The BUTT of a Joke: Villainous Bottoms?

Not to be "cheeky," but I've been troubled by the theorist's ignorance in Comedy: Theoretical of the physical "butt" when he wrote about butt comedy. On top of that, why does the butt comedy, "an important variant on villain comedy" (45), have to be villainous at all? The label is disturbing in that it conflates persons within butt comedies with "generally disreputable figures, dominated by idiosyncrasies, which the audience is enjoined to deride....Human beings survive, but only as deformed characters" (45, emphasis added). It seems as though the critic really means to invoke the word "ass" to describe the comedy; "butt," according to the Oxford English Dictionary, only works as the "thicker or hinder part of a hide or skin." "Ass," on the other hand, can work as an abbreviation for "asinine," which is defined as "having the qualities by which the ass is characterized; obstinate, stupid, doltish."

So let's deconstruct butts. Butts are a natural body part, and they are far from villainous (unless we have food poisoning or are stuck next to someone on an airplane just who had a greasy meal). Butts allow us to survive on a daily (often regular--if we eat DanActive, take Metamucil, or enjoy leafy veggies) basis, for they are the final place of abjection/digestion; we ponder on our butts while "at stool," we thrive upon our butts to release waste, and we sit on our butts regularly--relying on them for a supportive cushion. Where is the deformity? Why should we deride and villainize the butt?

To respond, I again posit that "ass" that should replace the critic's description of this type of villain "variant." The "ass" is in fact an animal, and the very notion of deformity is often when a human's physical characteristics blend with that of an animal's. One may potentially argue that "butt" works with Shakespeare's Bottom character, who works as comic relief in A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, "bottom," in addition to meaning "butt," can also denote a level of baseness or "low" humor. Butts don't have that double meaning. Asses do. You can call a villain an "ass," an "asshole," or call him "asinine." (And, I should point out that Bottom isn't exactly a villainous character.)

Okay, so maybe the theorist's reluctance to invoke the term "ass" here relates more with George Carlin's forbidden "seven words." Perhaps the theorist, too, attempts to couch the term of insult within a natural body part out of fear of academic/professional scorn...but, for the sake of linguistic accuracy, I think he should take a "crack" at rethinking this label.