Talking with Penn Jillette about The Aristocrats, his documentary of 100 comedians telling the same filthy joke, is easy. Listening to Jillette talk about it is exhausting, like running a marathon in three minutes. But even though at the end you're bone-dead tired, you still feel good, healthy even. Since marathons tend to be long, dull affairs, we've taken the most exciting footage of our interview and condensed it here for you, our loyal readers. But before we begin, some unabridged stats:
Number of times the word "and" appeared: 142
Number of times the word "like" appeared: 26
Number of naughty words we were too scared to put into print in a story about a film that's really about how great freedom of speech is: 25
Number of times Gallagher is mentioned: 2
... We'd be in New York and we'd have a list of 20 people who wanted to do it and we would give them one day's notice. ... It was, "Hey, Robin, we're going to be in San Francisco next week. You wanna do this in the afternoon?" And Robin goes, "Uh, yeah, I'm free." It was done like that. So I guess the answer to your question actually is: It was very, very difficult but we didn't know it.
There was no seduction in this movie whatsoever. Nothing was easier than to say no. If someone said, "Let me think about it," I never called them again. If someone said, "Let me talk to my agent," I never called them again. No one was begged. No one was worked on. So the usual conversation was like the one I had with Drew Carey, where I called up Drew and said, "Hey, Drew, you know how jazz musicians play solos over the same tune but you never get to hear comedians—He goes, "I'm in." And then he said, "What's the joke?" And I said, "Aristocrats." And he said, "Perfect. Let's set it up."
(Director Paul Provenza) and I have been friends forever. And Provenz and I like to get together at the Peppermill now and again and have a few cups of coffee and talk very pretentiously about politics and religion and comedy all night. ... I had just started getting fascinated with bebop jazz .... And I was talking about the idea of improvisation. I said, "You know, your improvisation in jazz is like the improvisation in comedy, in that you have someone who's very skilled, has a set of tools to work with, and then just does it in real time, but ... you can hear 40 different jazz musicians play "Bye Bye Blackbird" ... but you don't hear comedians tell the same joke. And that's where the impetus started.
It started from actually a real event. When we were shooting Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular, Jay Marshall ... had just told Mac King a joke backstage ... and I walked up as Mac was laughing and I said, "Jay, what joke you just tell?" And Jay said, "Well, let Mac tell it." So Mac told me the joke, and just as I was laughing, Michael Goudeau, who's the juggler in the Lance Burton show and one of the writers on Bullshit ... came up and said, "What are you laughing at, Penn?" And Mac said, "You tell him the joke, Penn." So I ... repeated it directly to Gordeau and it became one of these Spalding Gray perfect moments, y'know? ... And I was talking to Provenz about that and ... he said, "That would be a great movie, to just have comedians telling their own version." And then we were hit with the difficulty of what joke do you use, because you don't want ... a joke out of a Smothers Brothers act and then ask Richard Lewis to tell it. Not because there's competition but just because it doesn't make it as pure an artistic experiment. And then we said, "Well, the Aristocrats."
If you've ever been offended by any words—"c--t" or "ni--er" bothers you even slightly—you don't want to come into this room. 'Cause that's all it is.
Y'know, this movie is not because you should take your mother-in-law to it so she'll be shocked and have an awful time. Take your mother-in-law to something she'll like. Go to this movie with buddies of yours who'll laugh their asses off at dirty jokes and come on in and enjoy it. And so far, we've been very up-front about that and we've had no walkouts and no one offended. We're not trying to do controversy. If you don't like dirty words, don't come see the f--kin' movie, you stupid, f--kin' c--t. [laughs]
Some thoughts on Michael Moore and Mel Gibson.
Michael Moore and Mel Gibson—who are the same f--kin' person—they believe their stupid little bullshit movies. Maybe Michael Moore did help get Bush elected, and maybe that was the plan, but his stupid little bullshit movie, and Mel Gibson, with his imaginary friend who he has S&M scenes with, trying to think that we're all going to believe in f--kin' God because an Australian drunken retard has an imaginary friend who he wants to blow, that's supposed to affect us? It's just so, so incredibly pompous, that you think your stupid little bullshit movie is going to change America's mind. F--k you! This is a movie that is only there for people who want to see it. Michael Moore did all this shit about, Oh, I want to get Republicans into this. Who gives a f--k, you fat, talentless f--k, about what you want people to see?
At the time (the Washington Post's William Booth) wrote that article, we had the biggest distribution deal in the history of Sundance in place. But when (Booth) said to me, is there any sort of distribution deal, I said, "Well, I'm really not at liberty to discuss that." And I guess that everybody who says that is lying. I didn't know that. I was actually saying, we're in the middle of a deal and Think Film had said to us, "Listen, we don't want you to talk about this. We don't want to go to press on this until the deal is done." I went, "OK. I'm talking to the Washington Post." They said, "Just don't mention the deal because that's never good." I went, "OK." So I said, "I'm not at liberty to discuss it." And he went, "Ho ho! I'm Mr. Show Biz. I know what that means! They're f--ked! So I'll just tell the people the truth!" OK, Jack. Fine with me.
Sure, that's all that it is. You don't even need the "like" there. It is an in-joke.
... Films can't be important. But that being said, it is a profoundly political film just because the politics aren't talked about. I mean, when you have Bob Saget being as filthy as he can for the camera, and having no tension whatsoever about getting arrested ... try to tell this joke in Cuba. ... And just because everybody in this movie knows they're not going to jail, it ends up being political, and indeed patriotic.
You should say whatever the f--k you want. The only people who don't believe that in this country are the 10,000 members of the parents group that were freaked out by an African-American woman's tit, and the 30,000 people in Hollywood that chose to be hysterical about that. I get so pissed off when people go, "Y'know that whole Janet Jackson thing? People in France are laughing at us." And I go, "People in France? Those f--kin' retards! We're laughing at us!" It's not America. It's 50,000 retards. It's not even a Nielsen point all together. The whole country agrees, you know what I mean? You can talk about, "Oh, the Midwest." The Midwest, they agree, too. Everybody agrees on f--kin' freedom. There's this one group of people, and Hollywood just loves so much to be beat up and act like they're freedom fighters. You're not a freedom fighter. You work for NBC, you idiot.
... There's no conflict. In all art, you're supposed to have a lot of conflict, and yet not one person says anything negative about another person. Well, maybe Gallagher. But other than Gallagher, everybody is on the same side. It's 100 friends laughing their asses off after dinner. ... I really think this is the most Pollyanna lovefest movie that's ever been made. ... There isn't a moment of unhappiness in this movie. No one gets sad. No one has any conflict. Everybody just laughs and has a blast.