Same ol’, same ol’
I watch stand-up sporadically, sometimes going on binges where everything I watch is stand-up, sometimes taking a long hiatus. Sometimes, I’m just not in the mood. Therefore, I agree with Jake Larsen of The Daily Nebraskan (8/25/2017) that stand-up can seem repetitive. As he has it,
Each stand-up special is the same one-hour show filmed in some upscale theater, telling written jokes with a little bit of interaction and physical humor, if you’re lucky. The only one that broke this endless loop was Reggie Watts’ “Spatial.”
It’s true, if we limit our idea of stand-up, as most comics seem to, to Caty Borum Chattoo’s definition:
A comic stands on stage and entertains a live audience with jokes and social commentary, with minimal or no props.
If we embrace this definition, it doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for variations. In that framework (and having watched “Spatial” myself), we can understand why Larsen calls Watts’ act a “bizarre style of comedy,” filled with “uncommon occurrence[s].”
What is stand-up?
Larsen doesn’t recommend Watts for everyone:
[I]t can just be too off-the-wall for a lot of people. The stand-up could be equated to a Jackson Pollock painting. Some people may find a strange beauty in “Spatial,” while others will wonder how this was ever given the green light.
There is this implicit feeling one gets in stand-up, that those who do anything different from telling jokes are “less than.” I’ve seen people get up at open mics and try to do slapstick, stories or skits, and they are not well-received – even when the material is good.
The format for open mics doesn’t lend itself even to story forms. Try to develop a humorous plot and characters inside five minutes (or three). It can be done, but it’s harder than telling 10 dick jokes.
The guy who runs the mic at the local comedy club has said it flat out, “We want standard jokes: set-up, punchline, with a laugh every 20-30 seconds.” So you can tell your humorous anecdote, keep the audience smiling for the whole five, with a big laugh at the climax, but you won’t get invited to perform as the opener for any named comic.
So I understand the resistance to Watts’ off-beat act. However, I stop short of agreeing with Larsen that, “it is something completely different from any stand-up I have ever seen,” or that he’s “the most bizarre.” Emo Philips is bizarre, and he tells straight jokes.
Nor do I agree that,
I think performance artist is a more appropriate title for Watts…
I’ve been around a while, and I also know (and have written on this blog) that Lawrence E. Mintz expands his definition of stand-up to include,
[A]n encounter between a single, standing performer behaving comically and/or saying funny things directly to an audience (71).
That switch from “jokes and social commentary,” to “behaving comically and/or saying funny things” is huge, as it includes slapstick, humorous stories (when they don’t have social commentary), puppets, prop comedy, etc. Under this definition, Watts is not a “performance artist,” but securely within the fold of stand-up.
Larsen also says,
Watts’s style of humor makes me laugh at just how ridiculous it is, not necessarily because of a premise or a joke.
But why we laugh isn’t as important as that we laugh. That then begs the question: how important is that laugh?
Are laughs necessary?
Perhaps most damning is Larsen’s assertion that,
[M]ost things [Watts] does generates more of a “wow” or “what did I just see?” reaction than a laugh.
This idea is problematic, as I myself have followed John Limon in defining stand-up as a form that primarily seeks laughter. However, just failing to get a laugh every time is not disqualifying – and Larsen states that he did laugh, at times.
If we define the “wow” or “what?” reaction as an enjoyable shock – as opposed to one that is not enjoyable, as we experience with “gross out” humor – we could note that such shock can be a precursor to humor; people often laugh when they experience a shock that they enjoy. That they sometimes don’t doesn’t make the act any less enjoyable.
Summary
My reasoning runs thus: If storytellers can be stand-up comics (and they can), and if stories can inspire other emotions than humor – as long as they inspire humor too – (and they’d better, or risk being one-note), then any performer who frequently inspires humor is a stand-up comic. Yes, the form is primarily verbal and needs an audience, but it doesn’t require strict jokes or social commentary. It just needs to be funny sometimes and enjoyable most times.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
