Humor Theories/Stand-Up Comedy/Theories About Comics

Political, Social and Entertainment Comedians

Posted on by nwilson

Comic and internet sensation Kenny Sebastian, in an interview with Letty Mariam Abraham of Mid-day (5/14/2017) about his recent special, Don’t Be That Guy on Amazon Prime, said,

There are two types of comedians, one is the social comedian and the other one is the entertainment comedian. I consider myself the entertainment comedian. Neither am I trying to change minds nor am I trying to make people aware of anything or say anything. I don’t have an opinion.

Social comedians try to “influence people;” they “need to get a point across.” He admires social comedians, but “I don’t have the smarts to do it.”

Sebastian, on the other hand, considers himself “very entertainment focused.” He notes “[A] comedian has to gauge the audience and make jokes accordingly.” He says he will pull away if he feels the particular audience is getting offended, even avoiding things like swearing and sex jokes, saying, “I want people to get their money’s worth.”

Social vs. political

This isn’t the only way to cut it, some make the distinction between social and political. In an interview with Neal Conan on National Public Radio, Lewis 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.

Hip hop

In an interview with Rolling Stone’s Jesse Serwer about his 2017 Netflix special (7/1/2017), They Can’t Deport Us All, rapper turned comic Chingo Bling talks about his stance on immigration:

A lot of comedians have bits about growing up Mexican, but I feel like [immigration] is one of those things where people think they might hurt endorsements or it might make them seem too political if they talk about it. People are scared to touch it. I like to consider myself a hip-hop comic, somebody that is going to say something of substance. And that’s what I’m working towards.

Summary

Any way you slice it, as Mike Acker of oregonlive.com notes in an interview with Solomon Georgio (7/3/2017) about his upcoming special: “Conscious comedy is on the rise, whether it’s overtly political or social commentary.”

Political Potential?

The idea of a social or political comedian acknowledges that we can do things with our humor, and that there are people actively trying. Bill Maher puts himself in that category.

I don’t know if he’s paraphrasing another source, but this thinking mirrors John Limon’s discussion of an “absolute” stand-up, where the intention is purely laughter; however, Sebastian’s view seems an all-or-nothing affair; you either address social issues or you avoid them, when it’s always more complicated than that (Burke).

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Do you think you have to do (or make a name for yourself in) one type of comedy versus another? Are there successful “one-trick ponies?”

References:

Burke, Kenneth.  Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology.  Berkeley: University of California Press (1970).

Limon, John.  Stand-Up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.

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 in the News/Stand-Up Comedy

Bill Maher’s On-Air Apologies

Posted on by nwilson

I make my Advanced Public Speaking students write and give a speech of apology for a public figure, so when we’re talking about comics giving apologies, we’re kind of in my wheelhouse. Maher’s on-air apologies on his show the week after his N-word incident did a number of interesting things.

In a previous post, Bill Maher On What Comics Do, I talked about the discussion of comics and comedy first, as that is my purpose for this blog, in this post I talk about how Maher responded to the issues.  This isn’t humor theory, but humor stuff used to justify his actions; Maher used his status as a comic both to remind us why we like him and to separate himself out from the rules of “normal people.” In any case, I need to do a write up for my class in the fall anyway, so since I’m already hip deep into it, I’ll share.

I’ll begin with the style and tone of the interview and the problems that presented for his apology.  Then I’ll get into the content: how he framed what he did (a “mistake”) and what he did wrong (said a word), then how he strategically built himself up, and gave us a reason to believe that he’s changed.

Interviewus Interruptus

My first problem with the interview went beyond that Maher used it as an excuse to defend himself – that is kind of a problem, since the segment’s intended purpose was to plug Dr. Dyson’s latest book, Tears We Cannot Stop. However, Dyson still managed to work in some concepts from the book, so perhaps it’s a relevant application of the book.

My problem was that the whole thing had the feel of a “Yes, but…”  While we expect Maher to mount some sort of defense, he should also seem sorry or contrite.  Instead, Maher was fighting not to interrupt, which makes him seem like he was just waiting to speak, and when he did begin, particularly late in the interview, he started his statements with “Well…”, “Yeah, but…”, “Ok, but…” and “Look…”.  These are not the opening statements of someone who agrees with the critique and is sorry.

And Dyson was trying to help him!  For instance, Dyson notes that it’s a systemic problem, that it “grows out of a culture” and is unconscious and therefore hard to fight.  Dyson then asks Maher, “So do you truly understand the need to name and to challenge that unconscious white privilege that exists and how it hurts black people, even if unintentionally?”

And Maher responds, “Yes, but…”!

C’mon Bill! Just say: “Yes, I think that’s fair,” pause for applause, and then calmly offer your point (without the “but”)!

A Mistake

Beginning his interview with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Bill Maher asks Dyson to “school me. I did a bad thing.”  Language is important when looking at apologies, because it frames the discussion by labeling what he did (the classical stasis of definition, or quid sit).  Maher starts by labeling it “a bad thing,” which becomes “a bad joke,” and later, multiple times, “a mistake.”

