Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Jerry A. Flieger on Freud’s Introduction

Posted on by nwilson

In The Purloined Punch Line, Jerry Aline Flieger picks apart Freud’s arguments, looking for consistency. She finds some problematic assumptions right from the start.

In his introduction, Freud finds nine criteria and characteristics of jokes that “[Seem] to us at first sight so very much to the point and so easily confirmed by instances” that we can easily accept them (6). One of these is “The characteristic of playful judgement.”

Playful judgment

Freud, working from Kuno Fischer’s work, notes that jokes are judgments that produce “comic contrasts,” but unlike bona fide, “useful” discourse, jokes and the judgments they produce are playful in nature, like the aesthetic. Flieger draws our attention to this passage:

The aesthetic attitude towards an object is characterized by the condition that we do not ask anything of the object, especially no satisfaction of our serious needs, but content ourselves with the enjoyment of contemplating it. The aesthetic attitude is playful in contrast to work. (4)

Flieger notes that Freud is saying that jokes are “divorced from serious needs” (59); that we don’t expect them to satisfy any biological function, but only psychological “enjoyment.”

Tendentious jokes

The problem is that Freud devotes a massive amount of space toward a distinction between tendentious jokes, which fulfill “a hostile purpose”, and innocent jokes, which are “a purely aesthetic – ‘aim in itself'” (58). Tendentious jokes have a serious purpose: they express “a hostile urge directed against a victim” (58).  She quotes Freud here:

By making our enemy small, inferior, despicable, or comic, we achieve in a roundabout way the enjoyment of overcoming him. (103)

Flieger clearly takes this type of psychological “enjoyment” is, for Freud, the expression of a deeper, serious biological need.

There are other passages Flieger points to later that corroborate with this evidence, and I’ll get to them in due time.  However, I need to put up a brief note about deconstruction.

Deconstruction

When critics find inconsistencies, we generally use them to question the author’s thesis by a process some call deconstruction (others don’t name it, but they generally hit the steps in some fashion). The term has a lot of uses, but my understanding and usage of the term is based on Derridean (from Jacques Derrida) Deconstruction, as explained by Barbara Biesecker, Ph.D [Though if she ever reads this (she won’t), she’ll probably tell me I’m wrong, as I am about so much of Derrida].

Derridean Deconstruction is a four step process, initiated by the critic, but grounded in the text. Though the critic points out the problem, the problem is with the text itself; the text essentially deconstructs itself through internal inconsistencies.  What the critic does is:

  1. Locate a key binary opposition in the text. For Freud, they are things like unconscious versus conscious (although there’s also preconscious) and tendentious versus innocent jokes.
  2. Determine the hierarchy in the author’s theory. Freud views innocent jokes as frivolous and purely aesthetic, so only tendentious jokes, which have a hostile purpose, matter. The hierarchy is: tendentious/innocent.
  3. Find an example in the text where the hierarchy is inverted. In the above case, Freud says all jokes are aesthetic; although they produce judgment, they can fulfill no purpose, satisfy no need save enjoyment. Essentially: tendentious = innocent.
  4. Carry this inversion through to the rest of the text. What happens when we apply the broken or inverted hierarchy to other examples? If the hierarchy breaks down in this case, can we use the case as a key to show the flaws in all the other cases? What happens to the overarching argument?

People get mad at the critics [Though, to be fair, Derrida’s writing style casts him as an asshole], but the problem is with the text and theory itself: in the immortal words of rapper and actor Ice-T, “You played yourself.”

Flieger will essentially take apart Freud’s theory of tendentious jokes and see what remains in the rubble; strap in, it’s going to be fun to watch [If you’re into such things]!

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Cases and Current Events/Comics Talking Shop/Stand Up Comedy

Is Tiffany Haddish Serious?

Posted on by nwilson

Tre’vell Anderson of the Los Angeles Times is doing double duty with his interviews: two articles in the same day feature his interview with Tiffany Haddish (7/20/2017). I’ll use the more fleshed out interview here, to call attention both to the traditional comic intention, and to Haddish’s alternative intention.

Comic Intent

In a story about her comedy camp experience, Haddish remembers being heckled by Richard Pryor.

Then he said that people don’t come to comedy shows because they want to hear about your problems or politics or religion or what’s going on in the world. They come to comedy shows to have fun. So when you’re on stage, you need to be having fun. I took that philosophy with me and I do that in everything that I do.

The idea that people come to comedy shows exclusively to have fun is pretty typical and traditional. A lot of comics who label themselves “entertainment” comics or other variations, use that as an excuse not to talk about “issues” on stage (whether their own, or social issues).

However, what Pryor is saying – or at least, how Haddish took it – is that, rather than avoiding your problems or politics or religion, the trick is for the comic to have fun with these topics.

