What's So Funny about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
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[ PM L A
What’s So Funny about Obsessive-
Compulsive Disorder?
paul cefalu
O nce characterized as a rare psychiatric disorder,
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects more than one
in forty individuals, or approximately five million Ameri-
cans. The fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) defines obsessions as “persistent and
intrusive inappropriate ideas, thoughts, or impulses which cause
marked anxiety and distress” and compulsions as repetitive behav-
iors or mental acts whose goal is to “prevent or reduce such distress,
not to provide pleasure or gratification” (180). The DSM IV sub
divides symptoms by type, the most familiar being obsessions about
contamination, partly alleviated, for example, by repetitive hand
washing. Other common symptoms include the need for order or
symmetry; obsessions with sexual conduct; sexual thoughts that the
patient views as inappropriate; and perhaps the most intriguing and
recently newsworthy form of OCD, compulsive hoarding and saving,
the tendency to stow away trash such as old newspapers.1
Symptoms of OCD seem to have been documented as early as
the early modern period; according to contemporary psychologists,
Martin Luther and John Bunyan exhibited tendencies that would
ssociate professor of English at Louisi-
A
ana State University, Baton Rouge, Paul
meet the criteria of religious scrupulosity, a subtype of OCD in
Cefalu is the author of English Renais- which religionists ruminate excessively over their spiritual stand-
sance Literature and Contemporary Theory ing. Ian Osborne concludes that Bunyan “had clear-cut, moderate
(Palgrave, 2007), Moral Identity in Early to severe OCD; his case is our best historical example of the illness”
Modern Eng lish Literature (Cambridge (58).2 Bunyan “showed the insight of a true obsessional. He knew his
UP, 2004), and Revisionist Shakespeare:
worries were irrational; he just couldn’t stop thinking them” (58).
Transitional Ideologies in Texts and Con-
texts (Palgrave, 2004). He is completing a
Obsessive behavior shows up in later, post-Enlightenment texts,
book-length cultural and historical study although under mutating taxonomic categories. The Eng lish “mad
of obsessive-compulsive disorder. doctor” Thomas Arnold wrote in a 1782 treatise on madness that ob-
44 [ © 2009 by the moder n language association of america ]124.1 ] Paul Cefalu 45
sessives exhibit “pathetic insanity,” a species had been considered a rare, primarily psycho-
of melancholy in which “some one Passion is logical, neurosis that seemed largely recalci-
in full, and complete possession of the mind; trant to therapy.5 With the rise of biological
triumphs in the slavery, or desolation of rea- and diagnostic psychiatry in the past decades,
son; and even exercises a despotic authority as well as a clearer description in the DSM IV
over all the other affections” (235).3 Arnold’s of the symptomatology and various subtypes
nosological phrase “pathetic insanity” was of OCD, the condition has recently become un-
eventually displaced by the more etymologi- derstandable as a prevalent psychiatric disorder
cally incisive term monomania in American caused primarily by an organic brain dysfunc-
and Continental treatises on madness. In his tion.6 And because researchers also made the
Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorders Af- serendipitous discovery in the early 1980s that
fecting the Mind (1835), the American psy- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
chiatrist James Cowles Prichard situated such as Prozac (originally developed as anti
obsessiveness under the category manie sans depressants) also alleviated OCD symptoms,
délire or folie raisonnante (“monomania with they realized that OCD was largely a “hypo
reason”). In this category, an erroneous “con- serotonergic” state treatable by an adjunctive
viction impresses upon the understanding” regimen of drug and behavioral therapy.
and gives rise to a “partial aberration of judg- Given such medical and scientific ad-
ment,” one that “betrays no palpable disorder vances, it makes sense that OCD would be
of mind” (30). Late-eighteenth-century French paid so much media attention during the past
psychologists, most notably Philippe Pinel, several decades. Yet medical and scientific ad-
J. E. D. Esquirol, and Pierre Janet, introduced vances cannot account for the extent to which
the term folie de doute (“doubting disease”) to the media, in its recent portrayals of OCD,
describe obsessive tendencies, after which the consistently represents the disorder with lev-
modern, hyphened version of monomania, ity and humor. These portrayals typically cast
obsessive-compulsive disorder, entered the obsessives as the protagonists in comedies or,
psychiatric lexicon.4 Many of the stereotypes as I describe later, tragicomedies, especially in
associated with obsessive character traits— popular culture. While there have been come-
perfectionism and anal retentiveness, for ex- dic depictions of obsessives in the past, and on
ample—stem from Freud’s work on “obsessive the early modern English stage in particular,
neurosis” in the early decades of the twentieth the prevalence of these depictions is a recent
century (“Obsessions” 85; Jones 558). phenomenon.7 In the earlier historical incar-
Yet, despite the attention that had been nations of OCD as scrupulosity, monomania,
given to obsessive behavior in previous his- or the doubting disease, the condition more
torical epochs, only during the past several de- often showed up in melodramas, tragedies,
cades has OCD become so widely represented and gothic literature—in texts by Flaubert,
in several media, including not only scientific Baudelaire, and others, especially Edgar Allan
and medical journals but also the mainstream Poe, whose protagonists are frequently beset
press and popular culture, where the disorder by an idée fixe or monomaniacal passion.8
has been the subject of recent memoirs, films, How can we explain, then, the extent to
plays, and novels. In a scientific and medical which recent literary and cinematic portray-
sense, the recent interest in and representation als of obsessive-compulsive disorder suggest
of OCD in the media is readily explainable. that sufferers of OCD can always be counted
Prior to the 1970s and the realization that a on to make us laugh? Recall Jack Nicholson’s
tricyclic antidepressant, clomipramine, helped compulsive sidestepping of those dangerous
alleviate obsessions and compulsions, OCD cracks in the sidewalk in As Good As It Gets or46 What’s So Funny about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? [ PM L A
David Sedaris’s lighthearted confession that, of the external world itself answered to the
