Greetings friends,
I’ve always been suspicious of the idea that comedy is just an escape from reality or some kind of coping mechanism. We all know the funniest people are among the most perceptive. Comedy is a mode of truth-seeking, too; there’s a reason people say, “it’s funny because it’s true.”
I am recommending 3 films this week — two recent docs that foreground the funny foibles of personal identity while using comedy to tell the truth about serious issues, and an older one that (indirectly) makes the affirmative case for even the most vulgar jokes.
All three take comedy seriously, and all three know how to take — and land — a joke!
We Are Pat (2026): Can an old joke survive changing ideas about identity?
This charming and absolutely hilarious documentary by debut doc director Rowan Haber concerns the strangely compelling SNL character Pat — a mainstay of early 1990s pop culture whose gender was impossible to discern. The joke was that this ambiguity made everyone around him/her/them go a little bit insane, like in one sketch where Christopher Walken was so disturbed by Pat’s very existence he simply throws himself out the window. Haber unpacks both what made Pat so funny in the early 90s and whether Pat is, should be, or can still be funny today.
We Are Pat nimbly moves between personal voiceover, a series of probing interviews with everyone from Brontez Purnell to Joey Soloway to Kevin Nealon to Julia Sweeney (the creator and performer of the Pat character), and an experimental writers room staffed with trans and nonbinary writers and comedians trying to reboot Pat for the modern age. The film is super entertaining, while also wrestling with some big questions about the meaning and purpose of comedy. It’s especially fascinating to watch Julia Sweeney wrestle with the unexpected, sometimes painful, afterlife of a character she came up with on the fly for a sketch. I was not expecting to be brought to tears by this film, but there I was: crying in the theater, having had my mind and heart opened wide, once again, by the gift of laughter and the power of a well-crafted comedy.
We Are Pat is in limited theaters RIGHT NOW, check that link to see if it’s playing near you! I’ll make a special mention for my Los Angeles readers that it’s playing at Vidiots June 28 with Julia Sweeney and Harper Steele in attendance! Go to a movie theater and laugh alongside friends and strangers, it’s good for the soul. But in case it’s not playing near you, I’m told it’ll be on VOD very soon.
The Neutral Ground (2021): What can comedy say that we can’t say about race?
When first-time doc director CJ Hunt started making The Neutral Ground, he didn’t think he was making a doc at all. He was trying to make a short comedic video about the fight over Confederate monuments. He adopted the persona of a Daily Show-style correspondent (fun fact: during the making of the film, he actually got a job writing on The Daily Show) and hit the streets of New Orleans during one such battle. Then, he spent 6 years working with an experienced doc producer, Darcy McKinnon, figuring out how to balance these very funny bits with making a rigorously researched historical doc about the Lost Cause narrative (memorably referred to as “a lie forged in the South, but bronzed in the North”).
The Neutral Ground is similar to We Are Pat in that CJ frames the film in a vulnerable, personal way. Some of the funniest scenes in the movie feature his father, who proudly recounts the speech about lynching he gave CJ’s mostly white elementary school classroom on MLK Day (while CJ laughs about this humiliating childhood memory). His dad also hilariously ribs him for pretending he’s “always been very interested in his Black identity” (CJ is mixed race). One thing I love about this film is the editing, which is zippy and fresh, unafraid of gags and with incredible comedic timing.
There are three big participatory set pieces. The first sees CJ joining a Civil War reenactment on the side of “the bad guys” (Yankees) which is a little bit terrifying but in a gentle, comedic sort of way. The second is when CJ goes to the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville (the one where Heather Heyer died) which is just terrifying, and forces CJ to concede he can’t find one funny joke here. The third set piece is another reenactment, this one staged by artist Dread Scott in Louisiana, where CJ participates in an insurrection, honoring the enslaved people who rebelled, who fought back. It’s an incredibly moving scene and a beautiful culmination of CJ’s long pursuit. And then I cried, again, during a stirring rendition of “I Wish I Was in Dixie” — irony, sincerity, pain and joy all mixed together.
The Aristocrats (2005): How far will a comedian go in pursuit of a laugh?
I thought of The Aristocrats — one of the funniest docs of all time — when I was writing my piece defending “talking heads.” I thought of it then because it’s literally just that: a series of talking heads, kind of rudely cut together. There’s no action, stakes, or plot. There are no characters, or even music. But, oh, the genius of this film’s concept! “The Aristocrats” is a legendary inside joke that comedians perform for one another. You probably have never heard it, because it isn’t really a joke meant for the public. It’s meant to be a way for comedians to show off for one another behind closed doors. In this film, directed by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza (they laugh hysterically off-camera throughout, which really adds to the whole vibe), about a zillion of the funniest comedians in America let us in on the secret joke and tell us their versions of it.
This is not a movie for the easily offended. The entire point of the joke is to make your version as shocking, offensive, foul, and horrifying as possible — and to keep it going way past any reasonable standard. Pretty much every version of this joke includes incest, bestiality, shit, violence, all of the above, or even worse things. Bob Saget, of America’s Funniest Home Videos and Full House, memorably performs the longest and most horrifying version. Although perhaps he’s tied with Sarah Silverman, whose version nearly got her sued for defamation. Another highlight is Billy the Mime’s completely silent — duh, he’s a mime! — rendition.
What emerges over dozens of versions is a portrait of comedians themselves, and an ode to the craft of a joke. “The Aristocrats” becomes a test of nerve, creativity, craftsmanship, and how far a performer is willing to go in pursuit of a laugh. You may think some of them went too far. If there’s a moral to be found here, it’s that being able to laugh at the absolute worst things one can imagine is a gift. How could we survive without it? Watch it with a group of friends who will revel in the dare to confront every kind of taboo while choosing to LOL. It’s a good time!
I noted after I wrote this that all 3 of these were directed by and/or prominently feature actual comedians. So now I feel like I’ve cheated! What are other funny docs that take comedy seriously, but aren’t necessarily by or about comedians?