Haddish’s Intent

Haddish has a message in her comedy; she is trying to teach.  Asked about industry pressures, she diverts to this:

The only thing I think of when I’m doing my job of being funny or working on these shows is, “How can I deliver my message in a way that will stick with people?” Every teacher that I’ve ever had, that I still remember their name, made me laugh. I feel like comedy is the best instrument to teach.

My special is coming out in August and to me it is a calling card, but also a learning tool. To me, when I do what I do, I’m just wondering, what am I teaching right now? What is the message right now? And how can it inspire?

People since before Socrates knew that humor made things memorable, that it helps teach. However, few comics take that approach – few even try – because they’re more focused on getting the laughs than making a statement.  Haddish, however, says that’s what she does.

Summary

Laughs are what the audiences are there for, and bigger audiences create more money for the clubs, which gets comics more gigs, higher pay, etc. So it’s no surprise their focus is there.  It’s tricky and dangerous to do both, so I applaud those that do. It’ll be interesting to watch her special in August, and see how she goes about it.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Sigmund Freud’s Jokes part A. I. b. – Introduction

Posted on by nwilson

This is the second of several installments on Sigmund Freud’s Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905; free eBook) – and the reactions to it. I’m using this blog to make public my notes, both to help people to understand the theories as well as to help me clarify in my own mind what philosophers and theorists have said about comedy, humor, jokes, etc.

In this installment, I go into the second set of criteria and characteristics of jokes from from Jean Paul Richter, Theodor Vischer, Kuno Fischer, and Theodor Lipps, that “[Seem] to us at first sight so very much to the point and so easily confirmed by instances” that we can easily accept them (6):

  • The coupling of dissimilar things
    • Contrasting ideas
    • Sense in nonsense
    • The succession of bewilderment and enlightenment/illumination
  • The peculiar brevity of wit

While Freud worries that there’s no unified theory that relates all the criteria and characteristics to one another, I’m trying to clarify these characteristics to get a better handle on his theory.

The coupling of dissimilar things

Freud notes that a classic definition of joking is “the ability to find similarity between dissimilar things – that is, hidden similarities” (4).  While the German, Witz, is translated in Freud as “joke” (and maybe also jest, jape, crack, gag, rib), it also means wit, wittiness, and witticism, which usually are defined as the possession of reasoning, mental soundness, astuteness, superior intellect, and “the ability to relate seemingly disparate things so as to illuminate or amuse” (Merriam-Webster.com).

Of course, as Freud and Lipps point out, this isn’t a quality of the joke, but of the joker; jokers make the connections.  Usually this process can be called comparison, the opposite of contrast, but contrast is part of it too.

Contrast is finding differences in things thought to be similar, and Fischer “stresses the fact that in a large number of joking judgments differences rather than similarities are found” (4). Here is the other side of wit, representing the “reasoning, soundness and astuteness”; it is the exercise of sound judgment.

This is perhaps why Freud uses (or is translated as using) “coupling” [Note: some translations, like Bartleby.com’s use “union”]  It’s not just the linking of dissimilar things, but also finding dissimilarities in things that are already linked. They are connected or paired, either prior to or because of the comedian’s work. Either way, this is the “revealing of something hidden or concealed,” that Freud and Fischer stress is true of caricatures and jokes.

Freud then goes into three “more or less interrelated ideas” (4). These seem to be logically subsets of coupling of the dissimilar, which is what the order Freud put them in suggests, so I’ve represented them as such.

Contrasting ideas

Freud quotes Emil Kraeplin, who defines a joke as,

[T]he arbitrary connecting or linking, usually by means of a verbal association, of two ideas which in some way contrast with each other (4).

So here we again see a restatement of wit in the form of contrast or judgment – Fischer’s finding of differences.  They are linked (or coupled) by the joker to create a contrast effect. One popular contrast is between sense and nonsense.

Sense in nonsense

Freud says of finding sense in nonsense (or visa versa),

What at one moment has seemed to us to have a meaning, we now see is completely meaningless.  That is what, in this case, constitutes the comic process… A remark seems to us to be a joke, if we attribute a significance to it that has psychological necessity and, as soon as we have done so, deny it again. (5)

This plays out various understandings:

  1. We attach sense to a remark and know that logically it cannot have any.

  2. We discover truth in it, which nevertheless, according to the laws of experience and our general habits of thought, we cannot find in it.

  3. We grant it logical or practical consequences in excess of its true content, only to deny these consequences as son as we have clearly recognized the nature of the remark. (5)

Or, in short form, first:

  1. We attach sense
  2. We discover truth
  3. We grant consequences

Then: we become conscious of or get the impression that the things we’ve attached or discovered or granted are, in fact, “relative nothingness” (5).

