The Geopolitics of Pratfalls.(United States - European relations)

Charlie Chaplin once explained that there are two ways to film the old "guy slips on a banana peel" joke: a funny way, and an unfunny way.

The first, unfunny way goes like this: Cut to the guy walking, oblivious. Cut to the banana peel, lying in wait. Cut to a wide shot of the guy approaching the banana peel. Cut to a close-up of the banana peel, just as the guy's foot hits it. Cut back to the wide shot, as the guy slips on the peel and lands on his rear end, which, as everyone knows from cartoons, is the funniest part of the human body.

The second, funny way to film that same sequence is as follows: Cut to the guy, walking. Cut to the banana peel, lying in wait. Cut to a wide shot of the guy approaching the banana peel. Cut to a close-up of the banana peel, just as the guy's foot almost hits it. Cut back to the wide shot, as the guy deftly steps over the banana peel, a self- satisfied expression on his face. And just as his smug smile reaches its widest point, he falls into an open manhole.

Get the difference? It isn't the falling that's funny; it's the gloating. Slipping on a banana peel doesn't make you a comic buffoon. Pompous self-congratulations, though, most certainly do.

Volumes have been written (and volumes more, sadly, are being churned out this minute) about the troubled state of relations between the United States and Europe. We all have our theories; inside every overeducated newsmagazine reader lurks a foreign-policy expert yearning to break free. But the central question in today's little piece of international slapstick is who, exactly, plays the part of the guy walking down the street? Who is playing the part of the banana peel? And who, especially, is the open manhole?

From out here on the California beaches, it's tempting to cast the movie in the obvious way. And the ...