See, like any celebrity, Maher can’t just say, “My bad,” and call it a day – not if he wants to keep his show.  He’s got to hedge a bit; he’s got to defend himself and his actions, and by casting it as a mistake, he minimizes the damage he’s caused and also suggests how he should be treated: “to err is human,” and thus we should all be forgiven, himself included.

He also addresses some statements made by Kathy Griffin:

She said ‘Trump broke me’ – No he shouldn’t – and ‘My career is over’ – No, it’s not. You make a mistake, you don’t have to go away. Everyone makes mistakes.

He could have been speaking to himself, and responding to those who say his show should be cancelled.

Sinners?

Perhaps Maher was pandering to Dyson, who is religious, by referring to the idea that “we’re all sinners,” but – Really, Bill? Coming from the guy who made Religulous, this statement is jarring.

Words and culture

Beyond this problem, there were others.  Maher seems to know that characterizing the issue as “a mistake” isn’t enough, he needs to do more damage control.

In his apology, he further tried to limit his fault to the (n-)word use, despite Dyson calling him out on bigger issues (the historical context of slavery he referenced, the contemporary context created by racists [A.K.A. “alt-right groups”], cultural insensitivity, and expressions of unconscious white privilege). Maher keeps trying to return to the “n-word” as the source of his problems.

in defending himself against these larger issues, Maher frames them as unintentional, stating that there was no malice in the use of the word; that “I’m a product of my culture.”  If he had just said that when prompted by Dyson, or referenced back to what Dyson literally just said, it would look more like a conversation and less like an excuse.

An apology model

Maher is trying to explain himself (what Ware & Linkugel might best call an explanatory posture), so he’s trying to draw a distinction between what happened and where he’s at now, while reminding people of why they like him.

Building himself up

To remind people of why they like him, there are a number of tricks Maher uses, including apologizing, reminding us he’s a comic, and he gets an assist from Dyson on reminding us of the good work he’s done in the past.

Apologizing helps

Maher begins by apologizing for the word: the incident wasn’t frivolous, “Because for black folks – and I don’t care who you are – that word has caused pain, and I’m not here to do that.” Later he says, “Yes, it was wrong, and I own up to that.” This starts out on the right foot, as it builds up his likeability by showing he’s sensitive to the issue – he apologized, and he seems to get it.

He later takes another shot at sensitivity by stating,

But it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t said in malice – it wasn’t – if it brought back pain to people, and that’s why I apologized freely and I reiterate it tonight.  And that’s sincere.

Again, here he’s apologizing for using the word, and at the same time reinforcing that it wasn’t mean-spirited [more below].

Remind us he’s a popular comic

Early on, Maher notes that “the comic mind goes to a weird place sometimes.”  Here, he subtly reminds us that he’s a comic (that’s why we like him). He later returns to that point when he talks about What Comics Do [but to conserve ether here, I’ll let you follow the link].

Remind us of the good he’s done

Dyson helps Maher out considerably here, saying

The reason I’m here is because you have attacked that [the resurgence of racism].  You’re the one who said, “Denying racism is the new racism.”

He then points out Maher’s history of calling people out on this issue. Dyson’s other statements help Maher as well.  He says, “If even Bill Maher can at some level capitulate to a level of unconscious privilege, then the rest of us are in a serious spot.” This elevates Maher to the status of “one of the best.”

Dyson further gives Maher credit for his knowledge when he says,

But look, there are trigger points that even in comedy, lines that you should not cross, … and when it comes to race, you know that.  It’s not that I’m introducing a new concept to you, you understand that.

Maher works for himself here too, pointing out that he is “willing to spend political capital for a cause, or a view that I think needs to be out there.  This wasn’t that.  This was just a mistake.  This was just a dumb interception.  But again, you know, I’ve been on 24 years.”  So he’s working for things he thinks are important, and he’s been doing it for 24 years; good points to inject into the conversation to remind us why we like you.

Separating himself out

To give us other reasons why we should still like him, Maher has to make a distinction between what happened and where he is now.  He uses a couple of tricks here as well, including making it about the situation, that it was unconscious and not malicious, that he’s evolving, and that he’s a comic.

The situation

Early on, Maher tells a story of the event to put it into context, beginning with the idea that the Senator “said a weird thing,” and Maher noted that “the comic mind goes to a weird place sometimes.”  While this is prefaced with the statement, “It’s not his fault, it’s all on me,” the contextualizing detracts from that.  It frames it as a one-time reaction to the content of the Senator’s statement. It becomes a “It’s not his fault, but here’s how and why what he said led to this.” It’s certainly not something Maher would do again.

He later reiterates,

By the way, this happened once, a guy said a weird thing, I made a bad joke. Yes, it was wrong, and I own up to that.  But it’s not as if I’ve made a career of this.  You know. It’s not like I went out there last Friday and said, “Ooh, I’m going to break some new ground tonight.” You know, it happened, and it was wrong, and people make mistakes, we’re all sinners, and we’ve gotta, yeah.  But you know, I totally get that.