Another place where this plays out that Freud doesn’t note is the figure of the wise fool, both in the fool who is wise and in the supposedly wise who act foolish. As this version would have it, in the former case (wise fool), we attach sense, discover truth or grant consequences to their statements and actions; we think they are “speaking truth to power.”  Then we remember that they are, after all, fools, so there is nothing to guarantee that it actually made sense, was in fact true, or that they can produce consequences. We must now treat their statements and actions as suspect.

In the latter case (the wise who acts the fool), we likewise attach sense, discover truth or grant consequences to their statements and actions, but then recognize that they are not speaking in earnest, and thus again, there is nothing to guarantee that it actually made sense, was in fact true, or that they can produce consequences

This shift from meaningful to meaningless is said, Freud notes, to be the basis of the comic, and he wonders if it also contributes to defining jokes.

The succession of bewilderment and enlightenment/illumination

Freud notes that Immanuel Kant has previously said that the comic is “remarkable,” in that it can “deceive us only for a moment” (5). Gerard Heymans gives the example of a bit of wordplay, in which a poor character boasts that a Baron “had treated him quite as his equal – quite famillionairely” (5). Freud and Heymans argue that at first the word seems “wrongly constructed,” “unintelligible, incomprehensible and puzzling.  It accordingly bewilders,” but then we “get it,” we understand the word and are enlightened, the hidden or concealed is once again revealed (5).

More recent “gurus” of stand-up, like Jerry Corley who founded Comedy Clinic, unknowingly (or at least “unacknowledgingly”) reference this when they say things like “the number one element that triggers human laughter is SURPRISE.” When surprised, people are initially bewildered or confused. However, we should note with Freud and company that the surprise can only last for a moment, they must then be enlightened or reach clarity, or they won’t “get it.” As I noted in describing Incongruity and expectancy violation theory, Kenneth Burke has noted that you have to surprise them with something they should have seen coming.

Lipps argues that the enlightenment or illumination has two stages:

  1. We understand the meaning of the word
  2. “[W]e realize that this meaningless word has bewildered us and has then shown us its true meaning…. [T]hat a word… has been responsible for the whole thing.” (5).

The second illumination, which is also the “resolution of the problem into nothing” – sense in nonsense – is the only thing (for Lipps) that produces the comic effect (5). However, Freud and Lipps are quick to point out that it isn’t the word that did the work, but the person who wrote the joke.

The peculiar brevity of wit

Finally, Freud returns to a view expressed first by Shakespeare, but echoed by Jean Paul Richter that “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Lipps notes,

A joke says what it has to say, not always in few words, but in too few words – that is, in words that are insufficient by strict logic or by common modes of thought and speech.  It may even actually say what it has to say by not saying it. (6)

Any course or book on comedy will tell you that word economy is key.  You have to find a way to get to the punchline as quickly and smoothly as possible (unless you’re off on a tangent, but that tangent must also be quick, or you’ve lost the main joke). Words should be chosen for maximum impact.

All of these are “truisms” about comedy for Freud, needing no extensive proof to support their acceptance.

Freud’s project

The problem for Freud, as previously noted, is there’s no unified theory that relates all the criteria and characteristics to one another.

We are entirely without insight into the connection that presumably exists between the separate determinants…. We need to be told, further, whether a joke must satisfy all these determinants in order to be a proper joke, or need only satisfy some, and if so, which can be replaced by others and which are indispensable. We should also wish to have a grouping and classification of jokes on the basis of the characteristics considered essential (6-7).

Freud moves pretty fast, so to clarify, I will break each chapter into parts, and address each part in a separate post, broken up by posts by some of Freud’s critics. I’m currently working through The Purloined Punch Line, by Jerry Aline Flieger, so I’ll start there.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Funny

Sigmund Freud’s Jokes part A. I. a. – Introduction

Posted on by nwilson

This is the first of several installments on Sigmund Freud’s Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905; free eBook) – and the reactions to it. I’m using this blog to make public my notes, both to help people to understand the theories as well as to help me clarify in my own mind what philosophers and theorists have said about comedy, humor, jokes, etc.

In this installment, Freud introduces the project and goes into several theories about jokes and the comic that have come before; namely, from Jean Paul Richter, Theodor Vischer, Kuno Fischer, and Theodor Lipps. [Maybe someday I’ll get hardcore and attempt to work through these guys in German.]

Freud finds nine criteria and characteristics of jokes that “[Seem] to us at first sight so very much to the point and so easily confirmed by instances” that we can easily accept them (6). In the order in which he discusses them (and I will follow his lead), they are:

  1. Activity
  2. The bringing forward of what is hidden
  3. Relation to the content of our thoughts
  4. The characteristic of playful judgement
  5. The coupling of dissimilar things
    1. Contrasting ideas
    2. Sense in nonsense
    3. The succession of bewilderment and enlightenment
  6. The peculiar brevity of wit

The problem, for Freud, is there’s no unified theory that relates all the criteria and characteristics to one another.