as a child, he was compelled to kiss the stairs obsessional perspective?” Drawing on a range
each time he ventured up to his bedroom: of texts from Max Horkheimer and Theodor
Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment to Leon
My bedroom was right there off the hallway, Salzman’s Treatment of the Obsessional Person-
but first I had business to tend to. After kiss- ality, Fleissner argues that “the unknowables of
ing the fourth, eighth and twelfth carpeted modern life, perhaps now more than ever, gen-
stair, I wiped the cat hair off my lips and
erate a profound yearning for some small token
proceeded to the kitchen, where I was com-
of control” (110). A cultural tendency toward
manded to stroke the burners of the stove,
press my nose against the refrigerator door, obsessiveness seems to be a response to “com-
and arrange the percolator, toaster, and plex technologies,” “the risk of nuclear war,”
blender into a straight row. (10) and a still-prevailing Weberian spirit of capital-
ism that is echoed in the DSM IV’s description
While one should not, of course, expect such of obsessives as “excessively conscientious” and
humorous accounts to diagnose accurately “scrupulous” (qtd. in Fleissner 114). Indeed, the
the etiology of OCD, mainstream depictions hyperefficiency of the entire culture industry as
tend to make us forget that, according to the described by Horkheimer and Adorno—an ef-
DSM IV, OCD is fundamentally an anxiety dis- ficiency that includes “control . . . exclusion of
order, hardly a laughing matter to most of its any deviance . . . bureaucratic management, a
long-term victims.9 And while humor theorists, subjugation of every issue to the demands of
especially those behind the so-called positive- the technical, efficient regulations”—suggests
humor movement, would note that laughter “an essentially compulsive worldview” (qtd. in
can be therapeutic, contemporary accounts of Fleissner 112; 112).
both unrelated and comorbid psychological Such a metanarrative perhaps explains the
illnesses, say depression or eating disorders, interest in obsessiveness in the mid–twentieth
are seldom rendered comically.10 William Sty- century, although it fails to explain the resur-
ron’s Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness gence of interest in obsessiveness during the
and Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind: past several decades. Diagnostic psychiatry
A Memoir of Moods and Madness are engag- has recently advanced our understanding of
ing, poignant memoirs of depression and bi- obsessiveness by emphasizing the distinc-
polar disorder, but they are as somber in tone tion between obsessive-compulsive disorder
as canonical Greek tragedies. Why is OCD, and obsessive-c ompulsive-p ersonality dis-
more than other mental disorders, treated in order (OCPD). OCD is ego-dystonic, which
comedy? The following pages will attempt to means that obsessions and compulsions are
answer this question and, in doing so, open out at odds with the otherwise healthy desires of
into a larger assessment of why there has been the ego and cause distress when carried out.
so much interest in OCD in the past decades. OCPD, on the other hand, is ego-s yntonic,
Given how frequently medical and scientific which means that obsessions and compul-
discourses are translated into popular literary sions accord with the ego’s desires and cause
forms such as comedy, usually with significant a measure of gratification when realized. A
distortion, the proliferation of representations more incisive medical understanding of the
of obsessiveness in various media should par- ego-dystonic nature of OCD has made us re-
ticularly interest cultural historians. alize that those with OCD do not simply have
Jennifer Fleissner extends the medical ex- obsessional personalities or characters (they
planation for the rise of interest in OCD by ask- are not monomaniacal, as has often been as-
ing, “What if something in the very organization sumed) but are fundamentally self-a lienated.124.1 ] Paul Cefalu 47
If a master trope explains the uniquely willingness to live with uncertainty” (44).
disjunctive experience of OCD, it is irony. Not The protocols of cognitive-behavioral therapy
only is there something fundamentally ironic for OCD encourage obsessives to view their
about the extent to which obsessives with condition with detached irony, as suggested
OCD concentrate on tasks that they believe in the mantra that they are trained to repeat
to be ridiculous, but compulsions, usually or- to themselves: “It is not me, it is my OCD”
chestrated to alleviate underlying obsessions, (Schwartz 14). Among psychiatrists and
tend to worsen the motivating obsession, and treated patients, then, an apparent acceptance
the victim gets caught in a ritualistic loop. of the fundamentally disjunctive nature of
Often, the longer obsessives wash, the dirtier the disorder resonates with our so-called age
they believe they are; and since the compul- of irony. What remains to be explained is why
sion designed to alleviate the cognitive obses- the ironies specific to OCD seem to generate
sion usually triggers physiological responses laughter or at least are represented as humor-
unrelated to the original obsession—increased ous in the popular media.
heart rate, diffuse anxiety, and so on—the
compulsion might only trade cognitive for
OCD, Humor, and Incongruity
physiological anxiety. A related irony is that
some sufferers of OCD are aware that the ne- Perhaps the widely held “incongruity” theory
glect of a ritual will lead them to obsess about of humor can explain the comic overtones of
what will happen if they do not carry out the obsessive-compulsive behavior. At its most
compulsion. Finally, regarding the larger pic- general level, this theory posits that joke mak-
ture of a life narrative or telos, perhaps the ing depends on cognitive dissonance. The
most bracing irony is that OCD sufferers may eighteenth-c entury notion of wit held that
spend their lives attempting daily to avert the the sort of verbal and conceptual witticisms
contingent and imminently tragic, only to one detects in metaphysical poetry stem from
forego, tragically, the simple pleasures that concordia discors, a yoking together of unlike
for others constitute a contented life. objects or notions (for example, John Donne’s
Perhaps OCD has piqued contemporary famous comparison of the legs of a compass
interest because such ironies dovetail not to two lovers). Joseph Priestley, offering a sim-
simply, as Fleissner argues, with lingering pler theory, contended that humor stems from
modernist skepticism but with a recent post- “disproportion”—for example, “a man with an
modern sensibility that has been described immoderately long nose, or a very short one
in terms of detached or suspended irony. All (no nose at all would raise our horror) . . .”