Unconscious/Non-malicious

Maher initially claims that he was in the moment, and didn’t think.  Later in the show, Ice Cube responded to Maher’s incident, and the Dyson interview. Ice Cube asks “What made you think that it was cool to say that?”  Maher responds, “There was no thought put into it… comedians, they react, and it was wrong, and I apologized.”

Maher further argues that he cannot be called out for other things that his words implied, because it was not a conscious decision. Dyson brings up the point discussed in other critiques about the content of the joke: that the problem was that Maher referred to himself as a house slave, as if house slaves had it any better than those in the field – which is insensitive.  I’ve gone further, saying that Maher calling himself a slave at all (of any type) is beyond hyperbole, it’s completely unjustifiable and therefore insensitive.

Maher’s response is that, “Well, of course, you must know that all of that was not going on in my mind. Right?” The implication here is that because it wasn’t conscious, it wasn’t malicious, and therefore he wasn’t responsible.

To his credit, Dyson doesn’t let him off the hook here, saying, “People believe that one of the things you did last week was an unconscious reflex, nobody would ascribe to you any malicious intent, but that’s the point, right?” and he goes on to talk about the harms of unconscious white privilege.

As I mentioned, Maher doesn’t immediately accept this point, but he does circle back to it.  After another argument and response and yet another “Ok, but…” Maher says,

I’m not here to make excuses [and yet, he keeps making them!], but first of all, the word is omnipresent in the culture, so the fact that it was in my mind is, you know.  Also, is there part of what you’re saying true? Absolutely. I’m just a product of the country like everybody else.

He’s evolving

Maher says, “I mean, we’re all evolving. We’re all who we are…. But look, we are all evolving at the pace of day-by-day.” Maher then sketches another story for us: his childhood in New Jersey and how far he’s come.  This idea, that we’re all (Maher included) constantly changing and hopefully improving allows us to perceive Maher as already a different person than the one who gave that interview and used that word.

He’s a comic

As I mention in the previous post on this interview, Maher tries to separate out his thinking as a comic from the thinking of normal people; “the comic mind goes to a weird place sometimes.” Later:

Comedians are a special kind of monkey…. We are a trained thing that tries to get a laugh. That’s what we do. That’s all we are always thinking.

Basically, he’s arguing that it was Comic Bill Maher, in the moment, trying to get a laugh that said the thing, and Advocate Bill Maher, the thinker, knows better.

I find it fascinating that Maher uses his status as a comic both to bolster his popularity and to justify his transgression.  It’s a fairly common tactic, and it seems to work.  This is what we think good comics do, and this is why we like them.

Summary

Maher’s strategy was fairly good – he had good arguments, but he didn’t execute well. He kept interrupting, and this prevented him from seeing the lobs thrown at him that would make some of his arguments easier. Finally, he creates his own problems and confuses people when he argues that he’s both a comic, so he shouldn’t be judged when he crosses lines, and a person spending political capital, so he’s trying to do the right thing.

References:

Aristotle, The Rhetoric

Fisher, W. Narration as human communication paradigm: The case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs 51 (1984): 1-23.

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

A Note About Dyson’s Interview with Maher

Posted on by nwilson

Dyson’s points

I want to give some ink to Michael Eric Dyson, who did a fairly good job of holding Maher’s feet to the fire in their interview, despite Maher’s attempts to pull away.  These points do bear on what we should be trying to do when making jokes about race. I’ll try to lay out Dyson’s points without repeating myself.

Late in the interview, Dyson points out,

Black people ourselves are at war with each other about whether we use the N-word or not, some people think we should, some people think we shouldn’t.

Indeed, Dyson seems at war with himself, as he seems to be arguing against it’s use, but then he uses it twice (once in telling a story about the first time he heard it, he makes air quotes as he says it; the second time quoting a character from Curb Your Enthusiasm, who used the n—a form).  I don’t question Dyson’s right to use the term for any reason; just note his performative contradiction. As an academic and student of word use, I find both of his uses to refer to the term in a way that doesn’t seem to replicate the hurt the word can cause.  However, Dyson might have convinced me otherwise.

False allies

Dyson talks about “people who are consciously the allies of black people but who may also, inadvertently, unintentionally but nonetheless lethally participate in a culture that ends up hurting… black people in a way that has to be grappled with.”

One of the first rules of being an ally is to help – not hinder – the movement, and we need to avoid doing anything that will cause problems.

Crashing consciousness

Dyson tells a story from his book, about when I he first heard the word said to him.

And it’s real because that kind of crashing consciousness, that I am different, that I am forever consigned to a different box, relegated to a different reality.

This “crashing consciousness” the word might evoke – whether or not we were “using it properly” – might give us pause.

The timing

Dyson points out that Maher’s – or anyone else’s – intent doesn’t enter into it, and that it’s partially a problem with the context – this particular moment in history, the age of the 45th president and his administration, with its resultant resurgence of racism. At the end of the interview, he expands on this, noting,

[S]o many people speak about race and they have racial amnesia, they’re caught in a fog of dis-memory, they want to see the world the way they want to see it… and what they fail to understand is that this new age in which we live has certified and legitimated the resurgence of some of the most heinous expressions of anti-blackness that we’ve seen.