We are entirely without insight into the connection that presumably exists between the separate determinants…. We need to be told, further, whether a joke must satisfy all these determinants in order to be a proper joke, or need only satisfy some, and if so, which can be replaced by others and which are indispensable. We should also wish to have a grouping and classification of jokes on the basis of the characteristics considered essential (6-7).

Freud moves pretty fast, so to clarify, I will deal with the first four of the above criteria and characteristics here, and the rest in a subsequent post to keep things manageable.

Activity

Theodor Lipps says that jokes are “entirely subjective” instances of the comic (or humor; what’s funny). Through a joke, the comic (or humor) “is attached to action of ours as such, to which we invariably stand in the relation of subject and never of object, not even of voluntary object” (80, as cited in Jokes, 3). We make jokes – we’re the jokers – and in these jokes we produce the comic; thus, we are active, striving to create humor.

A joke is “[A]ny conscious and successful evocation of what is comic, whether the comic of observation or of situation” (78, as cited in Jokes, 3). The competing ideas that it’s “subjective,” that we find it funny ourselves and thus try to make the joke, but that it must also be “successful” creates quite a bit of a problem, that Freud will later try to correct. Also, Freud will challenge the idea that this action is entirely “conscious.”

The bringing forward of what is hidden: Physical caricature

Kuno Fischer begins with the idea of the caricature, which is a subset of the comic that characterizes and reveals the physical world:

Many caricatures of Reagan depicted him as old.

If it is concealed, it must be uncovered in the light of the comic way of looking at things; if it is noticed only a little or scarcely at all, it must be brought forward and made obvious, so that it lies clear and open to the light of day… In this way caricature comes about. (as cited in Jokes, 3)

Caricature brings the concealed into the open, and yet characterizes it as comic by highlighting and “making obvious,” which usually involve hyperbolic representation.  But this is again done with physical things: a politician’s age, or actions, etc.  There’s another level beyond the physical: the world of thoughts.

Relation to the content of our thoughts

Fischer posits, in contrast, that what makes jokes a subset of the comic is their relation, not to an active subject/joker, but “to [the comic’s] object, which he considers is the concealed ugliness of the world of thoughts” (3).

World of thoughts and ideas

Fischer notes,

Our whole spiritual world, the intellectual kingdom of our thoughts and ideas, does not unfold itself before the gaze of external observation, it cannot be directly imagined pictorially and visibly; and yet it too contains its inhibitions, its weaknesses and its deformities – a wealth of ridiculous and comic contrasts (as cited in Jokes, 3)

To unpack this, the “world of thoughts and ideas” as differentiated from the physical world that we can observe is fairly straightforward; to avoid going all Marxist with ideology here, I’ll go to Kenneth Burke and his “Definition of Man [sic]” as “Inventors of the negative.” The world of thoughts and ideas is the world of the conceptual, and Burke might say of zero and “not.” We can’t see nothing – there’s nothing there to see – but we can conceptualize absence, and refer to things that are not physically present. But that’s still imagining “pictorially and visibly.” We picture something and note its absence.

We can also conceptualize things that have no physical presence (or absence), like wealth, prosperity, peace in the Middle East, freedom and ‘Merica!  Concepts like these cannot be pinned down to individual objects or things, and yet the concepts carry psychological force; they shape our actions, tell us what to like and how to think, and they don’t always work as a cohesive whole – they’re a mess of contradictions.  When we call attention to these contradictions and contrasts, we’ve made a judgement, which can take the form of a joke.

A joke is a judgement which produces a comic contrast; [comic contrast] has already played a silent part in caricature, but only in judgment does it attain its peculiar form and the free sphere of its unfolding (3).

So a joke is a judgment that displays or produces a comic contrast, which could run to ridicule and superiority theory, but to be comic it must be done playfully.

The characteristic of playful judgement

Fischer makes an analogy to the aesthetic, to beauty and form, which Freud describes as:

[A]esthetic freedom lies in the playful contemplation of things. Elsewhere the aesthetic attitude towards an object is characterized by the condition that we do not ask anything of the object, especially no satisfaction of our serious needs, but content ourselves with the enjoyment of contemplating it. The aesthetic attitude is playful in contrast to work. (4)

Thus playful judging is similarly “a sort of judging released from its usual rules and regulations” (4). Freud quotes Jean Paul Richter: “Freedom produces jokes and jokes produce freedom” (4).

We can see how this idea plays out in the notions of play spaces, and particularly in the simple carnivalesque, where the norms and rules of polite society are temporarily suspended and people are “free.” Freud similarly will incorporate an idea of how this “freedom” will come about.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

 

Cases and Current Events/Comics in the News/Stand Up Comedy

Rosie O’Donnell: There’s No There, There

Posted on by nwilson

Rosie O’Donnell’s in the news for a Tweet in which she promotes an online game, “Push Trump Off A Cliff Again.”  At first glance, it seems right up my alley: Yes, she’s a stand-up comedian. Yes, her public speech is creating a bit of a stir.  Yes, there’s a parody in there that’s amusing.