irony is, as Cleanth Brooks once postulated, a (21). Some incongruities are more formal and
general term indicating “incongruity” (qtd. in linguistic. As Norman Holland notes, “You
Wilde 24). Alan Wilde usefully distinguishes laugh when something affirms and denies the
modernist from postmodernist irony; while same proposition simultaneously. You laugh
modernist irony recognizes but desperately when something creates disorder and then
tries to overcome incongruities, postmodern quickly and happily resolves that disorder. . . .
irony unheroically and skeptically accepts You laugh at the incongruity between an intel-
them: “Modernist irony, absolute and equivo- lectual contradiction and an emotional reac-
cal, expresses a resolute consciousness of dif- tion to it” (22). And formal incongruities tend
ferent and equal possibilities so ranged as to to accompany ethical antinomies like discrep-
defy solution. Postmodern irony, by contrast, ancies in a single action between the noble and
is suspensive: an indecision about the mean- contemptible, the sacred and profane, or the
ings or relations of things is matched by a high and low generally. Arthur Koestler used48 What’s So Funny about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? [ PM L A
the concept of “bisociation” to explain all such is, the moment when one realizes that what
incongruities: humor usually ensues when “a might be construed as rational-purposive be-
situation, event, or idea, is simultaneously havior needs to be assessed on a different level
perceived from the perspective of two self- or in a different context entirely.11 Suffice it to
consistent but normally incompatible frames say that the typical obsessive-compulsive rit-
of reference.” An obvious example would be ual is decidedly not like that often-cited case of
a pun, which defies rational logic, suggesting obsessiveness, Lady Macbeth’s “accustomed”
that a “thing can be both x and not‑x at the washing her hands of blood, a ritual that is
same time” (qtd. in R. Martin 63). directly, congruently linked to her guilt over
If we move to obsessive-compulsive be- the murders of Duncan and Banquo: “Out,
havior and consider the disparity between, on damned spot! Out, I say! One, two, why, then,
the one hand, the seriousness of purpose with ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky” (5.2.30–31).
which most obsessive and compulsive actions
are undertaken and, on the other hand, their
The Obsessive-Compulsive Machine
largely mundane nature, we can begin to ap-
preciate the explanatory power of incongruity The incongruity theory of the comic effects of
accounts of humor. For a person with OCD, the obsessive-compulsive behavior can provide
inability to perform seemingly insignificant rit- a starting point from which to assess OCD,
uals—repeatedly walking through thresholds, but observers of obsessive-c ompulsive be-
compulsively touching doorknobs, scrubbing havior typically witness a compulsion with-
one’s hands—is fraught with the perception out being privy to the underlying obsession.
of heavy consequences. The incongruity and, Yet the physical reflexes of OCD are worth
arguably, the comic element in such cases is a considering as humorous in their own right.
conventional mix of the high and low, a tragic The repetitive rituals displayed by severe
foreboding tied to what most would consider obsessive-compulsives often seem reminiscent
inconsequential behavior. Recent pop-cultural of the ritualistic activities of small children
accounts of OCD provide apposite examples: (recall Freud’s account of the fort-da game) or
in her playful but disquieting memoir, Devil in even of some instinctual behavioral patterns
the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, of animals (a cat chasing its tail, for example).
Jennifer Traig recounts her childhood experi- There are a number of notable features of such
ences with religious scrupulosity: “Scrupulos- activities—their circularity, futility, and, per-
ity is sometimes called the doubting disease, haps less obviously, a seeming inability to halt
because it forces you to question everything. the actions (assuming, as with OCD proper,
Anything you do or say or wear or hear or eat that sufferers would like to cease the activity).
or think, you examine in excruciatingly min- What, if anything, might render this
ute detail. Will I go to hell if I watch HBO? Is apparent loss of free will in OCD behavior
it sacrilegious to shop wholesale? What is the funny? An answer can be found in one of the
biblical position on organic produce?” (5). most original philosophical meditations on
In such cases as Traig’s, there is a ten- comedy, Henri Bergson’s Laughter: An Essay
sion between the intensity of the obsessive- on the Meaning of the Comic. Bergson’s thesis is
compulsive act and, once the behavior is seen straightforward: as human behavior becomes
as just another compulsive ritual, the futility increasingly mechanistic and automatic, it be-
of that act; hence, the behavior can provoke comes more comical. Bergson’s overarching
laughter. The moment an observer apprehends term for such a phenomenon is “mechanical
this incongruity is analogous to the point at inelasticity.” One finds actions funny when,
which one understands the gist of a joke—that instead of witnessing suppleness or the “wide-124.1 ] Paul Cefalu 49
a wake adaptability and the living pliableness bid disorders is the retention of what psycholo-
of a human being,” one observes unexpected gists describe as the sufferers’ “insight” into the
rigidity and a seeming loss of control (8). Ex- unconventional, irrational aspect of their ritu-
amples range from the most commonplace— als, technically described as “ego-dystonic” be-
as when a man, running along the street, havior. As I noted earlier, ego-dystonia denotes
unaccountably stumbles and falls (8)—to the urges and actions that are at odds with the pa-
more specialized cases of human beings mo- tient’s otherwise normal goals and desires. Ob-
mentarily transformed into simple objects and sessives experience not so much an abdication
machines: Sancho Panza tumbling “into a bed- of free will as a partial suspension of rational-
quilt and tossed into the air like a football” choice conduct, akin to Aristotle’s incontinent
(58), or someone turned into a cannonball and person who knows the best way to act but se-
shot into space. Bergson also finds his leitmo- lects a less optimal course of action nonethe-
tif in common toys and modes of play, includ- less. Even on this matter, humor prevails. In
ing the jack-in-t he-box, a cat playing with a her recent memoir Just Checking: Scenes from
mouse, or the dramatic example of the “danc- the Life of an Obsessive-C ompulsive, Emily
ing jack,” in which the comedy’s principal has Colas describes her obsessiveness as “insan-
the impression of acting deliberately and freely ity lite.” When asked in an interview about
but all the while is being manipulated, like a the meaning of the term, she responded, “The
marionette, by the hands of another (78). expression was basically a play on diet foods.
