Penn Jillette Discusses the Aristocrats and Penn and Teller’s B.S

On the surface the two films don’t have much in common: One is a family friendly account of the mating rituals of the Emperor penguin; the other is profanity-laced documentary about a notoriously explicit joke. But Penn Jillette wants audiences to think of his film, The Aristocrats, as a labor of love akin to March of the Penguins.

“March of the Penguins is the movie to compare The Aristocrats to, because both films are about two people obsessed with a tiny piece of inertia. Nobody cared about the mating habits of the penguins except those two French guys, but their passion was so great that it becomes a wonderful thing to see on screen,” Jillette said. “Likewise, nobody cares about this one joke from Vaudeville except me and [Aristocrats director] Paul Provenza, and our obsession is at least as great – except that we didn’t have to freeze our balls off.”

Jillette and Provenza came up with the idea for the film during conversations comparing improvisation in jazz music to comedic improvisation.

“One of us made the comment that you get to hear musicians solo over the same song all the time, but you never get to hear comedians tell the same jokes,” explained Jillette, the boisterous half of comedy-magic team Penn & Teller. “So that started this goofy project in 2001 where we went to all our friends in comedy, and we would go to their houses with little cameras, no crew, no lighting, no makeup, just the two of us, and we shot them telling the joke.”

The joke they picked out was an old Vaudeville relic that lends itself to improvised, often racy tangents.

After several years, the pair had collected footage of over one hundred comedians tackling the joke, many of them A-list names like Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams, Jon Stewart and Drew Carey. Penn & Teller perform the joke as a magic trick, while Trey Parker and Matt Stone animated a
South Parksegment
where Cartman tells the joke.

Provenza and Jillette intended their film to be a niche project, something the featured comedians would enjoy and perhaps die-hard comedy fans would pick up on DVD, but a well-received screening at the Sundance Film Festival created enough interest for theatrical distribution. For the last two months, The Aristocrats has been showing in larger cities, where it’s been greeted with glowing reviews. It opens in
Madison
this Friday.

Although Jillette made a name for himself in magic – escaping straight jackets, eating fire and torturing his mute partner – he seems to have found a comfortable second career in the world of documentaries. His Showtime documentary series, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, shares two obvious similarities with The Aristocrats: passion and profanity. On that program, Jillette uses a skeptical, libertarian viewpoint to debunk people or organizations that spread misinformation or profit on human fear, insecurity or naivety, like psychics, creationists and Feng Shui practitioners. Instead of merely calling them frauds or crooks, he angrily labels them as assholes, douchebags or, in the case of a pediatric chiropractor, a “baby-twisting motherfucker.”

The rationale behind Bullshit!, which just finished its third season and has been approved for an additional two, is that television gives those with eccentric viewpoints more air time because they come off as passionate, and thus interesting. When pitching the show, Jillette argued that you could be just as enthusiastic about being rational.

“We guarantee you that we have as much passion for science and empirical knowledge as all those other people do for fucking crazy shit,” he said. For Jillette, profanity is one way of expressing passion. But unlike Bullshit!, which is grounded in dissonance and anger, The Aristocrats is all about – you guessed it – love.

“In The Aristocrats, we wanted to make a movie that had no conflict whatsoever. It’s 100% love. There was not any hostility in any second of this movie. No violence, no nudity, just unspeakable obscenity,” Jillette explained. “This is the most sunshiny, feel-good movie that has ever been made. I mean, can you think of another film with no conflict? And don’t try to say Bambi or something similar – his fucking mother died!”