However, she neither conceptualized nor made the game.  She also didn’t name the game. Promoting a game that already exists is perhaps cringe-worthy, but hey, this post does it too, so…

Further, she wasn’t joking. Her Tweet wasn’t a joke – it was a bona fide statement that she enjoyed a game, that it amused her. Perhaps she hoped the game would amuse others, but that’s not the same as making a joke.

Nevertheless, her Tweet has provoked outrage, providing more evidence that the actions of all celebrities – even comics – must be policed because comics are dangerous, they have ideological power, the power to change ideas [a concept I’ll address very soon].

Cases and Current Events/Comics Talking Shop/Stand Up Comedy

Mike Birbiglia on Getting Personal

Posted on by nwilson

Mike Birbiglia spoke to Bill Brownstein of the Montreal Gazette (7/14/2017) about getting personal.

Getting personal is crucial in comedy. I feel that we’re living in this sort of Instagram culture, where people are going: ‘Look at the life I’m pretending to live.’ And then people go: ‘Ew, I’d like to have that life you’re pretending to live.’

I do that myself on occasion. I go on Instagram and ask myself why I’m here and they’re there. But the truth is that it’s mostly fabricated and falsely framed and de-contextualized to give a sense of excitement and thrill. What I’ve tried to do with my shows is to bring them to a place where people don’t say: ‘I’d like to have that life.’ Instead they’d say: ‘That’s what my life is like, too, and it gives me some sense of perspective.’ One that is hopefully humourous and, sometimes, touching.

Brownstein says of Birbiglia:

[H]e merely wants to connect with audiences in search of someone who can articulate their similar experiences. Which explains why he still sees himself as “a travelling salesman of comedy.”

Birbiglia’s take seems to be that he’s not pretending to be something he’s not; he’s trying to speak from his real, lived experiences, his truths.

However, just as people on Instagram are taking selections of their experiences to highlight, we know that Birbiglia is as well.  His experiences, while perhaps less “mostly fabricated” (a claim not all comics can make) are no less “falsely framed and de-contextualized to give a sense of excitement and thrill,” because what is a laugh if not a form of excitement, an expression of a thrill?

His stated goal is to be less of an idol and more of a peer, to connect and “give a sense of perspective”; he wants people to relate. Further, this relating is not limited to laughing, but also deeper sentiment. In this, he diverts from traditional comic intentions.

What is inherent in his language, he’s “trying to bring them” and hopes for the best (humor, sentiment). He’s a salesman, but he seems to realize that it’s not on him; he can’t make them buy. The audience ultimately buys or does not; they are active but perhaps only at the level of voting.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

 

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Jokes

Parodic Satire

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I need to continue with Lewis Black’s 2006 Grammy nominated HBO special, Red, White and Screwed. Black meanders through several topical and social bits, eventually coming to the following:

We have no energy policy, you know? None whatsoever. We still don’t have a good one, it’s ridiculous. And if you ask… We’re not going to have solar energy in my lifetime, you know? A few people have it, but it’s something we should all have, it’s ridiculous. I’ll take no flying cars, but solar energy? And if you ask your congressman why, he’ll say, [With his eyes crossed, a slightly slack-jawed expression and clutching at himself for emphasis] “‘Cause it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. Makes me wanna go poopy. You wanna know why we don’t have solar energy? Because the sun goes away each day, and it doesn’t tell us where it’s going.”

I want to continue to use this example to point out some of the problems with how parody is currently used, especially in terms of its assumed ties to satire.

Agenda Setting

Gary Saul Morson notes parody’s ironic nature (though he does not name it as such), stating that parody (even when satiric) always grants credit to the work it attempts to discredit; that one must first assert that the text is worthy of notice before it can be ridiculed–we must put it on the agenda.

In this respect, the parody always lends credibility to the original, if we haven’t heard of the original, we may seek it out, and it thus becomes more famous.  This might greatly hamstring our ability to critique an argument by parodying it, as we’re only calling more attention to the original. In the above example, Black raises awareness of the energy policy, and the governmental difficulty in trying to implement it.

Shallow parody

Also, as Gring-Pemble and Watson note of shallow satire, Morson states that shallow parody or faint criticism may give the impression that “no more fundamental criticism could have been made” (73), leaving the original work intact (if not augmented) – and it may be difficult to determine in advance what audiences will designate as shallow.

For instance, though Black may make us more aware of the problem, we may know that the wheels of legislation are slow, and even good congress members are paralyzed by special interests, riders and the like – that it is “hard.”  As such, we may read Black’s infantilization as an oversimplification of a very complex problem.  Thus, parodic satire runs the risk of further bolstering the original speaker and/or text, rather than refuting them.