Reasoning backward from these exam- All the taste, none of the good stuff. It was as
ples and others, Bergson concludes that the if I was suffering as much as anyone else who
“attitudes, gestures and movements of the hu- had lost their mind, but since I was still able to
man body are laughable in exact proportion be rational, since I knew what I was doing was
as that body reminds of a mere machine” (29). bizarre, I wasn’t really crazy” (168).
He adds two caveats, however. First, some Because of the ego-d ystonic and self-
trace of the human must remain discernible a lienating nature of OCD, obsessives are
for the comic to take hold. The machine needs acutely aware of the irrationality of their ritu-
to somehow operate within the person rather als and are often overcome with guilt linked
than take the person over entirely. Second, to other-regarding obsessions. Obsessives
comic characters are often unaware of the hu- typically worry, even in the face of counter-
morous aspects of their behavior, as if a state vailing evidence, that they either have or will
of “absentmindedness” underlies their ac- hurt those around them. The psychiatrist Ju-
tions: “The comic character is generally comic dith L. Rapoport describes a patient who suf-
in proportion to his ignorance of himself. fered such severe ruminatory notions that he
The comic person is unconscious. As though had hit a bystander with his car that he spent
wearing the ring of Gyges with reverse effects, the better part of a day returning at one-hour
he becomes invisible to himself while remain- intervals to the scene of an accident that had
ing visible to all the world” (17). never transpired (23–32). Building on the
Bergson’s account of comedy goes a way work of the psychiatrist Paul Salkovitz, Os-
toward explaining the droll effects of the phys- borne remarks that obsessives have an inflated
ical manifestations of OCD. “Inelastic,” “au- sense of responsibility, a “deep seated, auto-
tomatic,” “habitual,” and “rigid” all apply to matic tendency to feel accountable for any-
typical obsessive-compulsive conduct. But the thing bad that might happen” (59). Another
comic aspects of OCD do not meet Bergson’s contemporary psychiatrist, Thomas Insel,
principal criterion of absentmindedness. What considers antisocial behavior to be the antith
distinguishes OCD from more serious, comor- esis of OCD behavior: “Antisocials are severely50 What’s So Funny about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? [ PM L A
aggressive and never feel any guilt, while ob- point (which requires him to reach for a gun
sessionals do nothing aggressive and feel that has dropped into some brackish water),
guilty all the time” (qtd. in Osborne 61). Such Monk, paralyzed with irrational fear (of the
unabating feelings of guilt and responsibility, water, not the criminal), decides against pick-
coupled with fears of disaster and avoidance ing up the gun. Monk’s purely physical move-
behavior, have suggested to some psychiatrists ments are hilarious, but the comic eruptions
that OCD symptoms meet all the criteria for are often qualified, even in such a broad situa-
generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).12 tion comedy, by both the viewers’ and Monk’s
Returning to Bergson’s terminology, OCD peers’ curiosity, embarrassment, even ire at
stems not simply from a temporary suspen- Monk’s intense awareness of his obsessions
sion of normalcy but rather from an overlay but maddening inability to shut them down
of the mechanical on the human or organic, when duty calls.
the abnormal on the normal. Bergson’s no- Perhaps genre theory can clarify these
tion of the encrustation of the machine on the comic effects. What distinguishes comedy
human is satisfied, but in an inverted man- from tragedy is, among other things, the de-
ner: if typical comic characters are invisible gree of self-awareness displayed by the prin-
to themselves but visible to the world, typical cipal characters. As Bergson notes of tragedy,
obsessives are intensely visible to themselves “A character in a tragedy will make no change
but, with respect to the intentions motoring in his conduct because he will know how it is
their conduct, largely invisible to the world. judged by us; he may continue therein, even
This perhaps helps explain not simply why though fully conscious of what he is and feel-
obsessive-compulsive behavior is funny only ing keenly the horror he inspires in us. But a
to some individuals but why responses to such defect that is ridiculous, as soon as it feels it-
behavior are often an admixture of laughter, self to be so, endeavors to modify itself, or at
curiosity, fear, and even hostility. Because least to appear as though it did” (17). Tragic
obsessives seem too alert to their actions but protagonists are often acutely aware of their
cannot curb them, their behavior often comes actions and, although Bergson does not un-
across as a manifest weakness of will. One derscore this, assume that fate or something
might find it funny to watch someone unac- incontrovertible guides their conduct. Given
countably trip while walking briskly along; it this distinction between comedy and tragedy,
is less funny to observe people trip when they is obsessive-compulsive behavior comic or
know they are about to trip, would like not tragic? Obsessives intensely disavow rational
to trip, have the ability to avoid tripping, but behavior; they know the rational way to act and
allow themselves to trip anyway. This is the appreciate that they have the power to act such
unique plight of the obsessive-compulsive, a way, but ultimately they are compelled not
and this is partly what makes OCD evoke to do so. In other words, obsessive-compulsive
mixed rather than purely smiling responses. behavior is a kind of willed automatism. Like
Consider, for example, Adrian Monk, the the tragic hero, obsessives are fully aware of
obsessive-compulsive “defective detective” in their actions, but like the comic hero, they can-
the comedy series Monk. In one early episode, not help acting mechanically, as if the genre
Monk, chased down by a car, cannot help but, that captures such conduct is neither simply
Chaplin-like, mechanically touch the poles of tragedy nor comedy but rather tragicomedy.
