Are You Not Entertained?

Some will find this clip of the band "New Wheels on the Block" offensive bordering on obscene, others are finding it hilarious, most will probably find it both simultaneously. This linking of disparate reactions, emotions, ideas, images, etc., is what the brilliant Arthur Koestler, in his book The Creative Process, labeled "bisociation." The author argued that bisociation was the engine of all creation – the linking together of two things that weren't previously thought to belong together ("You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"). Physical handicaps and the self-involved, juvenile sexuality of rock singers don't seem at first glance to belong together – but why not? According to bisocation, if one can find a way to link them together that's effective, the result should be successful. And isn't pain the basis of the humor in nearly all the great physical comedians' work? If this train of thought is followed long enough, it ends up here: to be offended by the New Wheels is to condescend to them, to feel that you know better than they do what's best for their lives. Presumably, that's to live a life of quietly meek invisibility somewhere you're not confronted with them. They know what they are doing, which is trying to become famous by making their audience laugh. They are using their physicality not as a limitation but as a gift to provoke humor, no less than Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton did. As cheap as the production is, as low-brow the subject mattter, New Wheels are funny. Brake your chair and dig it.