Offended - or amused?
Consider that straggly effigy of a skeleton pirate noosed — lynched, some say — from the roof of Sigma Chi at their Halloween kegger last weekend. "A joke, surely!" says the party's group of supporters.
Eyebrows are raised, and so is an old question: What is the difference between shockingly funny and just plain wrong? In other words, when can we laugh - and when is something "just not a joke," as one member of the Black Student Union, protesting the frat party, said on Monday?
Obscenity and comedy have often conspired in tandem, and even the first known use of the F-word was to score a few medieval giggles in a raunchy poem, written in 1500, which poked fun at some adulterous friars.
And thanks to a recently revived student-written satirical newspaper, we are reminded that vulgar humor is not new to Hopkins, either. The Black and Blue Jay, our University's oldest bastion of rude jokes, has been ruffling administrators and delighting students since Woodrow Wilson was in the White House.
The Black and Blue Jay is older than Saturday Night Live, The Onion and The Colbert Report combined. Founded in 1920, its first issue of this year features headlines such as "Athlete With Huge Penis Nice Guy, Despite Huge Penis." The back page features an "application essay" which turns out to be a drippingly lurid half-page of high-school erotica. Perhaps most obscene of all is an "Uncomfortably Personal Letter from the Editor," which reflects pensively upon the timeliness of the author's first oral sex encounter in light of the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Irreverent? Yes. Shocking? Probably. But is it wrong?
The accusation would be nothing new for The Black and Blue Jay. No stranger to controversy, the publication has a history marred by an administration that felt it crossed the line.
The Black and Blue Jay first appeared after WWI as a monthly magazine featuring a mix of literary prose and humorous writing. As the '20s roared, the Jay evolved into a monthly satire revue, replete with naughty comedy. Come the 1930s, the satirical rag grew in popularity - and notoriety.
In 1934, Dean of Arts & Sciences Edward Wilson Berry pressured the Jay to ease off the dirty humor. (Ever the populist, Berry had also proposed the removal of Hopkins from intercollegiate football).
When the paper refused to bend, they had their funding cut. The editors continued publishing under the name The Blue Jay (and out of their own pockets), but in 1939 Berry lost his nerve again, threatening to expel the vagabond editors. The Blue Jay was gone from the halls of Homewood until a revival in 1984. After some stops and starts, the paper is back up.
And who is to credit — or blame — for this renaissance of, dare I say, licentious filth?
Meet senior Scott Rogowsky, the mild-mannered editor-in-chief of The Black and Blue Jay. Rogowsky is set to earn a B.A. in political science in May, but he's more excited about writing and performing comedy. "I'm gonna be wiping my ass with that degree," he said.
"I enjoy being silly and being funny." His passion has most recently yielded a fledgling stand-up career in New York City, as well as continuing The Black and Blue Jay's storied tradition of pushing the boundaries of comedy.
Rogowsky knows there's a fine line between funny and inappropriate, but he believes that the paper, under his direction, doesn't cross it. "The idea is not just to be overly vulgar and gratuitous, but ... you can use obscenity in a smart, clever way, which is what [we] try to do," Rogowsky explained.
Rogowsky kindly took some time to talk to the News-Letter about his sense of humor, his sense of Hopkins and the new style of The Black and Blue Jay under his editorship.
News-Letter: The first issue of the The Black & Blue Jay shows a very strong influence of The Onion, the national satirical syndication. Is that purposeful?
Scott Rogowsky: That was very calculated, very intentional. I've been a reader of The Onion for six years. They have set the standard for satirical publication ... The best way and the funniest way to really send messages across is just to have fun with print media, because print media is so easily spoofed, you know, and that's what we're trying to do.
I was trying to explain to [Jay staff] writers: There are varying ways of making things funny. You can have a headline that just wouldn't be news in a respected publication. A headline could be making a significant statement, like 'Ralph Nader leaves car running' — environmentalism: it's a good joke on that.
A headline like 'Local play attended by friends and family' is a ridiculous headline to have in a newspaper, but the fact that you have it in a newspaper makes it funny. So using print media to enhance the humor is a big part of it.
[The key is] being very professional in the way you set up the article and the way you formulate it. I research the way you write an article about a car crash. There's a certain way to do it: report the accident, who was injured. So I read that, and I formulate the fake article based upon that.
So, yeah, I'm not going to hide the fact that - well, I wouldn't say we're ripping off The Onion. We're borrowing from their model, that concept. I know a lot of humor magazines are doing the same thing.
N-L: What's the state of comedy at Hopkins?
SR: It's hard, you know. A lot of it's the academic atmosphere. A lot of people are so wrapped up that they can't take five minutes to break a smile. It's a shame, but that's the way it is. So we're trying to change it. I was on D-level [on Friday], shoving [issues] in their face[s]. 'What the [expletive] are you doing in the library? Take a break!' I'll make my difference one biomedical engineer at a time, I guess. I hope people reading [The Black and Blue Jay] can appreciate The Onion.
A lot of people don't know what The Onion is at Hopkins. I'm just trying to promote that brand of humor as opposed to www.collegehumor.com, as opposed to the awful sitcoms that you watch.
There's not a lot of [diversity of taste]. They always say things like 'diversity,' meaning the color of skin. We've got a healthy diverse student body, but in terms of diversity of personalities, diversity of opinions, there's not a lot of that at Hopkins. ... [Referring to what students generally like:] It's just crappy mainstream comedy.
There's a lot of good comedy out there. It's not something you can force on people, either. People have different opinions of comedy. They like one thing, they don't like the other. They don't get it. The whole concept of 'getting it' is so fascinating to me. I still don't know what it is.
You know, [when] Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black came to the Ottobar, the place was packed, full of people who just got it, who got their crazy, wacky sense of humor. And yet, you know, there were maybe two other people from Hopkins there. They just don't get it. And I'm sure a lot of people don't get this humor [pointing to his publication]. And that's a shame. I think they're missing out.
N-L: What other influences can be seen in your approach?
SR: Mitch Hedburg. Dave Attell. Dmitri Martin. There are a lot of comedians out there whom I've had the privilege of seeing live who are just amazing. There's a certain brand of absurdist comedy - the Stella guys. Michael Showalter and all those guys. Woody Allen. David Cross. The 1980 Zucker Brothers film Airplane! Hilary Duff's first studio album, crystal methamphetamine, and Icelandic-Americans.
