When it came time to choose my final movie, there was not a doubt in my mind about what I wanted that selection to be. Duck Soup is not only my favorite film of all time but is on AFI’s list of one hundred greatest American films—the only true comedy on the list. What a culture finds funny is at least as relevant as anything else about that culture, and it was uncontroversial that Duck Soup had become a defining American comic film. How else to explain its popularity after more than seventy five years? To leave it out of a film series of American culture would either constitute benign neglect or dereliction of duty, depending upon how you looked at it.
Of course, there were obviously many arguments to be made against showing the film, not the least of which was its age. At more than seventy five years old, it was older than John McCain and would be by far the oldest film in the series. Would students have the patience for something so obviously dated in some ways? In addition, Groucho’s quick tongue humored and Chico’s puns would probably be completely lost on my students, despite the best subtitles and any attempt at explanation on my part. (I had recently discovered the limits of explanation with my showing of the Dylan biopic “I’m Not There,” which, despite an extensive introduction, completely baffled them.) I was also worried about the political content of the film. Duck Soup is one of the great anti-war films and was even banned in Mussolini’s Italy. I was not sure it would slip by the censors at Sichuan Normal. Despite these misgivings, I went ahead and submitted the film, had it approved, and prepared myself for the showing.
The pre-film lecture began with a pie in the face. Not literally, although I did contemplate staging an incident of someone launching a pie towards m at the start of my talk. But the organizers were at first confused by and then aghast at my suggestion. Besides, it would probably not have been possible to find a pie anyway. So I settled for a Google image search instead and put the result on the opening slide of my power point presentation titled, “What is Funny?”
In philosophy there are three general theories of humor, and each has its own interpretation of what makes a pie in the face funny. Incongruity Theory sees humor as a response to an incongruity—a term broadly used to include ambiguity, logical impossibility, irrelevance, and inappropriateness. Since a pie is something we generally eat and do not have tossed at us, seeing someone get hit with a pie is unexpected. According to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who is credited with first setting forth what has come to be known as “Superiority Theory,” humor arises from a "sudden glory" felt when we recognize our supremacy over others. Obviously, in the case of the pie in the face, we feel superior to the person who got hit with the pie in the face. Freud is most often associated with the “Relief Theory,” which sees humor as fundamentally a way to release or save energy generated by repression. One might hypothesize that we have a fear of being embarrassed, and hence can release that fear when we see someone else embarrassed by being hit with a pie in the face.
Whatever the explanations, students weren’t laughing. A pie in the face may be as American as, well, apple pie. But it is not, I discovered, a universally accepted archetype of funny. In a country where loss of face is the greatest fear, I should have guessed that literally losing your face in a pie would be more horrific than humorous.
Next I tried to explain Duck Soup in the context of a theory of humor. Here, I argued that incongruity theory actually worked pretty well in explaining the general premise of the movie. Groucho is intended to be out of place as the ruler of a country, more at home in a pool hall than in a palace.If Chico and Harpo seemed dressed rather shabbily, this is not merely a cultural convention of the time. They are meant to look like hobos, and the suggestion that they could be the spies they are portrayed to be in the film is supposed to be absurd. I argued that the humor of the premise of the movie lay in how obviously out of place the characters are in their roles.
To illustrate my point, I put up on the screen an image of “The Beverly Hillbillies.” This, I pointed out, was the most popular comedy show in American television history. The premise, that a bunch of hillbillies strike it rich in oil and move in among the stylish and wealthy, is a classic instance of incongruity. The fact that they are so out of place is what makes it funny. Imagine, I added, that some Chinese peasant found himself in the same situation.  They seemed a little more receptive to the humor of this situation than to the pie in the face.
Finally I took a swing at explaining some of the verbal humor in the film. Much of the Marx Brothers humor of course consists in puns. Fortunately, there is a similar notion in Chinese, the shuang guanyu—a phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect. I reviewed a couple of the better known ones, between ‘tanks’ and “thanks” and ‘dollars, taxes’ and  “Dallas, Texas.” .
