Slipping on a Banana Peel and America

I watched and listened several times to Jimmy Kimmel’s return monologue. It reminded me of the fact that we often miss things on first viewing, and it takes time to really understand some deeper meanings, even if in retrospect they seem obvious.

Before returning to Kimmel (and I’ll focus on one particular trope), I am reminded of how we often don’t get things on the first go-around. We oft-times don’t get a poem on first reading. The meaning and symbols escape us. I’m reminded too of relationships where flaws that were there from the get-go become obvious with time, as we wonder why we didn’t recognize them ab initio. The same is true for song lyrics and jokes. Sometimes it takes a bit (and repeat exposure) to actually “get it.”

Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue will rightly be analyzed in the near and longer term. As I reflect on it, it was beautifully and strategically crafted, with jokes and symbols and clips and costumes and knowledgeable turns of phrase. And it was timely and at its heart, required a viewer with a keen sense of history and contemporary and not-so-contemporary references.

If you weren’t familiar with the Godfather or George Carlin, whole bits of the monologue would pass you by. If you weren’t aware of T’s repeated references to his escalator down in 2015, the whole U.N. stopped escalator up debacle wouldn’t fully have meaning. The monologue was filled with items like this … kind of like Milton’s epic similes.

But, it took me way a bit too long to understand and appreciate the costumes Kimmel and Guillermo were wearing in the opening pre-monologue bit. After video clips about the upcoming “important” return monologue by various newscasters, you see Jimmy in a “rat/rodent” (some saw a bear) costume and Guillermo in a banana costume.

The words spoken at that moment involved change. Kimmel starts to ask Guillermo “if they should” … and Guillermo pipes in “Change?” To which Kimmel responds “Yeah.” Think about that. Not “yeah” as in I’ll change my approach to late show talking but instead reflecting on change and the demands for it.

Obviously, at one level, the words were about changing out of the costumes and into their usual late night garb. But it also was about whether they should change what they say and do in and on their show. They hint at change but the monologue proved they weren’t changing and backing down. Irony. Mistaking a costume change for real change. Clever way to talk about change.

But there is more to the costumes. Many people saw Kimmel as a rat. A person who acted badly. He wasn’t a rat and a “low life;” he was a truth teller. And he did rat out someone(s): The president and FCC chair. Another clever multilevel symbol. The rat.

But it is the banana that really works. At first I didn’t get it. But, there is a long standing trope among comedians (and others) about slipping on a banana peel. Slapstick used this. Think Three Stooges.

So, at one level the “banana” raises whether Kimmel slipped up (made a mistake and embarrassed himself) by virtue of the monologue that got him removed from the air. Notice Kimmel isn’t wearing the banana.

But there is deeper meaning as I see it. Slipping on a banana peel is about embarrassing moments, about human error. And Guillermo’s wearing a banana isn’t about Kimmel slipping up. It is about T and Carr and our nation slipping up. Guillermo is teeing up the joke … his actual role on the show.

The whole Kimmel debacle and the president and Carr’s reaction were slip ups of grand order. Slides on peels. Add in the Tylenol fiasco and the ridiculous U.N. speech (too horrible to critique here). All bad mess ups and not by Kimmel.

But there is even bigger meaning for me, and slipping on banana peels isn’t a joke at some level. These peels are actually slippery and historically, people slipped in them in the streets. In short: America and her liberties are slipping on a banana peel.

We are literally falling down as a nation. We are embarrassing and other nations see us this way. America (and not just the effort to quash the First Amendment) is falling down. Literally and figuratively.

Kimmel and his team crafted a spot on monologue for the ages. Bravo and brava. They didn’t trip on a banana peel but instead showed how a network, a president, an FCC chair slipped up big time. And are slipping still. And that isn’t a joke.

Good comedy isn’t just a joke. It is truth dressed up as a joke. Thus, dressing up in costume is pointing out the real meaning of a joke. Kimmel’s return monologue and the costume trope weren’t simply jokes. They were truth disguised as humor. We laugh but the situation in America isn’t funny and Kimmel knows and knew that. Glad he is on the air!