388 EURAMERICA Their heroic and anti-heroic stances as well as the comic sensibilities with which they are expressed have root in crossAtlantic differences that British comedians have commented upon. Actor and social commentator Stephen Fry who has also featured in wildlife programs explains with an example from the American film, Animal House: there’s a fellow playing folk music on the guitar, and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it. And the cinema loves it. [Belushi] just smashes it and then waggles his eyebrows at the camera. Everyone thinks, “God, is he great!” Well, the British comedian would want to play the folk singer. We want to play the failure. (2012) Adopting a jocular tone, Buck epitomizes the humor of the Belushi character—it is big, physical, and is about winning. With brash self-confidence, he relates his exploits at getting the better of his human and nonhuman opponents. Buck enjoys catching out other people’s boastful pretentions, such as bargaining with a dato (Malay headman) who assumes he is a stupid white man willing to pay an outrageous sum for an orangutan, or betting with his good friend, Sultan Ibrahim of Johor, that he will catch a man-eating tiger. He enjoys playing practical jokes on those who are “asking for it,” such as spooking a drunken guest at his animal camp by placing a tiger under his bed, or facing off a macho sailor with an escaped orangutan. His humor is either a one-line reference to some aspect of American popular culture rendered amusing in the Malay context e.g., “my camp wasn’t exactly the Astoria Hotel,” or the clever comeuppance of another’s (and occasionally his own) complacence or hubris. Durrell exemplifies the folksinger and Fry’s definition of the British ironic humorist whose mainstay is failure and selfdeprecation. He takes the mickey out of himself first, which both deflects other people’s criticism and gives him license to good-
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODg3MDU=