Simple negation

Further, for followers of the Situationists and Guy Debord, parody (and irony) errs on the side of too much determination.  This comes from the translation of parody, mentioned previously, as “against the song,” which, as in the case of irony is read as direct opposition, as opposed to merely supplementation.

This conception makes the parody a replacement (if not a negation) of a primary text or speaker by the secondary text or speaker. For authors with this interpretation, irony and parody must always serve as a negation of the primary text, rather than retaining the possibility of a celebratory–or any other–function (for more on other functions of parody see Rose).

Détournement

Parody and irony would seem on face to accomplish the Situationists’ goal of détournement, the detour, diversion, hijacking, corruption or misappropriation of the capitalist spectacle enacted to bring about its demise–in short, a vested political act with some humorous potential.

However, Christine Harold explains that the Situationists reject parody as a persuasive strategy because its ironic, “double-voiced” structure simply effects a negation that “maintain[s], rather than unsettles, audiences’ purchase on the truth” (192). Parody cannot be détournement precisely because, for Situationists, parody maintains the intentions and investments of the author as a negation of the original text.  While parody may serve as a repurposing of the spectacle, it still relies on the spectacle to further a message and thus does nothing to destroy the spectacle form itself.  In other words, parody for these authors maintains a reliance on the existing system of litige to which they are very much opposed.

In the Lewis Black example, we can still see a reliance on elected officials–if we voted in people who weren’t incompetent…. There’s also a reliance on arguments made by our representatives within Congress, as opposed to political revolution or anarchy, or some other system. Black isn’t making arguments about changing the system, he’s just complaining about the people in it.

Summary

Some would say the problem here is I’m quoting scholars interested in arguments, and applying their theories to comics, who don’t necessarily have (and who actively claim they don’t have) an argument.  However, to my mind, that points out the problems with these theories.  If they don’t apply in all cases, then they don’t really explain the phenomenon.  My major assumption in this project (as a whole) is that if we can pin down what comics can do through stand-up, then we have a rough estimate of what a bona fide speaker can be expected to achieve.

In relying on models from Aristotelian and classical rhetoric, we rely on a system of litige that would tether irony and parody to satire, to an authorial intent of ridicule, correction or censure:

  • The parody always calls attention to the primary statement or source, which may make that statement or source more famous.
  • The critique may not cut deep enough, thus the primary speaker remains unharmed, if not better off.
  • The second speaker or utterance must always critique or negate the original, it can’t do anything else.
  • Finally, because it works within a system, it doesn’t challenge the system itself.

While such a conception can be useful for a bona fide speaker constructing bona fide arguments–in helping the audience to “get it”–it in no way necessitates the reader accept the argument as such. It’s not as if audiences are required to read an argument in a particular way, and their laughter doesn’t signal agreement, they could be fake laughing or guffawing. This is what we learn when we try to apply these theories to comics, who are unreliable narrators.

Further, as articles on “outlaw rhetorics” attempt to show, forcing people to conform to conventional standards is weighted to favor elite, white, patriarchal heteronormativity, predicated on a level of social attainment that many disenfranchised groups would find difficult, when not unsavory, to achieve (Sloop and Ono).

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Black, Lewis.  Lewis Black: Red, White and Screwed.  New York: Home Box Office.  Original air date: 10 June, 2006, 10pm EST.  Rebroadcast 19 October, 2007, 9pm CST.

Debord, Guy.  The Society of the Spectacle.  Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith.  New York: Zone, 1994.

Gring-Pemble, Lisa and Martha Solomon Watson.  “The Rhetorical Limits of Satire: An Analysis of James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.”  Quarterly Journal of Speech 89.2 (2003): 132-53.

Harold, Christine.  “Pranking Rhetoric: ‘Culture Jamming’ as Media Activism.”  Critical Studies in Media Communication 21.3 (2004): 189-211.

Morson, Gary Saul.  “Parody, History, and Metaparody.”  Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges. Eds. G.S. Morson and Caryl Emerson.  Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1989.  63-86.

Rose, Margaret A.  Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern.  Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University, 1993.

Sloop, John M. and Kent A. Ono. “Out-law Discourse: The Critical Politics of Material Judgment.”  Philosophy and Rhetoric 30 (1997): 50-69.

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.

Humor Theories/Stand Up Comedy/Theories About Jokes

Parody

Posted on by nwilson

Two voices

Parody is another form of humor that is frequently conflated with verbal irony. In Gary Saul Morson’s read of Mikhail Bakhtin, parody is distinguished from irony by the inclusion of a “double-voiced word,” or an “utterance that [is] designed to be interpreted as the expression of two speakers,” the primary speaker and the parodist (65).

This definition is similar to the common understanding of verbal irony in that the ironist also is expressing two utterances, one stated and one (potentially) intended; however, the distinction seems to lie in parody’s recognition of a physical and/or temporal separation between the original speaker and an imposter (they parodist must always follow the original), and we can note that the latter references the former.