street signs as he runs for his life, an act that The inherently tragicomic nature of OCD
significantly slows him down and keeps him is brought out suggestively in the recent film
in harm’s way. In another episode, faced with Stranger Than Fiction, starring Will Ferrell.
saving his nursemaid, who is held at gun- During the first half of the movie, Ferrell’s124.1 ] Paul Cefalu 51
character Harold Crick devotes most of his obsessive-c ompulsive behavior. As I men-
time to maintaining a hold on his humdrum tioned above, a measure of hostility, even
rituals and so is able to preempt the possibility aggressiveness, mingles with some people’s
that contingent, extraordinary, possibly tragic responses to the comic effects of obsessive-
events might disturb his routinized life. One compulsive behavior. An apt example is a re-
irony here is that, had he continued his life in cent YouTube video taken of an unsuspecting
this vein, he would not have met the spirited postal carrier. The carrier unloads the day’s
Ana Pascal, learned to play the guitar, or gen- mail from a corner mailbox into his satchel,
erally opened himself up to life’s unpredictable then immediately loads the mail back into the
pleasures. Crick’s obsessiveness—which tends mailbox, then puts it again into the satchel,
to render him comic—helps avert the tragic then back into the mailbox, on and on for
at the cost of his living a tragically empty life, about five minutes. Hunched over, intently
as if he acts comically but lives tragically. Iro- focused on his task, he performs his ritual
nies begin to multiply when the one time that hurriedly, even blankly, as if entranced. I’ve
Crick’s rituals fail him (his watch is set ahead shown this video to friends and students, sev-
by only three minutes), his largely comic ex- eral of whom, while laughing, mutter com-
istence edges precipitously toward the tragic, ments like “freak” or “nutjob.” And while
or tragically heroic, as his deus ex machina, many bloggers, especially those who appar-
the writer Karen Eiffel, ordains that he will ently have OCD, note how “sad” the video
die while saving a small boy from a car acci- makes them, just as many bloggers post sar-
dent.13 By the end of the film, however, even castic comments such as “talk about going
this irony gives way to another. Crick decides postal . . . hahahahahahhaahah . . . wait . . .
to embrace his tragically heroic fate, but, thats why the mail is always late. . . . oughta let
thanks to a script change by Eiffel, he survives my dog bite his ass and then lets see how long
the car accident and reconciles with Pascal. ya keep peeking in the damn box” (cuti17).
Given the happy resolution, the film ends as a Some post openly hostile comments like “what
straightforward comedy, even though all the the hell is he doing. he looks like a robot,” a
genre-changing en route suggests something comment that, oddly enough, is posted on a
more subtle: not only must Crick confront Web site entitled Gigglesugar, which aims to
and overcome a possible tragedy if he is to offer “byte-sized” comedy (lesocialite). What
find himself in a comedy, but this will happen is it about obsessive and compulsive behavior
only if he frees himself from his obsessiveness that moves some people to laugh cruelly and
and makes himself vulnerable to uncertainty not just embarrassedly or empathetically?
(even if, paradoxically, that very uncertainty Humor theorists have historically main-
seems scripted). For most of the movie, then, tained that joking often carries an undertow
Crick’s life at the level of discrete acts is comi- of disparagement and assertions of superi-
cal, but his larger life narrative is heading for ority (R. Martin 33). In the middle decades
tragedy. By the end of the movie, this is re- of the seventeenth century, Thomas Hobbes
versed, since his particular acts become heroic remarked that “the passion of laughter is
(and potentially tragic), but his life narrative nothing else but sudden glory arising from
is thereby resituated in a comic frame. some sudden conception or some eminency
in ourselves, by comparison with the infir-
mity of others. . . . It is no wonder therefore
OCD, Humor, and Aggression
that men take heinously to be laughed at or
Neither comedy nor tragicomedy alone cap- derided, that is, triumphed over” (36).14 Con-
tures the distinctive responses many have to temporary humor theorists continue to argue52 What’s So Funny about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? [ PM L A
that humor is intrinsically aggressive. Charles especially when they prop up the authority of
Gruner remarks that laughter has its origins an adversary or a superior” (548).15 Now, to
in the “roars of triumph following a difficult accord the sufferer of obsessions and compul-
battle among male competitors. Laughter sions undeserved dignity and respect, which
serves a homeostatic function insofar as it then are undercut through comedy, seems
allows not simply for the victor to signal his wide of the mark, given that not only is OCD
victory, but for the excessive adrenaline that a debilitating anxiety disorder, but, as I have
gathers throughout the fight to be released.” been suggesting, its physical symptoms often
Even puns, according to Gruner, are inher- resemble behavior of simple automata. Yet as
ently aggressive. Originating in ancient “du- Traig comments in her memoir, obsessives
els of wits,” puns are intrinsically competitive, who could channel their energies would be
the listener’s groan an inadvertent admission able to apply themselves with enviable effi-
of defeat (qtd. in R. Martin 45). ciency: “OCD sufferers are like hamsters on
Several explanations support the notion treadmills, all industrious activity with noth-
that some who laugh at obsessives do so ag- ing to show for it. If we were compelled to turn
gressively. One explanation is that many ob- windmills or crank generators rather than al-
servers would find the obsessive’s struggle phabetize the canned goods, we could solve
with commonplace actions too precious when the energy crisis” (25). In fact, some obsessive-
compared with the serious traumas and life compulsive luminaries have directed their
challenges with which others deal. As Good hand-wringing toward solving their culture’s
As It Gets brings this point out nicely, since version of the energy crisis: Martin Luther
the earnest waitress Carol Connelly serves as brought us the Reformation, despite, as Eric
an alter ego of or at least foil to the obsessive Erikson and others have noted, his anal reten-
Melvin Udall. If Udall is preoccupied with tiveness and bouts of more classic OCD symp-
avoiding germs that he only imagines will be toms; and Ignatius Loyola ably responded to
harmful, Carol is obsessed, healthily so, with Reformed theologians like Luther with the
her son’s real inability to fight off germs and zeal of the Counter-Reformation, despite the
airborne illnesses. Indeed, part of the hostil- obsessions and compulsions that are all but
ity that she and others express toward Udall embodied in his Spiritual Exercises.16
during the first half of the movie originates To what extent does Pinker’s explana-
from their perception of his inability to ob- tion square with the curious phenomenon
sess over anyone but himself. Such an expla- that many who are by all accounts normal
nation is limited, however, because one might and not burdened with OCD believe that
make the same argument regarding any ill- they have some obsessive-compulsive traits?
