The AIB Roast: Content Vs Intent

Prudery actually draws attention to the vice it is supposed to (i) ______; the very act that prohibits sight and forbids speech (ii) ________ what is hidden.

a) repress b) condemn c) extol

d) conceals e) dramatizes f) vexes

If you chose to fill the gaps with ‘repress’ and ‘dramatizes’ then you get full marks. This is a question that I usually discuss with my trainees in the GRE class. While I was discussing this question in one of my recent classes, the matter of the (in)famous AIB Roast video sprang up. I asked them how they felt about the whole episode. They are the target audience after all—the “impressionable youth of the nation”. Surprisingly, most of them found it distasteful. I am not sure whether that was how they genuinely felt or were they trying to be politically correct publically. But because most of them did not take kindly to the Roast, I decided to play the devil’s advocate.

Here I shall try to outline some of the key points I had put forth to them.

Firstly, I made them realise how true the question that triggered the discussion is. Many of them conceded that they watched the Roast only after it became a matter of controversy.

The popular and critical opinion is sharply divided on this subject. There are many conservative friends of mine who found the Roast really funny, whereas there are some liberal friends of mine who found it utterly vulgar. From Amir Khan to my neighbour Sharma aunty (oh, yes, she saw the Roast), everybody has expressed their opinion on the matter.

While I am not hailing the Roast as the funniest thing ever that happened to Indian comic scene after News Hour debate on Times Now, I do have a problem with demonising it or calling it most derogatory content ever put up on YouTube. The Roast has to be seen in perspective. Yes, it is cheap, obscene, vulgar, and all that it has been called. But that is the very format. In a singing competition one is supposed to sing. In a dancing competition one is supposed to dance. And in a Roast one is supposed to be vulgar and offensive.

Then, of course, there comes the ever-elusive question of how offensive is too offensive. I feel consent is the keyword here. If the degree of offensiveness is mutually agreed upon by consenting adults then, other than the participants themselves, others have little business getting offended.  

Did I find all the jokes funny? No. I found many of them to be distasteful and I found some to be really funny. But then that’s my assessment. And it’s highly subjective. The same joke I found funny could be seen as revolting by someone else and vice versa. So how does the comedian decide? It’s an assorted mix. You chose what you like and discard what you don’t.

As a person who gets a boner when someone uses a delicious word (Please don’t get offended!), I am also tempted to take a logo-centric (word-centric) view of this episode. So what hurt you? Those words. The C-word, the B-word, L-word? The problem with words is that, especially when used in such delicate contexts, the intent becomes more significant than the content. Was the intent of the participants to offend Gay community, women, people of colour, Catholics? 

Anyone who’s been following the AIB and its members would say no. You will recall that Rohan Joshi (one of the AIB members) had come out with this piece deriding the Supreme Court’s verdict that (re)criminalised homosexuality. The AIB guys were the people who in collaboration with Imran Khan came up with this interesting video to bust some of the most common myths about homosexuality or ‘gay-giri’ (for those of you who think those questions are purely imaginary, trust me, they are not). I am sure you also remember this one wherein the AIB hit out at the TOI over focussing on Deepika’s cleavage. Or this one wherein the gang teamed up with Alia Bhatt who was being made the butt of the Blonde jokes for what could have genuinely been a slip of the tongue.

Are they really misogynistic and homophobic? I don’t think so, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure that. The sad part of the story is that no one files FIRs against Subramanian Swamy when he says that gay people are mentally unstable, or against Kamal R Khan who on his Twitter says things such as...well, let’s not even go there. And the problem is that they’re not even trying to be funny. These people actually mean what they say. Do the AIB Roast participants mean what they say? I leave that judgement up to you.

At the risk of being called a hypocrite, I confess that I found certain cartoons by Charlie Hebdo rather unsavoury. The objective of satire is not purely entertainment. It is deeply social and political too. It is aimed at exposing the follies of the society. Now, I don’t understand why you cannot expose the follies of religion without depicting Christ, the Prophet and Ganesh with their genitals jutting out and participating in an orgy.  Also, one sees in their cartoons a trend. I think the real problem is the ossification of this tendency to be perversely provocative.

Let me explain: I don’t have a problem with the Roast so long as it happens to be an aberration and a norm of the comic discourse. My fear is its becoming mainstream. And the popularity of the AIB may prompt others to replicate it—it should not become a formula.

Those who have attended any haasya-kavi-sammelan (poetry recitals) that are organised on Holi would know how some poems could be seen as offensive in a regular context. But Holi itself is an occasion to subvert the norm. In some Vaishnavite sects the devotees even use abusive words for the Lord when they sing Holi songs. And some of them are really abusive. Holi is carnivalesque. It can be seen as a close cousin of the Dionysian festival held annually in the Greece of antiquity. Chaos is asserted upon; it becomes the dominant theme. The idea is to do the very thing that is disallowed or forbidden in the regular course of things. And as soon as the festival ends, order is restored; people go back to being their usual well-behaved selves. My point is: if the Roast is an annual carnivalesque event wherein the participants and the audience walks in with full awareness of what they will be subjected and exposed to, then it should not be seen as big a threat as it is being made out to be.

I again stress on the keywords: consent and exception. The jokes should be seen as an aberration. They should not be normalised and bandied about casually. Just because Karan Johar was okay being mocked for his being gay, you cannot turn around and expect me to be okay with your derision under the grab of humour, unless, you and I share the same camaraderie that Karan and Ranveer share and your intent is not offensive even if the content is apparently so.