So perhaps now is not the time to align yourself with these groups inadvertently through language use.

Unconscious white privilege

Dyson’s notes that it’s Maher’s (and others’) unconscious white privilege that allows him to unproblematically and casually use the word.

But the reality is that there are so many people who are vulnerable out here, who are black people, brown people, red and yellow people who are vulnerable who don’t have the protection of a culture, so that their comedians might make jokes. Think about it…

I am thinking about it. Some would argue that white comics can’t joke about race – that Bill Maher is just the most recent example of a comic who tried to go there and had his hand smacked.  They would further argue that COC (comics of color) can joke about anything, but in my experience we have to question that. My comic interests are diverse, so I can think of a lot of COC’s, and Kevin Hart is the reigning champion right now, but we can’t let that token example overshadow the struggles of coming up through the ranks.  It’s already hard. We know it’s harder for women. Is it harder for COC’s?

Better off not

Quoting a text from his son, Dyson says, that some white people can use the n-word, but are better people for not using it “[B]ecause they understand the history, pain and insensitivity behind the use of the n-word.” He then gives the aforementioned example from Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm, talking about lines that shouldn’t be crossed.  I don’t think there should be many, but maybe for right now, this might be one of them.

Ramblings

Relief Theory update

Posted on by nwilson

I’ll post updates as I encounter new comedy, theories or writing/blogs about either.  So here’s one:

Sarah Silverman references relief/release theory explicitly in her 2017 Netflix special, A Speck of Dust. She builds a scene in which a girl is puking so hard she can’t stop and then she thinks she is about to get raped, but it turns out, she was just also crapping her pants. There’s a lot of silence as the story builds, but when the trick is revealed, the audience laughs, and Silverman acknowledges that this is exactly what she was trying to do.

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

Bill Maher On What Comics Do

Posted on by nwilson

I make my Advanced Public Speaking students write and give a speech of apology for a public figure, so when we’re talking about comics giving apologies, we’re kind of in my wheelhouse. Maher’s on-air apologies on his show, the week after his N-word incident did a number of interesting things.

I’ll talk first in this post about his discussion of comics and comedy first, as that is my purpose for this blog, and you can decide if you want to read my next post on how Maher responded to the issues.

What comics do

In his interview with Michael Eric Dyson about his book on white privilege, Tears We Cannot Stop, Bill Maher talks more about his own “n-word” problem.  Partially to explain it, Maher states that, “the comic mind goes to a weird place sometimes.” Later in the interview, Maher returns to this point,

But, I just don’t want to pretend this is more of a race thing than a comedian thing. Comedians are a special kind of monkey…. We are a trained thing that tries to get a laugh. That’s what we do. That’s all we are always thinking.

Maher then points out that he has transgressed in private and in public many times while trying to get a laugh, “because that’s what comedians are somehow wired to do. It’s like we always go – we wanna make those people laugh.  And sometimes we transgress a sensitivity point.” He then discusses Kathy Griffin’s incident, and the similarity of that incident in that “she was going for a laugh, and I understand that; we sometimes do cross the line.”

Here Maher is stating the intentions of a comic, that their sole intention is to get a laugh, and they should be forgiven when they miss that goal.  In this, he echoes John Limon’s model of absolute stand-up. Maher somewhat undermines this position when he references his previous apology:

But it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t said in malice – it wasn’t – if it brought back pain to people, and that’s why I apologized freely and I reiterate it tonight.  And that’s sincere.

He realizes that the intentions don’t matter as much as the effects the attempt at humor produces.

Moreover, later in the interview, he softens further on this same point:

What bothered me about this was, it cost me a lot of political capital – I’ll use that term, even though I’m a comedian – but I’m a comedian who’s doing something a little different than most, which is – of course I’m trying to entertain and be popular, that’s my political capital, but at the same time – I’m saying things that are sometimes unpopular even with my own liberal group, which most people don’t.  So I’m always, you know, aware of like, I’m willing to do that, I’m willing to spend political capital for a cause, or a view that I think needs to be out there.  This wasn’t that.  This was just a mistake.

Maher thus characterizes himself in a way similar to Kenny Sebastian’s social comedian.  Maher realizes that he has political capital, and that it comes from his ability to entertain, but that nevertheless he can spend it on things he cares about. So here Maher admits that he doesn’t just “try to get a laugh,” sometimes he has a point, which means that we should be able to take him to task when his humor makes an unsatisfactory point – even if it’s just “a mistake.” He can’t hide behind his previous statement that, “Comedy is all comics are ever trying to do!”  As Ice Cube points out,

I just don’t know sometimes is this a political show, or is this a show about jokes… – I understand the format, your guy says it’s a comedian’s show, but this to me is a political show.

His interpretation may be shared by many people, and Maher has to own that interpretation.

