Tim O’Shei interviewed Jay Leno for The Buffalo News (6/23/2017) about his philosophy on stand-up, and in Leno’s responses I see a few popular notions of stand-up that I (and others) write about.
Anti-political: Hitting both sides
O’Shei asks Leno, “You seem to balance the political material in your act and talking about Republicans and Democrats equally. Is that instinctive, or something you learned to do over time?”
To which, Leno answered,
I always found when I was on the road, I would do a (Donald) Trump joke and I would do a Hillary (Clinton) joke, and go back and forth, and everybody started laughing as they realized, “Oh, you’re just not picking on one side.
This statement could also have been said by Bill Burr about his 2017 Netflix special, Walk Your Way Out, or a number other comics.
When asked to clarify on Trump, Leno says,
I was lucky. I came up at a time when (George) Bush was dumb and (Bill) Clinton was horny. These were just sort of normal human failings you could have some fun with.
Russell Peterson has called this process of “having fun,” with “normal human failings,” “Leno-izing,” and notes that the process is distinctly “anti-political.” For Peterson, “it is not satire,” actual, meaningful political critique done in a humorous way, “but pseudo-satire.” Such “nightly assaults on political leaders are characterized not by critical engagement with politics, but by a kind of lazy nihilism.” As opposed to treating politicians like enemy targets, they treat politicians as “mere targets of opportunity.” He says, “Their attitude is: we make fun of whoever shows up, we hit both sides evenly, and we don’t mean any of it.”
When Leno (or any other late-night host) makes jokes about Bush being dumb and follows with jokes about Clinton being horny, Peterson says the “conviction” such jokes “[turn] upon is not that politics and politicians don’t matter, but that they are irredeemably and indistinguishably insufferable.” It is a reductio ad absurdum, a reduction of their humanity to a caricature, a humor (in Northrop Frye’s sense of a ruling passion that hamstrings a character’s actions). Peterson traces this literary method back Aristophanes.
What this expresses – albeit passively – for Peterson is all politicians are bad, and that therefore “the political process itself – and, by implication, representative democracy, which depends on that process – is an irredeemable sham.” Peterson further links this belief to low voter turnout. In this sense, such comics are undermining our very democracy.
While Leno seems to believe that comics can make a difference when expressing a political view, he doesn’t seem to see it as their job. Their job is not to be wise fools who “speak truth to power,” but to be funny.
True/untrue vs. funny/unfunny
In his last question, O’Shei asks, “I was talking to a rising stand-up comic who told me, ‘Comedians are the only people left who can tell the truth.’ Do you agree with that?”
Leno answered,
The answer lies somewhere in the middle. One thing you don’t want to do is get too self-important as a comedian, when you think you’re the only one telling the truth…. The truth is most comics just want a really good laugh. That’s what you’re going for, and if there happens to be some truth in it, well that’s really nice, too. But most comics will lie their teeth off if it gets them a good laugh.
Again, this seems to express that comics can speak truth, but they’re not trying to – or they shouldn’t be.
In answer to a previous question about being political, Leno similarly said,
As a performer, your goal is to be funny first, and people will figure out your politics….Just do your act and let them come to that discovery on their own. When you make an announcement like that, right away you lose half the crowd…. I think comics are truth-tellers to a certain extent, but you need to be a comedian first. The idea is to really be funny.
Leno notes of the Kathy Griffin incident (which I’ve addressed previously),
The Kathy Griffin incident, perfect example of that, when she held up the bloody Trump head. If it had been funny, people would have gone, “That was awful. But I’ve got to tell you, it was really funny.” If it’s not funny, you’re just standing there naked onstage.
This speaks to another thought I addressed recently: that comics become “truly” themselves onstage. Leno seems to think comics will be whatever will make the audience laugh. [For the record, I agree with this, but think the best of us temper this with some kind of goal – what can I say that the audience will agree with and laugh? Or at least, some boundaries – what am I not willing to say that would make this audience laugh?]
Leslie Jones expressed something similar in her interview with Sylvia Obell of BuzzFeed:
I’m so tired of comedians trying to teach people. Your job is not to teach people; it is to make them laugh. And if we can laugh about the pain, then we can get taught somewhere else. There’s no laughter in this world right now, at least not no pure laughter. And anytime any comedian steps up with the bullshit, they are making people hate us. Step up with some funny shit, don’t step up with that political controversial shit. … Bring some goddamn laughter or stop calling yourself a comic.
These last quotes confirm what Peterson has said about comics like Leno (and those trying to do the same), that they do not seek to “speak truth to power.” But instead, they are, “almost by definition, consensus-seekers. They don’t succeed by saying things with which the audience disagrees…. Challenging people’s beliefs… makes them defensive, angry, and uncomfortable, and people don’t laugh when they’re uncomfortable.”
New models, new possibilities
However, this is just one, outdated model of stand-up. Even Leno notes,
With Netflix and comedy specials, comedians find their audience and play to that. If you have a particular point of view – Republican or Democrat – you just go to that audience and play to that crowd. But that doesn’t help you grow as a performer.
The shift is toward niche marketing, finding your audience, and it can be lucrative. This is the basis of Rory Scovel’s Lenny Bruce opening: to weed out those who aren’t likely to be his type of audience. So comics who want to speak to a particular political sensibility can do that.
This, however, begs the question: If they’re only writing for people who already believe, are they having a meaningful political impact? While reinforcing a responsible political belief might be good political work, it might not be as meaningful as convincing the unconvinced. It would seem like comics in the age of Netflix are free to abandon that goal.
I should point out that neither Peterson nor Leno (nor Jones) seem to say that comics can’t speak the truth to – and change the mind of – a general audience, just that they probably shouldn’t and therefore usually don’t. Some can and undoubtedly do, though it’s really hard to point out when and where it actually happened. So many other things are going on – so many messages being exchanged simultaneously – can we ever really say it was “just one thing” that made the difference?
Leslie Jones has said, “Comedians’ job is to point out what’s going on in society and make it funny.” Embedded here is the possibility of finding common ground with a general audience that doesn’t reduce politicians and issues to caricatures – though this is really difficult. But then, we all have to have goals.
In the words of Mark Twain,
Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. And by forever, I mean thirty years.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
References:
Peterson, Russell. Strange Bedfellows: The Politics of Late-Night Television. Doctorial Dissertation. The University of Iowa, 2005.
Wilson, Nathan. Was That Supposed to be Funny? A Rhetorical Analysis of Politics, Problems and Contradictions in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation in partial completion of the Ph.D. August, 2008.