Of course, this idea of “an imposter who references the original” opens up a can of worms, which I hope to parse out soon.  Namely: What happens when a speaker parodies her/himself?  What should we call it when a speaker establishes a generic persona that doesn’t reference any specific speaker/agent – can you truly parody a “type”?  Or is the idea of “type” itself a parody? Can/should we posit that any speaker is ever bona fide, original or arché, thus relegating all else to copies (mimesis)?  Look for more on this soon.

Copies

In any case, that is how parody differentiates itself from irony: by a reliance on mimesis – impersonation or copying an original person or text, at least in form (the language they use and ways they express themselves).

Disagreement

Moreover, it is a disagreement between the two speakers – some have translated parody as “against the song” – and it is the second speaker who expects to gain our support, who has the authority.  Thus, like irony, parody is thought to involve a replacement (if not a negation) of a primary text by the secondary, especially when used for the purpose of satire.

However, others read parody, especially in its humorous forms as “beside the song,” in which case it doesn’t oppose the original in any meaningful way.  I think of Weird Al Yankovic’s “Eat It” parody of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”; the two texts were parallel in ways that were witty and thus humorous, but they were not in direct opposition. Both versions can exist side-by-side, without conflict; in fact, the one supports or supplements the other.

Signaling parody

Also like verbal irony, comics signal to the audience that statements are parodic through techniques such as exaggeration or understatement of foolish behaviors. For example they can overact or overreact, or they can strangely not react.  These and other techniques produce incongruity between the original and the copy.

In a previous example, which I’m sure you’re tiring of quickly, when Bill Maher quotes “people” and then Bush in the first and third paragraphs, these are thus not parody, but mimesis; they are mimicries of the public and President Bush, respectively, but they contain no secondary expression – so we can’t use it.  Thus, as an example of parody used for satirical purposes, I move to Lewis Black.

Lewis Black

Comedian, actor and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart correspondent Lewis Black has risen in popularity in recent years.  Black received the “Best Male Stand-Up” award from the American Comedy Awards in 2001.  In 2004, he was recognized by the Pollstar Awards and garnered his first Grammy nomination for his comedy tour, Rules of Enragement (washingtonpost.com).  His book, Nothing’s Sacred, debuted on The New York Times Bestseller List in 2005.  His HBO performance, Red, White and Screwed gained him a second Grammy nomination in 2006, and he won the award for Best Comedy Album in 2007 for The Carnegie Hall Performance. Since then, he won again in 2011 with Stark Raving Black, and was nominated again in 2013 for In God We Rust.

In an interview with Neal Conan on National Public Radio, Black describes himself as a ‘social’ (or perhaps ‘topical’) comic, not a political comic, because he draws material from whatever is in the news that excites him, from Superbowl half-time performances to the weather.  However, he does discuss partisan politics and governmental policy, and this has not gone unnoticed.

In Red, White and Screwed, Black meanders through several topical and social bits, eventually coming to the following:

We have no energy policy, you know? None whatsoever. We still don’t have a good one, it’s ridiculous. And if you ask… We’re not going to have solar energy in my lifetime, you know? A few people have it, but it’s something we should all have, it’s ridiculous. I’ll take no flying cars, but solar energy? And if you ask your congressman why, he’ll say, [With his eyes crossed, a slightly slack-jawed expression and clutching at himself for emphasis] “‘Cause it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. Makes me wanna go poopy. You wanna know why we don’t have solar energy? Because the sun goes away each day, and it doesn’t tell us where it’s going.”

Black sets up his parodic statements as satirical.  He states outright that solar energy is something we (American scientists) should have accomplished by now, and something the government should be pushing.

When he actually depicts a congressman, Black’s mannerisms (slightly swaying, face slack, hunching and grabbing himself), speech patterns (use of the term “poopy”) and rationality become that of a child, if not someone mentally challenged.  In this parody, the generic politician is infantilized, portrayed as incapable of action and thereby made the object of ridicule.  However, like ironic satire, even if one accepts that the speaker’s intention is ridicule, it may not be effective as I’ll argue tomorrow.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Black, Lewis.  Lewis Black: Red, White and Screwed.  New York: Home Box Office.  Original air date: 10 June, 2006, 10pm EST.  Rebroadcast 19 October, 2007, 9pm CST.

Morson, Gary Saul.  “Parody, History, and Metaparody.”  Rethinking Bakhtin: Extensions and Challenges. Eds. G.S. Morson and Caryl Emerson.  Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1989.  63-86.

Rose, Margaret A.  Parody: Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern.  Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University, 1993.

Washingtonpost.com.  “Stand-Up Man: Caustic and Cranky.”  Washingtonpost.com 7 June, 2006.  Retrieved 21 December, 2007.

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.

