Philip Stamato of Splitsider.com, talking about late night comedy (6/28/2017) pretty much nails the premise of my humor projects:
It seems like nobody can agree on whether to take comedy very lightly or very seriously. People get firmly locked in their respective ideological camps, proclaiming either that comedy is powerful because it’s meaningless or that it’s powerful because it contains more meaning than anything else (and indeed it’s usually “the most” of something; people rarely get heated and argue that it’s just “pretty much” something).
Yes, we seem obsessed with the idea that comedy must be either a free (carnivalesque) space where there are no rules thus a space in which we can, to paraphrase Augusto Boals, “dress rehearse the revolution,” or it must be a space in which one can “speak truth to power.” I’ve raised questions about both of these endpoints.
Range of intentions
Stamato continues with more problems I’ve noted:
What the debaters always seem to ignore is just how broadly they’re defining something as wide-ranging as comedy. Some comedy is very meaningful. Some comedy is pretty much meaningless.
Yes, the problem is that different comics have different goals, different intentions, though we often think of them (and many of them think of themselves) as not meaning any of it. Some do try to do some meaningful stuff, sometimes, but most don’t, and the change to doing consequential stuff is a more recent creation.
Recent change
Stamato argues that late night comedy since Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show has come to be more and more about providing “news and valuable information,” whereas in the past “it was overtly trivial.”
The closest thing America had then to what it has now was Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, which was simply comedians reading headlines and providing either puns or comedically deliberate misinterpretations. The idea that anybody could gain any practical and informative news from late night comedy shows was laughable in itself.
I’ve addressed this issue of a lack of deep critique while discussing Russell Peterson’s take on Jay Leno. I remember quite fondly Gilda Radner as Emily Litella on “Violins on Television,” which beautifully encapsulates the idea. But there’s the hook: I remember it.
Memorable
That’s Stamato’s point about comedy (something we’ve known at least since Aristotle): it makes a lasting impression because it appeals to our emotions.
Mixed with actual, well-researched information, that makes comedy one of the most lasting and enduring means of transmitting information.
Whether or not people agree with [late night comedy segments], they stick; they make their way into traditional news media and social media, and they become the avenue through which many ultimately focus on the issue at hand. So it makes sense that we should be as concerned with factuality and quality of research in our late night comedy segments as we are with factuality and quality of research in traditional news media.
It is important, if comedy is going to do good things, that it be based in the truth.
Truthful
Stamato quotes The Daily Show’s senior producer, Adam Chodikoff:
I want it on my gravestone. Without credibility, the jokes mean nothing.
Similarly, Will Storey, research manager for Late Night with Seth Meyers, says that a joke is
only funny if it’s based in reality and if the audience can connect that reality to absurdity. Reality is getting pretty absurd these days, and that provides a lot more leeway.
In the last two-thirds of the article, Stamato chronicles the ways that late night comedy shows obtain information and check facts, and he never returns to the theme with which he introduced the piece: what is the power of comedy?
Maybe he thinks he has, the assumption seems to be that it can “speak truth to power” in a memorable way, if the comic wants (intends) to, but that might not be enough if the audience doesn’t do anything about it.
Comforting
Stamato also points out that the comedy news format is comforting to some:
Jon Stewart offered Americans the opportunity to take in the news without it leading to mini panic attacks, and in the atmosphere that immediately followed 9/11, it was comforting to be able to laugh at news. As Anthony Jeselnik has said, “No matter how terrible something is, if you can find a way to laugh at it, then things are going to be all right.”
However, that brings up another point, as Neil Postman has posited, are we just amusing ourselves to death? This is the key question raised in response to Relief theory. Are we, in laughing at jokes about current events, replacing action with laughter? Shouldn’t we freak out and handle the problem?
Summary
Perhaps I shouldn’t look to Stamato for answers; after all, I don’t have any. I just have educated guesses. Still, it’s good to see people starting to take comedy seriously, and to question the standard scripts of what it can and can’t do, even if they end up reinforcing some of them.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
