Rafinha Bastos: the baby's laughter
Anyone who does humor, or at least tries to, is always a caricature of themselves. They're playing a character.
From childhood, humor has been a part of my life. Starting with playful banter among friends, moving on to imitations of television characters, and ending with jokes, everything was liable to be mocked. There was no such thing as political correctness. The air was breathed as it was. The environment wasn't "sanitized."
Anyone who does comedy, or at least tries to, is always a caricature of themselves. They are a character, even if they present themselves on stage as "themselves." It has always been this way, since Ancient Greece. There is nothing new in it, therefore.
But going back to the jokes, when I was a child, there were those who told the traditional "parlor" jokes and those who took more risks, telling, let's say, the more "risqué" ones. And in the end, there could only be two results for the comedian: victory (making people laugh) or defeat (not making people laugh). In this theatrical game there were no ties, nor were there any "warnings" or "expulsions" in its rules.
But today, for most people, everything seems to appear different, and for them, the rules of the game seem to have changed.
Today, the joke itself is the least important thing, since people aren't satisfied (no pun intended) with simply laughing or not laughing. Today, for these people, what matters even more than the joke itself is who tells it.
Rafinha Bastos isn't being "kicked out" of the game because of the specific joke he told, but because of the jokes he's been telling. In this case, more attention is being paid to the subject than the object, when it should be the opposite. People's repulsion is directed at Rafinha Bastos, not at the jokes.
One example: several comedians hide their little finger and imitate Lula. Many others imitate Roberto Carlos and limp. I've never seen anyone get indignant. Now, if Rafinha Bastos were to play such a role, there would be those indignant people rising up, saying: "this can't be" or "he crossed the line" or "that was disrespectful."
Regarding the joke in question, made by Rafinha Bastos on the program “CQC” about Wanessa Camargo and her baby, I only have to say that it didn't make me laugh. Period. I don't pass judgment on jokes, nor on who tells them. About this episode, I think what I've always thought about when telling a joke: Either the viewer laughs, and the comedian wins, or they don't laugh, and the comedian loses.
To those who were outraged by Rafinha's joke, I ask that you go back to a very distant time, when you were still babies. Even before speaking, walking, writing, or having the capacity to be indignant, long before all of that, the baby was already smiling.
Go back to being children, or better yet, go back to being babies: laugh more and get indignant less.
Today is a day for laughter, baby!
Luciano Gil is a lawyer who graduated from the Faculty of Law at PUC-Minas.