ness, mental or physical, that renders the suf- Such a belief is often shaped by an unsettling,
ferer fundamentally self-regarding. even contradictory, mix of fear and envy. Fear
The evolutionary psychologist Steven seems to prevail because, for some, only a
Pinker offers a more pointed account of the fine line distinguishes normal from obsessive
relation between humor and aggression. For worry. To be around an obsessive-compulsive
Pinker, laughter is a signal of either collective is to be reminded that one might have left the
or mock aggression, but it checks the claims stove on or might be languishing among dan-
to dignity of those in power: “The butt of a gerous germs; and although the nonobsessive
joke has to be seen as having some undeserved will not linger over such possibilities, many
claim to dignity and respect, and the humor- want to check the stove or scrub their hands,
ous incident must take him down a few pegs. resist, but then wonder whether they have a
Humor is the enemy of pomp and decorum, low-grade version of OCD after all. Ironically,124.1 ] Paul Cefalu 53
there seems to be something contagious about ciples of “self-government, self-determination,
OCD, a fear of becoming infected by the very autonomy, progress” (Extraordinary Bodies
people who obsesses over all those appar- 42). Physical difference and disabled bodies
ently benign germs. But such fear might also threaten this fantasy of efficiency, wholeness,
be mingled with envy of those who are able and autonomy not because the disabled fig-
to harness obsessive energy productively, for ure is seen as helpless but “rather because it
whom obsessiveness can be adaptive rather is imagined as having been altered by forces
than maladaptive. outside the self. . . . Seen as a victim of alien
This brings us back to genre theory, for if forces, the disabled figure appears not as
tragic heroes act on impulses that most people transformed, supple, or unique, but as vio-
would find too presumptuous and dangerous, lated. In contrast, the autonomous individual
comic antiheroes act on impulses that most is imagined as having inviolate boundaries
would consider too ordinary or redundant. that enable unfettered self-determination,
But both types of conduct can be cathartic to creating a myth of wholeness” (45).
witness, since just as pity and fear stem from Consider that the disablements of OCD
the perception of another’s acting too ambi- seem to reflect an exaggerated, hypernormal
tiously, the same passions can be stirred by version of normalcy rather than a subver-
the perception of another’s acting too mun- sion of the normate ideal or a threat to the
danely, especially if the mundane veers into well-governed able body. It is as if most of
the pathological. Notorious overreaching the symptoms of OCD, including the un-
can be as cathartic to appreciate as pathetic yielding rigidity of motion, single-m inded
underreaching. If, then, most of the laugh- adherence to overfamiliar rituals, hypereffi-
ing responses to OCD are at the same time cient control over the body (excessive groom-
aggressive, might it not be the case that the ing and washing), and vigilant control over
laughter is partly empathetic, as if we laugh the external environment (excessive check-
at conceivable, locked-in versions of ourselves ing and orderliness), serve to caricature the
when we laugh at obsessives and compulsives, possessive-i ndividualist ideal described by
and partly a reaction formation, related to the Garland-T homson. The thoroughly mecha-
perception that those with OCD are, like idiot nized OCD body at least seems inviolate to
savants, endowed with rare abilities that make outsiders, so programmatically operative and
them larger than life, inimitably efficient, impervious to external forces as to be inhu-
worthy of emulation in their finer moments, man. Perhaps OCD behavior prompts nervous
however tragic their lives may be overall? laughter in others as caricature, as an exagger-
ated, distorted version of an ideal of inviolabil-
ity, as if normal subjects peer into a funhouse
OCD, Normalcy, and Disability
mirror or face off with a perseverative mime
Disability studies, particularly its theory of when they gape at the curiously familiar rit-
the way normalcy defines itself against im- ual distortions of obsessives and compulsives.
pairment and disability, can provide another “Normates,” then, apprehend not something
explanation for why OCD evokes the mixed that they might degenerate into (something
responses of laughter and fear. Rosemarie the able-bodied always see when they witness
Garland-Thomson has argued that disabled physical impairment) but something akin to
bodies threaten the widely held liberal, post- what they already are or are well on their way
Emersonian ideal of a regulated, compliant to becoming, should they give themselves over
body, an ideal according to which the able- entirely to a liberal ideal of inviolability. In
bodied or “normate” self is modeled on prin- this sense, representations of OCD resemble54 What’s So Funny about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? [ PM L A
the comedy of manners so popular during the This normalizing and accommodative tra-
early modern period: socially peripheral char- jectory is exemplified not only in Udall’s altru-
acters refract the real and potential vices and istic acts but also in Monk’s civic work for the
extremes of the principals about them. mayor and city of San Francisco, as well as in
This helps explain the otherwise oddly Harold Crick’s wide-eyed sacrifice on behalf of
consistent two-part formula that one finds in a young boy. And in Steve Martin’s The Plea-
many pop-cultural or mainstream represen- sure of My Company, the protagonist, Daniel
tations of OCD: private, even secretive obses- Pecan Cambridge, is able to overcome his ob-
sions and compulsions are made public and sessive avoidance of street curbs primarily be-
embarrassing and then are interrupted and cause he does not want his habit to rub off on
allayed by some fateful social engagement, Teddy, an impressionable young boy who is in
usually one with ethical consequences. Con- his charge: “Suddenly, turning left toward my
sider again the example of As Good As It Gets. maze of driveways was as impossible as step-
Throughout the first two-t hirds of the film, ping off the curb. I could not leave Teddy with
the obsessive Melvin Udall lives a vigilantly a legacy of fear from an unremembered place. I
controlled and solitary existence. A successful pulled him toward the curb so he would not be
pulp novelist, he works alone in his meticu- like me. Recalling the day I flew over it with a
lously neat Manhattan apartment, door bolted running leap, I put out one foot into the street,
by a panoply of locks. Aside from infrequent so he would not be like me” (158).