Breaking ground and crossing lines

Maher wants to pass it off as a one-time, bad reaction.  He states,

Yes, it was wrong, and I own up to that.  But it’s not as if I’ve made a career of this.  You know. It’s not like I went out there last Friday and said, “Ooh, I’m going to break some new ground tonight.”

Two quotes from the section above also bear repeating: Maher’s remarks that “sometimes we transgress a sensitivity point,” and his discussion of Kathy Griffin’s incident, and the similarity of that incident in that “she was going for a laugh, and I understand that; we sometimes do cross the line.”

Dyson’s response is important, so I’ll quote it at length:

I think you’re absolutely right in terms of the comedic mind, you know that people would respond to that by saying, “But look, there are trigger points that even in comedy, lines that you should not cross,” … and when it comes to race, you know that.  It’s not that I’m introducing a new concept to you, you understand that. But the reality is that there are so many people who are vulnerable out here, who are black people, brown people, red and yellow people who are vulnerable who don’t have the protection of a culture, so that their comedians might make jokes. Think about it…

Ice Cube adds,

I think you just have to not step on some of the political messages that you send with the joke, because some things just ain’t funny.  You know what I mean? This is real right here, what we going through.

Dyson then gives an example from Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where “a black man comes up to him and says, ‘Hey, you my nigga.'” [Note, that’s the second time Dyson used a version of the word.] Larry wants to use the word, but doesn’t. Dyson says,

What he [David] understood was, that’s a line he can’t cross, and because he understands he can’t cross it, even his comedy has to be disciplined by it.

Summary

Comics like Maher know that they’re not just going for laughs, and they know they shouldn’t be above reproach.  The idea of breaking new ground and crossing lines is inherent to humor [I’ll work up the theory side of this soon], but there are those, like Dyson, who believe that there are lines one cannot cross – even the court jester (or wise fool) could be beheaded if he were too insolent.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

What do you think?  Is humor a free space in which we can play with anything as long as we’re only trying for a laugh, or are some things too important to joke about?

Humor Theories/Stand-Up Comedy/Theories About Comics

Narrators: Unreliable and Discordant

Posted on by nwilson

The idea that we can influence people with words (rhetoric) depends on the notion that the speaker is who they appear to be and mean what they say.  Scholars call this authorial fidelity, or that the speaker is bona fide.

Yet frequently comics pretend to be crazy, demented, deranged – or just a bit off.  Think of Bobcat Goldthwait, Sam Kinison, or Emo Philips. We hear them and say, “That boy ain’t right!” and this creates a space for laughs.

Certain comics are awesome at this, like Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, a nearly flawless performance of right-wing conservatism that has just a tad too much edge to be bona fide.  Similarly, Larry the Cable Guy presents a front of blue-collar (when not red-necked) buffoonery that is difficult to take on-face.  Or we might look to Sarah Silverman’s image as a naïve (when not ignorant), self-absorbed, Jewish nice-girl who pushes in exactly the wrong direction just a few times too often.  In each case, a great deal of humor comes from this discrepancy between construct or narrator and the author implied by the gaps in the text.

Narrators and Authors

The idea that this person might be as crazy as they seem is necessary for the humor, but we know it’s often a ruse.  There’s a difference between the author – the person who wrote the jokes – and the narrator – the persona telling the jokes.  A narrator is “an instrument, a construction or a device wielded by the author” (Abbott, 63), a vehicle for the comedy.

The author, for all intents and purposes, is the offstage person implied via the text, or in any case inferred by the audience (Booth).  Some, like Erving Goffman, argue that we have onstage selves, and an offstage self.  That while we might act differently in a classroom than out of it, or act differently in front of our grandma than we do in front of our friends, we have a real self that we are in private and show to select people.  Others, following from the work of a Michel Foucault, argue that our actions and their implications are all anyone ever sees of us, so they’re all that matter.  To quote Nolan’s Batman:

So there’s a space or gap between the two, and this creates possibilities for humor when the difference is noticeable, giving us two types of questionable narrators, unreliable and discordant, and comics can be either or both.

Unreliable Narrators

When there is a gap between verifiable [IRL] facts and statements of fact made by the narrator, we have a true unreliable narrator (Abbott; Scholes & Kellogg).  This is when they tell us things that just aren’t true – couldn’t possibly be true.  Like when Bobcat Goldthwait talks about swinging his date’s cat around by the tail, screaming “Got any more pets?”  If we thought it really happened, we might be appalled, and then we might not laugh.  But if we don’t believe it? Hilarious! Of course, it’s always more complicated than that (Burke), but that’s part of it.

Discordant Narrators

When there is a gap between the interpretation of facts by the narrator via her/his story and the interpretation attributed to the implied author, we call this a discordant narrator (Cohn).  For instance, Ron White talks about getting a pulled over, but it was B.S. “because they were stopping everybody on that particular sidewalk, and that’s profiling, and it’s wrong.”  While we can question if he was actually pulled over for driving on a sidewalk, we can also question if he really was upset about profiling. Again, if that was how he truly interpreted it, we’d question his sanity.  But we think “he’s just kidding,” so we’re free to laugh. Of course, it’s always more complicated than that (Burke), but that’s part of it.

