Highly Overrated But Still Good

Good concept, poorly executed.

Excellent film with a gripping story!

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

"The Aristocrats" is the most obscene film I've ever seen! You'll never see another documentary as horribly graphic in its language, yet so enjoyable to watch! It is a celebration of obscenity, comedy, and free speech. It is edgy, insensitive in every possible way, but that's what the joke is all about.To most people, making a whole film about one joke sounds idiotic, and with almost every other joke, it really is. However, the aristocrats joke is so interesting, and has been told so many times and in so many different ways that you mine as well make a film about it! And they did make a film about it, this film, 2005's "The Aristocrats".We watch comedian after comedian talk on and on about the history of this joke, their own variation of the joke, the joke's possible meaning, etc. And this joke just so happens to be the most ugly, disgusting, and unbelievable joke you've ever heard. It is the ultimate masterpiece of shock value!As you watch the film, listening to these comedians spewing offensive filth after offensive filth, and after a while, I just became desensitized by this filth, and the shock value of these obscenities began to fade away. The same thing happened to me during Stan Brakhage's experimental horror doc "The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes".In that film, we are shown over 30 minutes worth of autopsy footage that Brakhage, himself, filmed. While watching that film I, at first, was disgusted and disturbed by the graphic imagery, but this disturbance eventually turned into the desensitizing of the graphic material being exposed to the viewer.As I said, I had a similar experience with "The Aristocrats", it starts off as being the most disgusting junk you've ever heard in your entire life, but then you just become used to it and accept it. It just becomes...funny. That's what jokes are supposed to be, right! Well, this film is REALLY funny. It is the funniest documentary in recent years, and I'd highly recommend it to anybody interested in comedy. Even if you don't like the joke, you might love the film!

Every time I have seen this film over the years I have to admit to finding it progressively less funny each time. It's a documentary that is barely about anything if we are honest. It's about a joke called 'The Aristocrats' that has seemingly been around for decades, yet only comics seem to know about it. There isn't any information provided about how it originated, most probably because like most jokes it just evolved from somewhere by chance and others latched on to it. Anyway, the joke itself is simple. A new act visit a promoters office and describe to him their routine, it's an appallingly offensive act described in graphic detail. At the end the shocked promoter asks what their name is and they reply 'The Aristocrats' with a flourish. You see what I mean, it's completely unfunny and on paper a non-joke. But the way it works is for the description of the act to be as inventively offensive as possible allowing the comedian to riff on the basic idea and to be as creative as possible.The humour all seems to be about shock value and for me this can get a bit wearing. Comic after comic tells a similar retelling of the joke where they try like crazy to be on the edge. But all most of them are essentially doing is being as disgusting and as offensive as possible, which ultimately is about as funny as a punch in the throat. The format of the film means that comics tell the joke to other comics and there is an unfortunate self-satisfied air to proceedings with everybody laughing like crazy at their own outrageousness. An alarming number just try to be offensive with nothing else on offer, including a guy who has to be the worst ventriloquist I have had the misfortune of seeing.But some people rise above the material and elicit actual laughs. George Carlin mentioned that comedy was all about surprise and it's the ones that achieve this that work best. Billy the Mime is funny because of the sheer strangeness and originality of performing the joke via mime artistry. Wendy Liebman subverts the joke by reversing it, where the act itself is super sweet but with a name that is super offensive – when Liebmen delivers this it's one of the funniest moments in the film because it's simply unexpected. Jake Johannsen deconstructs the situation and wonders why the promoter even wants to know the name of the act in the first place and questions why the participants are not in prison or on death row. Sarah Silverman turns things around by telling an anecdote from the point of view of being a real-life participant. While Gilbert Gottfried's telling of the joke is so refreshing simply because he has an actual real audience to work with and is not simply telling it to easily pleased fellow comedians – at last we see how the joke can work in the context of a paying audience. But perhaps the key moment was when Dick Smothers told Tom Smothers a version of the joke. Tom wasn't aware of it and was completely perplexed by it thinking it utterly unfunny and pointless. It was one of the most honest and funny moments in the film and one that most people would experience if they were to be told the joke for the first time with no prompting.

Now, that I give this any score at all is down to the fact that it is an interesting project. Yes, I know, a bit of a cop out, that word, 'interesting', but what can I say, it surely isn't funny. Well, there are funny bits and for me that was Robin Williams, who told a different joke and the lady who reversed the joke, giving a very angelic scenario an elongated and most obscene title. I also liked the Eric Idle segments but he managed to undermine the whole project by (quite rightly) suggesting that in England we expect the aristocracy to behave this way. It also made me think of de Sade and caused me to ponder whether any of these turgid, self congratulatory pieces measured up to that gentle aristocrat's activities and I concluded in the negative. Whether there ever was any such joke and whether many people find this funny is not as interesting as the obvious fact that so many of those appearing really did get a lot of fun by talking dirty. That some should be as amused as this by simply saying words considered rude or talking of body fluids, rape and child abuse in this way must reflect one heck of a lot of pent up emotion. Maybe a bunch of psychiatrists should contribute to a documentary in response.

A documentary about an infamous joke that has done the rounds for decades amongst comedians but has rarely had a public airing. This is probably because, despite a roll call of some of comedy's biggest names, the joke just isn't very good, it's cult in-joke status can be the only reason for its longevity. This is however a likable film, which does have its funny moments, a particular highlight being the South Park telling of the joke, just don't believe the hyperbole of the DVD cover: "you'll laugh till it hurts" (rolling stone)... "one of the funniest movies ever" (hotdog)... "howlingly funny" (New York daily news) these people really should get out more.