I’
ve talked a lot on this blog about whether stand-ups tell the truth about their lives. Of course some do, but most fudge a bit. Even among those who give us the straight story, they frequently don’t tell all of it. However, the myth of stand-up as a space where one speaks one’s truth, especially to power, persists. In an interview with Kevin C. Johnson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (8/23/2017), Marlon Wayans feeds this myth.
I’m a free spirit. And when you’re doing comedy, you’re supposed to be naked — not care. And that’s an example where I didn’t care. I just want to make people laugh.
Marlon’ is a project I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I have to figure out how to take comedy and my life and bring it to the screen. Comedians successfully do their lives and personalities, but I wanted to make sure it’s about me. That’s what was most important to me.
Of course we shouldn’t miss his model of audiences as objects that he can “make laugh.” However, what’s with this idea that he’s “making sure it’s about me”?
The funny thing is, Johnson calls him out on his creative license, noting that “the show” is only “loosely based on his own life,” as it “is about a divorced couple co-parenting their children. (In real life, Wayans wasn’t married to the mother of his children.)”
So despite Marlon wanting this to be a truth telling act, it’s still served with a layer of fudge.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
