enabled people to dissent during a time when overt opposition to the state was forbidden. Ben displays how jokes were the people’s means of dissent in the absence of free speech, affirming what George Orwell wrote in his 1945 essay, Funny but not Vulgar: “A thing is funny when it upsets the established order. Every joke is a tiny revolution.”
“...no one knows the story of the German cabaret troupe who were imprisoned by the Stasi in 1961 for telling bad jokes (bad in both senses). No one knows about the Romanian public transport worker who collected overheard jokes and then analysed his material statistically so he could calculate the speed of the average Romanian communist joke.”
And don’t miss our series on Jewish Comedians with Columbia Professor Jeremy Dauber, as he examines Jewish comedy’s classic voices. Next up on Thu Nov 19: Jewish Comedians: On Woody Allen. Following that is Jewish Comedians: On Mel Brooks, Feb 16.