Do we laugh because of the incongruity? Probably.  Do we laugh because they create and relieve tension? Maybe. Do we laugh because we feel superior to them, and their crazy interpretation? Perhaps, some of us, some times. And maybe for other reasons too.

Political Potential?

Because any comic is always potentially unreliable, always potentially discordant, we never have to believe what they say.  It is this very condition that creates a space for the author to say whatever they choose.  However, can a comic do bona fide political work once they are set up as unreliable?  The answer may depend on how the comic establishes this condition.

Sometimes comics create boundaries by simple segmentation (the way they break up and arrange their bits), like Bill Maher’s first HBO special, in which he first warms the crowd with nine minutes of topical material and a dick joke before transitioning into his more overt partisan topics.  Many other comics mix and mingle political and humorous messages in this fashion, including Margaret Cho, Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman.  In doing so, they establish themselves as comics before dirtying their hands with any potentially hazardous topic.

While some might argue that all “newer” humorists work this way, that only older, established comics like George Carlin critique at will, there are others like Loni Love, Alonzo Bodden and many other (at the time) up-and-comers who begin with political topics, displaying that perhaps this form is more acceptable.

However, some comics like Black, Colbert, Larry the Cable Guy, Silverman and even Maher also include other tactics, such as creating a persona, a sustained character that allows them to make overt critiques [More on this later].

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Who is your favorite “crazy” comedian and why do you like them?

References

Abbott, H Porter.  The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative.  London: Cambridge University, 2002.

Booth, Wayne.  The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1961

Burke, Kenneth.  Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology.  Berkeley: University of California Press (1970).

Cohn, Dorrit.  “Discordant Narration.”  Style 34.2 (2000): 307-316.

Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author?” a lecture given at the Collège de France on 22 February 1969.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Random House, 1956.

Scholes, Robert and Robert Kellogg. The Nature of Narrative. Oxford University Press, 1968.

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 Comics

Comic Intent

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You hear it time and time again, from both comics and scholars: in stand-up comedy the only goal is laughter by any means available (Borns; Gilbert; Horowitz; Limon; Stebbins). That’s how comics make their money (Stebbins).

Update: In an interview with Pastemagazine.com’s Christian Becker (7/5/2017), Deon Cole says,

It shouldn’t be funny culturally funny, it should just be funny.

Update: In an interview with StarTribune.com (7/7/2017), Neal Justin asks Hood Adjacent star, James Davis, the following:

Q: So you’re willing to sacrifice a laugh or two to make a point?

A: The laugh is the most important thing. I never wanted to be a teacher or a preacher. I don’t want the audience ever thinking that they’re listening to Don Lemon or Anderson Cooper. But early in my career I was just telling jokes. I wouldn’t think about using them to send a message. But now, after studying comedians like Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, I know how to talk about the society around me.

These comics seem to believe that they should be trying to be funny first and foremost, and if they can do it while talking about their society, that’s good, but it’s an after-effect.

When you put it that way – about sheer exposure – how could a comic not have an effect?  Still, there’s this idea that comics “don’t really mean any of it” that may create a (carnivalesque) space for both the humor to exist and for the audience to feel that they don’t have to do anything but laugh, and a common conception of laughter is that it doesn’t do anything. This effect can also be abused, as in the case of the “Just kidding!” that reads more like a “Sorry, not sorry!”

Absolute stand-up

John Limon expands on this theme, positing an an “absolute” form of stand-up, in which the only goal is laughter, and opposing it to other forms.  He notes that: “Any comedian is free, of course, to thematize or editorialize or beautify, but in these respects, he or she has in mind extrinsic models” (13). Thus Limon assumes the existence of a limit where comics stop intending solely to get a laugh, and start intending to make a difference, where an “extrinsic model” becomes primary and the humor secondary. Satire and ridicule, it would seem, exceed this limit.

The counterpart of laughter, in these extrinsic forms, is what Seth Meyers dubbed “clapter,” responses that indicate agreement with the comic, but not necessarily humor.  [More on this later]. In an interview for Reader’s Digest, Tina Fey used the term to describe Jon Stewart’s, The Daily Show: “It means they sort of approve but didn’t really like it that much.”

Multiple goals

Understand, comics can have all kinds of different goals.  Some comics may wish to shed light on an important matter, and help people, as we assume Jon Stewart does.  Some comics may want to tear down everything and everybody – as do Don Rickles, Lisa Lampanelli, and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone – there’s a certain kind of equality in all being the butt of a joke.  Comics can have multiple goals within the same set, bit and even joke.

Political Potential?

Whether their extrinsic goal is to help or harm, the comic’s other, primary goal of inciting laughter causes problems as the general wisdom is that when a topic cuts too close to the bone, when it is too personal or mean-spirited, it cannot be funny (Freud, Meyer).