And then we were ready to begin. Or so I thought. Technical glitches have plagued the series. As I pointed out, “Good Night and Good Luck” simply would not play, suspiciously so, if you ask me. The lighting for the copy of “Cinderella Man” made parts of the film unwatchable. The subtitles kept switching between Mandarin and Korean during “Casablanca” and completely went off during the crucial final scene.  “Bobby” just stopped playing with about ten minutes to go. As far as my students know, Bobby Kennedy is still alive. So I should not have been surprised that things were no different tonight, the night of my last showing. I was first told the computer could not read the film, and then that there were no subtitles.  My alternate film for the evening was the other Marx Brothers film I had been able to find, Monkey Business. But of course, Monkey Business is no Duck Soup. I was reluctantly to throw in the towel on Duck Soup when one of the computer savvy students in the audience came to my assistance.
Once things started rolling, I was curious when the first laugh would be. My fear was that they would start to giggle at something not intended to be funny—Margaret Dumont’s stilted and theatrical performance, or Zeppo breaking into song—and hence spoil the true humor of the movie. In fact, the first chuckle comes when Groucho, finding out Margaret Dumont is loaded, begins romantically pursuing her. “Can’t you see what I’m trying to tell you, I love you,” he replies after she reveals her husband has left her his entire fortune. But it is not until Harpo shows up at the front of the palace driving a motorcycle supposedly to escort Grouch off the premises but in fact takes off alone leaving Grouch in the sidecar that the first legitimate guffaw breaks out. Each subsequent time Harpo pulls up on the motorcycle is similarly greeted with laughter. In fact, it should come as no surprise that Harpo will continue to be the laugh leader for the evening, since his humor is not at all bound by language. Groucho does have a few moments. At the first cabinet meeting, for example, when the finance minister tries to introduce a discussion of the taxes and Groucho says that is new business to discuss later, only to be told “too late, that’s old business” when he subsequently brings it up seconds later. But for the most part it is Harpo’s moment to shine tonight, whether it is he and Chico reporting their spying activity on Groucho, or Harpo showing Groucho his tattoos, or Chico and Harpo fighting in front of the lemonade stand. And of course, there is the mirror scene, though I am never sure whether it is Chico or Harpo performing in that.
When the movie ends I try to direct the discussion to some of the more serious elements of the film, in particular to the fact that “Duck Soup” is viewed as one of the great anti-war films. They catch on that by showing a country recklessly led into war on the whim of an emotionally unstable leader the film can criticize all countries’ rush to war. They also don’t miss the most recent historical parallel: “Like Bush?” someone in the audience asks, and I nod.
“But this is a serious point. Why make a funny movie about it?”
Humor, I reply, has been used to make serious political points in the West since Aristophanes and to poke holes at political leaders. I recall that the Cultural Revolution was sparked in part in response to a play seen as being critical of the communist leadership. This play was not a comedy but was set in an earlier historical period in order to divert its true intention (which was nevertheless discovered). In the West, I remark, that subterfuge might have been attempted by a comedy rather than an historical analogy.
It’s just that they don’t seem to find anything funny about politics. They take great delight when Americans criticize its leaders, especially its president, but this is not something they neither understand nor admire. In fact, they think it is rather shameful. Political leaders are revered here and certainly not the brunt of jokes. The movie’s caricature of political leaders, saying in effect they are all swindlers and cheats and Groucho can succeed because he essentially beats them at their own game, is more cynicism than the audience could handle. That we can joke about such matters is more evidence of the decadence of the West
Here, at the end of my tenure,  I close with a realization of the cultural divide we confront: we can laugh at some of the same things, but not at all of them. But at least we can laugh at some of the same things. It is somehow comforting to reflect on this fact as the lights are turned out and I walk out of Room 112 for the last time