Elahe Izadi, in an article for the Washington Post (7/13/2017), talks about the current “stand-up comedy boom.”
Never before has so much original material been this easy to access and been consumed by this many people. Never before has the talent pool of comedians been this deep, and in format, voice and material, this diverse.
And comedy’s cultural resonance deepens with rapid technological change, increasing societal divisions and a dizzying news cycle.
While I highly recommend reading her article, I’d like to highlight certain passages to bring out some interesting points about humor: its power, what stand-up’s audience is, her history lesson and the rise of the current boom, and her take on both the wonders of technology and the breaking of society.
The power of humor
Comedy Central executive, Steve Raizes, believes that humor is a vital part of anyone’s identity or persona (and Erving Goffman says we all have a persona, an “on-stage” self).
People really define themselves, both in real life but also on social media, through their sense of humor. That’s how you portray yourself publicly and how people get to know you.
Michael Che adds,
It feels like everybody’s a comedian. Even news articles are written with a humorous twist and the headline is funny.
This has been true for quite some time, as humor is recognized as a way to make a message more palatable. Others, like Philip Stamato of Splitsider.com argue that humor might be a necessity in the current political news climate.
What stand-up is
Audience
For Dave Chappelle,
It seems like one of the reasons comedy is doing so well has to do with the nature of the genre. We engage the audience, and in this digital world, it always works best live. It feels good to just sit in a room and talk to people and be spoken to and laugh, and validate or invalidate each other’s feelings.
So in terms of things I’ve discussed before, Chappelle casts the audience’s role as voters: “validating and invalidating,” voting yay or nay.
Michael Che has a slightly different take on the current state of affairs,
People are more holding comedians accountable, not for being funny, but for being on the right side of history. It just feels like audiences want somebody who will get up there and say what they’ve already been thinking, as opposed to saying something they’ve never thought of before.
This is, again, the audience and comic validating each other’s feelings, but Che makes it seem like a one-way exchange: the audience wants their feelings validated, not to validate the comic’s, and especially not if the material is politically or socially “wrong.”
This doesn’t seem, on face, true. Audience members have always become outraged, booed, heckled, or just left. Perhaps the range of topics where these “votes” are the results has increased as people become more self-aware, but it also depends on the joke; some comics seem to be able to “get away with it.” If audiences are holding comics accountable, it’s because stand-up comedy is powerful; stand-up comedy matters.
Comics
Chappelle also says, “But we’re also bombarded with information, and comics are great distillers of information.” This is his role for the comic; to feed us information, to tell us what’s important and break it down into a manageable form. Izadi notes,
Comedy is being taken more seriously now. Top-billing stand-up comedians are treated as public intellectuals.
“Maybe even 10 years ago we weren’t respected as much as we are now,” Jim Jefferies says. “People almost are talking about comedy more than they’re performing it”
Indeed the whole view of comics has gotten a lot more serious, and as Che notes, comedians are being held accountable.
Serious
Chappelle says,
It’s a great time to be a comedian, artistically and professionally. There’s a lot of good people doing a lot of good, serious work. It’s funny to say you’re serious about comedy, but I think a lot of people are.
If I can tweak Chappelle’s intentions just a bit: there are a lot of people doing stand-up comedy that is meaningful, stand-up that matters, and comedians, critics and audiences are taking stand-up comedy a lot more seriously.
History lesson
Izadi talks about the recent history of stand-up:
Comedy has boomed before. While a handful of comics became cultural phenomena during the 1960s and ’70s, stand-up went full mainstream during the 1980s.
Mike Birbiglia says that in the 1980’s, “every hotel lounge had a comedy club, too” at least on Friday and Saturday nights. “There were hundreds of those across the country. Tons of people started doing stand-up comedy who were terrible, and that’s what leads to crashes.”
And boy, did it crash. The novelty of stand-up evaporated.
Izadi tells stories of comics who practiced their art in secret, like a cult or sex fetish. Birbiglia remembers that by 2003, maybe 10 comedians could sell out theaters.
Current boom
However, in 2003,
Comedy Central partnered with Live Nation for its first national tour featuring Lewis Black, [Dave] Attell and Mitch Hedberg. It was such a hit that all three comedians became theater acts on their own, Birbiglia says.
That was apparently the beginning of the current boom, although it seems odd that a single tour would mark such a cultural change.
The change seems legit, however. Izadi’s evidence is that
Now, “there’s now like 50 to 75 comedians, myself included, who sell out theaters,” Birbiglia says. “That’s a crazy phenomenon.”
Gabriel Iglesias, Bill Burr and Aziz Ansari [and we can add Louis C.K., Dane Cook and Amy Schumer] have sold out Madison Square Garden. Kevin Hart performed for 53,000 people at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field.
But George Carlin sold out the Garden in 1992; yes, that’s six to one, I’m just saying, it wasn’t unheard of. However, while big names can sell out large venues, most working comics take to the road, touring known comedy clubs, and these have increased as well:
For decades, some cities could only support one comedy club, and now they have multiple ones, [Brian Volk-Weiss, founder of comedy production and distribution company Comedy Dynamics,] notes.
More than just a new growth of clubs, there’s also been a increase in festivals, and they are increasing well attended. In 2016, the Kansas City comedy scene began a festival, in 2017, we have two. Izadi notes that, “In early June [2017], more than 45,000 people showed up at Clusterfest [San Francisco].”
There’s also been an increase in recorded specials,
Comedy Dynamics produced about five specials yearly less than a decade ago. Last year, they made 52, available on outlets such as Netflix, Seeso and Hulu.
Netflix has licensed stand-up since launching its streaming service in 2007, but it has doubled-down in recent years. In 2015, it released a dozen new specials. Last year, 19. This year? So far, an average of about one a week: 25.
This points out perhaps the biggest boon to stand-up comedy: the internet and streaming services, which I will address in a later post.
One more thing…
Izadi notes that we’re talking a lot more about the joke work, the writing and performance.
A cadre of podcasts featuring comics talking shop and devoted to dissecting the craft, such as Marc Maron’s “WTF,” have huge followings.
Jim Jefferies says, “I used to get asked to tell jokes, now I get asked, ‘How do you write a joke?’ ”
Critics writing about comedy the way they write about film brings added prestige to the genre, says [Phoebe] Robinson. Still, “it’s like watching a food show,” she adds. “You can watch it, but if you don’t do it, you don’t really understand the complexities of it.”
That is, after all, the purpose of this blog. Yes, this conversation is difficult to follow, especially when you’re chasing a pack of popular sources, who, in turn, are chasing their own tails, but it is rewarding (at least for me).
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