Humorists often try to work around this problem by creating different spatial boundaries, by playing by their own rules – and changing both boundaries and rules at will. But in doing so, comics often create gaps between what they personally believe and what they express onstage. This extends beyond simple performance of a character, as in Andy Kaufmann’s “Latke,” Richard Pryor’s “Mudbone,” etc.; it includes elements that reflect more on the comic’s personality and even sanity. In this respect even the most activist comic remains an unreliable and/or discordant narrator.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Are you as a comic only trying to get a laugh, or do you write jokes about things you care about, to enlighten or change things?

Do you have a favorite comic that champions something you care about?

References

Borns, Betsy. Comic Lives: Inside the World of Stand-Up Comedy.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.

Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. 1905. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W.W. Norton, 1963.

Gilbert, Joanne.  Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender and Cultural Critique. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, 2004.

Horowitz, Susan.  Queens of Comedy: Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Joan Rivers, and the New Generation of Funny Women.  Amsterdam, Netherlands: Gordon and Breach, 1997.

Limon, John.  Stand-Up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.

Meyer, John C.  “Humor as a Double-Edged Sword: Four Functions of Humor in Communication.”  Communication Theory 10.3 (2000): 310-331.

Stebbins, Robert A.  The Laugh-Makers: Stand-Up Comedy as Art, Business and Life-Style.  Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1990.

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 Spaces

Spatial Theories

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The basic idea of a space for ideas comes from Aristotle, who argues that we organize ideas spatially in our mind.  We group like with like into genres, topics, as for certain audiences, etc. and separate them out from things we think are dissimilar.

The “idea” of a space

Raymie E. McKerrow, following from the work of Michel Foucault, argues that while physical spaces exist (the pre-discursive), they also get defined by the way people use them (discourse). So a room could be an office, or a bedroom, or a classroom depending on what people think it is, the rules they come up with for it, and how they act in it.  Agreement on this has to be reached via some sort of communication, if not outright argument (rhetoric). We might call this the idea of the space (a product of ideology).

We can see how this applies to stand-up; while there are distinct clubs with hard and fast rules and policies, bouncers, two-drink minimums, etc., there are also mics at bars, where comics might follow an afternoon of poetry.  The previous hours had completely different rules and interactions than those that follow, and not all of them are clearly laid out by the host.

How much more jarring is the transition when you’re (as does happen) a comic doing a set before they introduce a stripper at a strip club?  Yes, the club space will influence the crowd and therefore the interaction, but do the comics and the strippers play by the same rules?

Assumptions about stand-up spaces

We all know some of the suppositions about the spaces of stand-up, but I question how universally they apply.  For instance, we assume the speaker is kidding, playing, non bona fide, or doesn’t intend to persuade (intentionality) as they are unreliable or discordant narrators. But are we sure? For Louis Black, Margaret Cho, Kathy Griffin, Bill Maher or Jon Stewart? [I’ll go into some cases later]

We assume the audience is there to laugh, and will laugh off any serious statements.  But then we’re surprised when they don’t – especially when they dissent in large groups [Look for more on this].

We assume the space extends to fans and customers, usually in the club. But we know that they can watch a recording, even one that’s been broken up, so the context is all wonky [Look for more on this].

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Have you ever broken (or seen someone break) an unwritten/unspoken rule in a comedy space?  What did you find out or realize?

References:

Aristotle, The Rhetoric

Foucault, Michel. The Archaeology of Knowledge.  New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.

McKerrow, Raymie E.  “Space and Time in the Postmodern Polity.”  Western Journal of Communication 63.3 (1999): 271-290.

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.

Doing Stand-up/Stand-Up Comedy

Why You Should Ask an Academic

Posted on by nwilson

An article published last July in the Chronicle of Higher Education reappeared in my FB news feed the other day, and it says basically what I’ve been on about in trying to justifying this blog.  You should read the whole thing, it’s called: Erasing the Pop-Culture Scholar, One Click at a Time.

For those of you without the time, I’ll summarize.  Pop culture scholarship is important because media matter and have consequences “— a recent study found that children [perhaps the most vulnerable population] gaze at screens on their TVs, computers, and mobile devices an average of six or more hours a day.” So academics critique it, and so do popular reporters and fans.

The authors note that pop culture thinkpieces written by reporters and fans stumble on an idea, rush to publish it without doing any research (the really crafty ones hold onto the idea and try to monetize it), then it goes viral and they get told they’re brilliant by other reporters and fans.

Meanwhile, pop culture academics are reading it and saying, “No shit. That’s so-and-so’s theory, from 18xx (or 322BC).” In these writers’ defense, academic journal subscriptions and university libraries aren’t free, but it’s as if they didn’t even look.

Further, they “almost always get it wrong.   The writers, like many a college student, simply haven’t done the reading.”  In a class, it’s a “teachable moment.” IRL, it’s taken as news and therefore Truth.

It’s not that we want recognition for our ideas, though that’s a premise of copyright law.  It’s not even that we think only experts should weigh in.  By all means, give us your opinion, but take the time to ask if someone thought of it before. It won’t make your observations less interesting, just more accurate, more specific and more nuanced.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?

Have you ever encountered something written by a reporter or fan that you previously read about in school, but the reporter never mentioned the original theory (let alone the author)?  What did you think of the writer?