trips to his editor and chance encounters with In all such cases, the imagined rem-
his neighbor, the artist Simon (whom he belit- edy for OCD is a leaving-off of narcissism
tles whenever he can), the only human contact for public engagements that either mitigate
Udall regularly has is with Carol Connelly, a obsessive-compulsive symptoms or at least
waitress at a nearby diner, who indulges his render OCD less fearsome and pathological
ritualistic demands and gruff manner: he to outsiders.18 If, as Tobin Siebers has argued,
idiosyncratically arranges his place settings we tend to ascribe narcissism to the disabled,
and refuses to use any but his own utensils, that attribution is especially interesting in
sterilely packaged in Ziploc bags. Eventu- the case of OCD. One might argue that un-
ally, Udall is brought out of his implacable recuperated obsessive-compulsive symptoms
cycle of obsessiveness by being called upon threaten to expose the narcissism implied by
(browbeaten at first by Frank Sachs, Simon’s the liberal bourgeois ideal of self-sufficiency
manager) to help others—to care for Simon’s through the simple mechanism of mirroring.
dog, to offer assistance to Carol’s sick child, to If OCD is a satirical allegory of contemporary
drive Simon to visit his estranged parents— ideology, then to bring those with OCD out
which gradually diminishes his obsessiveness. of the closet and “normalize” their behav-
The ethical bias of the movie is unmistakable: ior is to contain the exaggerated versions of
OCD is fundamentally antisocial. As Udall the normative self allegorized by unrecon-
halfheartedly confesses to Carol, normal en- structed obsessive symptoms. Contemporary
counters with the outside world convince him representations of OCD tend to be complicit
that he ought “to become a better man.”17 The in what Lennard Davis has described as the
suggestion that obsessives like Udall are anti- hegemonic patrolling of normalcy: “normalcy
social is a point of view that, as I noted earlier, must constantly be enforced in public venues
runs counter to the phenomenology of obses- (like the novel), must always be creating and
siveness: obsessives are typically excessively bolstering its image by processing, compar-
conscientious and moralistic and wracked ing, constructing, deconstructing images of
with irrational guilt over imagined actions. normalcy and the abnormal” (44).19124.1 ] Paul Cefalu 55
This normalizing tendency brings us to collapse fine distinctions between obses-
back to genre theory. If contemporary tex- sive character traits, which may or may not
tual representations of OCD initially cross be ego-dystonic in nature, and OCD, which
genres, keeping us in suspense as to whether by definition entails ego-dystonic behavior.
plotlines will turn out tragically, comically, Ultimately, mainstream representations of
or tragicomically, most such texts resolve as OCD help us understand one of the funda-
straightforward comedies, at least formally: mental differences between the actual experi-
interpersonal conf licts are tidily resolved, ence of OCD and its distorted representations
and the marginal obsessives are often re in popular culture. While some with OCD
assimilated into conventional social net- cannot help but publicly reveal their obses-
works. Indeed, comedy, by virtue of its form, sions, OCD is, for the most part, one of the
drives the more manageable, caricatured most private, even secretive mental disorders.
version of OCD that we find in the popular Most victims of OCD carry out their compul-
media. Consider that, as Northrop Frye and sions for years without arousing the suspicion
others have demonstrated, comedy typically of friends and family; and most crave to be
involves the conversion rather than repu- around others, not least because their com-
diation of an otherwise irreconcilable block- pulsions are so embarrassing that sufferers
ing character, a conversion that allows for a are salutarily forced to contain them when in
happy ending and the restoration of an inclu- public. This disjuncture between the private
sive rather than exclusive society. Drawing on and public phenomenology of OCD is lost in
Ben Jonson’s notion that blocking characters pop-c ultural representations, where one is
are governed by one overriding humor or pas- almost encouraged to make facile extrapo-
sion, whose “dramatic function is to express lations from overt behavior to underlying
a state of what might be called ritual bond- obsessions. Given that the physical displays
age,” Frye explains why a blocking character are playful and humorous, and given that the
is typically absurd or funny: “He is obsessed discrepancy between the private and public
by his humor, and his function in the play is aspects of the disorder is overlooked, one
primarily to repeat his obsession. . . . Repeti- tends naturally (but erroneously) to assume
tion overdone or not going anywhere belongs that there is also something light or comical
to comedy, for laughter is partly a reflex, and about the private worries and obsessions that
like other reflexes it can be conditioned by a give rise to compulsions. In this respect, at
simple repeated pattern” (146). Frye’s point is least, Martin’s The Pleasure of My Company
that, historically, the form of comedy paral- is exceptional in offering one of the roundest
lels the content of obsessional behavior.20 pictures of an obsessive. Daniel, hilarious in
But not all obsessional behavior is symp- his quirkiness, describes the palpable anxi-
tomatic of OCD, since, as I have been claim- ety of not being able to carry out his peculiar
ing throughout this essay, obsessives with the ritual of avoiding curbs and streets: “With my
clinical form of the disorder anxiously expe- heart rapidly accelerating and my brain aware
rience obsessions and compulsions against of impending death, my saliva was drying out
their will. Comedy serves the ideological so rapidly that I couldn’t remove my tongue
work of recent portrayals of the clinical form from the roof of my mouth. But I did not
of OCD because comedy depicts a generic, scream out. Why? For propriety. Inside me
truncated version of obsessiveness that only the fires of hell were churning and stirring;
seems to mirror the actual symptomatology but outwardly I was as still as a Rodin” (44).