Cases and Current Events/Comics Talking Shop/Stand Up Comedy

Ron White on Entertaining

Posted on by nwilson

Just a quick one, so I’ll pair it with another “theory-theory” piece.

In an interview with Robert DiGiacomo of Atlanticcityweekly.com (7/18/2017), Ron White talks briefly about doing political comedy.

Q: What’s it like doing comedy in the age of Trump?

A: It was my conscious decision to just do a performance and not get on a soapbox about my political views. I felt like I owed it to my fans who pay to see me in these very tumultuous times to make them laugh. My fans are dead-split in the middle, and I’m wrong all the time. I don’t pretend I know something you don’t know.

Q: So no Trump jokes for you?

A: I did a couple of things that were just funny — easy stuff — as far as Trump-bashing. That’s really low-hanging fruit, and I think my fans appreciate it. I can make them laugh as hard as they want and as long as I want to do it and that’s what they paid for.

Here, we see the all too common view that the comic “makes [an audience] laugh,” that they are objects that he acts upon, and he is in control.

White also expresses the view that the comic’s main goal (their intention) is to get that laugh – “that’s what they paid for.”  He’s not even trying to do anything more.

Cases and Current Events/Comics Talking Shop/Stand Up Comedy

Lynne Parker and Comic Frames

Posted on by nwilson

In an interview with Hannah Williams of Backstage.com (7/13/2017), producer Lynne Parker says a few interesting things about stand-up and humor more generally.

On being funny

Parker is asked,

What makes a funny woman?
Much the same as for a funny man: the ability to laugh at yourself, not take yourself too seriously and translate that into how you communicate and relate to the world around you. I believe that everybody has the ability to ‘be funny’ and it’s recognizing how you can use this in everyday life or to entertain.

This answer seems to resonate with something I haven’t yet introduced here: Kenneth Burke’s notion of the comic frame.

Burke’s comic frame

Frames are generally understood as ways of seeing the world, our particular tint of sunglasses that color everything we see.  Theoretically, a frame both highlights the importance of the picture it holds, while simultaneously containing (or limiting) it. We take more notice of things that are framed, but we see them in a particular light, frame of reference, etc.

Burke first talks about the comic (vs. tragic, satirical, grotesque or transitional) frame in his book, Attitudes Towards History (1937).  He says, that humans

[C]an go no further than in picturing people not as vicious, but as mistaken. When you add that people are necessarily mistaken, that all people are exposed to situations in which they must act as fools, that every insight contains its own special kind of blindness, you complete the comic circle, returning again to the lesson of humility that underlies great tragedy (41).

A person applying the comic frame doesn’t take themselves too seriously.  We believe that we (and everyone else) is good, but also know that we are flawed. Additionally, in a sense, to adopt the comic frame is to recognize the flaws of frames in general, and that recognition can breed new understandings. So when we do things that are regrettable, we are more prone to cast ourselves as fools and laugh than to cast ourselves as oppressors and beat ourselves up, and that’s comedy. And if we’re truly comic, we grant that leniency to others as well.

Thus, what Parker is saying is not just that comics create personas and characters as vessels for the humor (though she says that too), but it’s deeper than that – comics have to relate to the world with humility, which breeds compassion toward and forgiveness of others.

While other comics have said something similar, it’s still a pretty rare view, and it’s perhaps even more rare to see the comic frame truly applied. A lot of comics are self-involved blowhards. I’ll look for more good examples.

On audiences

Parker also treats the audience as people with whom the comic has a relationship,

It’s all about watching, listening and active engagement even though it appears very solitary. Your main relationship is with the audience if you are a solo act, and learning to ‘read the room’ is also a wonderful way to improve your performance as an actor, singer, musician, or public speaker.

In terms of what I’ve discussed before, she seems to be using more of a “lover” model – it’s a relationship that has to develop through active participation.

The current boom

Parker, as with Elahe Izadi and Mike Birbiglia, sees stand-up as becoming more popular, but fears a bust is coming:

You can see comedy any night of the week for free which is fine as long as we can still persuade people to pay for the good stuff. I am concerned that stand up comedy can be devalued….

The problem is that the free stuff isn’t as good, but people might not know that, and as Birbiglia warned, that undermines the whole system of demand.

Parker also thinks stand-up is growing more diverse:

We have a lot of openly gay performers who can talk about things that relate to them and women are ‘allowed’ to talk more freely about their bodies, periods, sex, and previously taboo subjects. It’s more open, inclusive and honest.

These are all good things, to a point, but I’ve already pointed out Izadi’s fears of what comes next: That in an open and democratic field, comics (and audiences) can get lost in a sea of bad comedy, or relegated to niches where they don’t reach new and diverse audiences, which tends to breed less accessible (and therefore bad) comedy.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

References:

Burke, Kenneth.  Attitudes Toward History.  Berkeley: University of California, 1937/1984.