Doing Stand-up/Stand-Up Comedy

Getting on Stage

Posted on by nwilson
“Most people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy.”

Perhaps the hardest part of stand-up for many people is actually getting on stage.  Seinfeld’s joke about fear of public speaking versus death is legendary. But doing jokes onstage – and doing them with confidence – is also the most important part. Part of the problem is that every public speaking opportunity can seem different.

You would think that everyone who does stand-up is an extrovert who is just a natural in front of people.  However, some people do stand-up to overcome their fears. Others discover that though they are great in groups, standing among the crowd, you put them on a stage, hand them a mic and shine a spotlight in their eyes and they crack.

When I started stand-up in 2011, I had already been a college and semi-pro mascot, trying to make people laugh through spontaneous pantomime, and prepared dance and skits.  I’d also taught public speaking and other college classes for 13 years.  Strangely, a larger obstacle I had previously run into was trying to sing karaoke.

For me, there was something distinctly different in wearing a costume and doing shtick, giving people information, and performing – and the last one was harder.  And even though I had that experience, it was harder still to perform things I’d written myself, with the specific goal of getting people to laugh.  When I tell a joke in the classroom, any laugh is a bonus.  On the other hand, when I sing someone else’s song, it’s already pretty popular, but my performance is on the line.  And when I wrote it, now it’s me, on the stage, performing as best I can.  That’s scary!

I can’t count the number of times I’d write a new joke, practice it, work out the performance of it, picture it doing well, and the moment before I went onstage, lost confidence in it, and at that point the bit is doomed.  So how does one get or project or be confident?

My five step plan is to:

  1. Understand the audience wants you to do well.
  2. Know your fear.
  3. Be excited!
  4. Focus on the material.
  5. Revise your expectations.

1. Understand the audience wants you to do well.

These people love humor.  They came here to laugh – except for the salty, seasoned comics who just want to do their set and leave.  They want to hear good new stuff, and maybe the good old stuff too.  When you do poorly, it’s painful for everybody.

2. Know your fear.

The key is to identify, analyze and then modify your mindset.

Identify: So the trick is to ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?” I already laid it out: This time, it’s personal. But other comics are only satisfied with perfection.

Analyze: So then I ask, “What can I do about that?” Well, I can approach it rationally.  One on one or in groups a lot of people think I’m funny, is that any less personal?  All it is, is a bigger group (and not even that, usually, at open mics)!  In the case of perfectionists, we can’t expect it to be “there” on the first, or even the tenth try.

Modify your mindset: This is the trick. I’m getting better and better at convincing myself that there really isn’t a difference between situations where I’m comfortable, and situations where I’m not.  Perfectionists have to be willing to regard it as a work in progress.

3. Be excited!

In public speaking we talk about adrenaline and the fight-or-flight response as the root of this anxiety.  Our lizard brain is calling for a physical response to an imaginary issue. What we need is an imaginary response.  The mental trick that you can use here is to convince yourself that what you’re feeling is not “Nervous” but “Excited!” Your body doesn’t know the difference, it’s your mind that’s tripping you up.

And you SHOULD be excited!  You’ve got stage time, and an audience that wants you to do well! This is your chance to shine!

Open mics tend to be small, which makes it more intimate, and after a bit of time, you come to know the people that share the stage, and they come to know you.  So this might lower the stakes – you’ve seen these people do well, and you’ve seen them do not so well; you’re just one of the group.

Also, if you’re not excited, you’re not exciting! You have to perform the jokes, and if you’re not giving that 100%, then you’re not selling it, and if you’re not selling, they won’t buy.  Which leads to the next part.

4. Focus on the material.

Oftentimes, you can solve a lot of problems by just focusing on the performance.  Get into the minutiae: gestures, intonation, facial expressions.

At the next level, try to listen for the laughs to determine your timing. You don’t want to talk over or “step on” their laughs, nor do you want to pause when there is no laugh – move it along. It’s a dance – some have said it’s surfing – either way, focus on what you’re doing.

5. Revise your expectations.

It’s not going to go perfectly every time.  I’ve already mentioned the 20% success rate of jokes.  At the beginning, and even for a while, you may find you’re lucky if you can get up and do it at all.  Even some seasoned comics admit that they have a tendency to work tried and true material, rather than to try out new stuff.

That’s fine.  Do the new stuff anyway!  Even if you’re just saying the joke.  Even if you’re just rambling on a premise. [Though if you want me to guarantee a melt down, have me try this one.  See: A Note on Spontaneity.] One hurdle down, on to the next one.  The goal should not be perfection out of the gate, but improvement over time, until it’s as funny as you can make it or until you decide to shelve it.

Ask yourself, “How did I do?”  Be honest, but not hypercritical.  Then ask, “What’s the next reasonable step?” Aim for that.  Then take the next one.  Keep at it, and you’ll get there.

Questions? Thoughts? Additions? Comments?

Do you have a stage fright story?  Have you gotten over it?  How?

References:

Literally ever public speaking textbook I’ve read or heard about.