of OCD. Indeed, what skews so many recent What should one conclude, ultimately,
media representations of OCD is the tendency about the therapeutic or even ideological work,56 What’s So Funny about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? [ PM L A
if any, of mainstream literary and pop-cultural 3. Arnold’s conception of pathetic insanity is largely
duplicated in John Haslam’s influential Observations on
representations of OCD? On the positive side,
Madness and Melancholy (1801), although Haslam cat-
such depictions, through humor, render OCD egorizes such behavior more generically as a manifesta-
more understandable and less fearsome, no tion of melancholy (44).
doubt prompting obsessives to come out of 4. As an example of monomania, Esquirol describes
the closet. On the other hand, such depictions in his Treatise on Insanity the rituals of a patient who
one day, at the age of eighteen, becomes despondent
suggest that obsessives are just too inwardly
because she believes that each time she handles money,
focused and that a little more other-regarding “she shall retain something of value in her fingers” (350).
behavior can improve their condition. Most See also Janet, who invokes Bunyan as an exemplary case
obsessives will realize that there is something of scrupulosity (1: 65). For an excellent introduction to
Janet’s study of monomania, see van Zuylen, ch. 1 and
amiss here, since, in terms of the public and
passim. The modern terms obsessive and compulsive were
private divide at least, one way to alleviate introduced toward the end of the nineteenth century as,
obsessions and compulsions is not to bring respectively, British and American translations of Karl
the private into the public but rather to bring Friedrich Otto Westphal’s and Freud’s Zwangsvorstel-
the public into the private. Since most obses- lung, their term for obsessional behavior. See “History.”
5. Some mid-t wentieth-century cognitive and behav-
sions and compulsions go on secretly at home, ioral approaches to treating OCD can be found in Meyer,
close, domestic companionship and intersub- Levy, and Schnurer; Cawley.
jective relations, especially those that support 6. A recent survey of the etiology and neurochemistry
cognitive-behavioral regimens, are especially of OCD can be found in Rosenberg, Russell, and Fougere.
therapeutic.21 Again, with the notable excep- 7. In the “comedy of humours,” developed in the dra-
matic works of the sixteenth century in Eng land, the
tion of Martin’s The Pleasure of My Company,
behavior of selected characters is governed by one over-
in which the protagonist finds a reprieve riding trait, itself fueled by the preponderance of a par-
from his obsessiveness after two empathetic, ticular bodily substance. Ben Jonson writes in Every Man
solicitous girlfriends successively move into out of His Humour, “Some one peculiar quality / Doth so
possess a man, that it doth draw / All his affects, his spir-
his apartment, we do not yet have an accu-
its, and his powers / . . . all to run one way” (Prologue,
rate, nontechnical, and accessible depiction 80–83). Suffice it to say that obsessiveness as represented
of OCD. This would include, minimally, a on the early modern stage is much closer in etiology to
faithful representation of the complexly dual, OCPD or what was simply called monomania in earlier
incongruous nature of a disorder in which centuries than to OCD. These characters are so driven by
one overriding passion that they represent caricatures or
severely anxiogenic psychological states can stock types of temperaments that derive from an imbal-
ironically produce laughable physical acts. ance of physiological humors, according to Renaissance
psychology. Modern and contemporary representations of
obsessiveness more often depict psychologically realistic,
rounded characters who also happen to suffer from obses-
sions and compulsions that are typically undesirable.
8. On the notion of the idée fixe in Flaubert, Baudelaire,
Notes and French Romanticism generally, see van Zuylen, esp.
1. Perhaps the most notorious American hoarders of chs. 2–4. On Poe’s tales and obsessiveness, see Hoffman.
the twentieth century were the Collyer brothers, often 9. I use the phrase “long-term victims” because the
referred to as the Harlem Hermits in a series of maga- sort of nonfictional accounts of OCD given by Sedaris
zine and newspaper articles in the 1940s and 1950s. See and Traig are exceptional in that both authors were able
“Police”; Lidz. For recent medical texts on hoarding, see to securely overcome their symptoms. For most sufferers
Steketee and Frost; Grisham and Barlow. Compulsive of the disorder, symptoms tend to persist over a lifetime,
animal hoarding is the subject of J. A. Jance’s pulp novel although they may remit with a combination of drugs
Exit Wounds (2004). and cognitive therapy. One assumes, then, that to the ex-
2. Osborne draws especially on the steeple passage in tent that OCD is a laughing matter to some victims of the
Bunyan’s spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding, in disorder, those victims often suffer a temporary bout of
which Bunyan ruminates excessively on whether a steeple symptoms and then retrospectively find humor in their
that he frequently visits will fall on his head (Bunyan 15). earlier experiences with OCD.124.1 ] Paul Cefalu 57
10. For an informative, unsparing critique of the 21. For example, Terry Spencer Hesser describes at length
positive-humor movement, see Lewis, ch. 2. in her memoir how her intimate relationships, especially
11. Freud found incongruity—and hence “absurdity”— with a young male friend and fellow obsessive, Sam, helped
to be central to obsessive neurosis, but he assumed that keep her OCD in perspective. See Hesser, esp. chs. 18–22.
the manifestation of an obsession was simply a replace-
ment of or substitution for underlying trauma (“Obses-
sions” 85). For a fascinating criticism of Freud’s tendency
to link all obsessiveness to meaningful events and in-
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