Funny, Ha Ha
There’s been a lot of debate over the weekend as to what role comedians have in our society. Are they supposed to be edgy, pushing the boundaries of political correctness? Are they truth-tellers? Should they simply provide good, clean fun? Whitney Cummings kicked things off with this tweet:
She makes a good point if you can sort through the word salad of hyperbole and nonsense. There should be a much higher threshold of decency set upon politicians than entertainers. I would also add that one party does hold its members to a fairly high standard. It’s the anti-democracy crew that has the most to answer for. But Whitney’s post touches on something I find absurd: the idea that comedians hold some kind of precious anti-authority position.
Few professions hold themselves in the high regard that comedians do. Most of them act like stand-up is some kind of sacred profession. The self-reverential esteem they purport upon telling jokes is hilarious. Yes, telling jokes on a stage is no doubt hard work. The life of a road comic is a tough one. And there is no feeling as bad as bombing on stage in front of people. But do you really think that compares to how a doctor or nurse feels pronouncing a patient dead? Or when teachers have to helplessly watch one of their students go down a road of self-inflicted ruin? Or when a lawyer sees their innocent client going to jail? Please. Let’s all just settle down a little bit.
A comedian’s job is to entertain people. That’s it. There is no sacred or noble duty beyond that. They’re the same as singers, dancers, jugglers, magicians, and clowns (which are by far the worst form of entertainment). Nobody is out there looking for Jim Gaffigan to make some brilliant philosophical statement. They want him to say “bacon” and “hot pockets” in a funny voice.
Have there been brilliant comedians who provide poignant social commentary? Absolutely! George Carlin is considered one of the best to ever do it for that very reason. I would give anything to resurrect him and get his take on what is happening in the world. Luckily, through the magic of YouTube, we can sort through interviews he gave during his life to get a sense of where he might stand. Here’s Carlin talking about Andrew Dice Clay:
Here’s where I have to make an admission. I think Andrew Dice Clay’s album The Day the Laughter Died is an absolute masterpiece. Recorded in 1990 at the height of the late-80s/early-90s stand-up boom, the performance is a commentary on comedy itself. He’s crude, often insulting and insinuating terrible things about the audience. It’s clear from the first minute that he has no interest in pleasing these people. As he says at one point, his performance isn’t about laughter. “We're not here for laughter, we're here for comedy." He’s there to do what HE wants and that is entertaining. 1990 was 32 years ago and this takes place in a very different world. I think Carlin is spot on in his assessment of Dice, which is the whole point of the act. You can listen to the album here if you want.
The album is a form of anti-humor, meaning that the joke is that there’s no joke. The late Norm McDonald was brilliant at this as well.
That bit kills me every time I see it. So much build-up to so little payoff. The joke itself - useful porpoise - is basically a dad joke. It’s the kind of joke you see on a package of Laffy Taffy. But by playing with our expectations Norm transforms what could have been a three-line setup into something much greater. Does everyone like this? NOPE. A lot of people hate this kind of comedy. I love it because it is perhaps the best reflection of the absurdity of life. There’s no larger point behind that joke or any of Dice’s stuff. He’s making fun of the people who love him to their faces. The Dice character is a reflection of what Andrew Silverstein saw in white male insecurity. By turning the volume up to 11 he demonstrates perfectly what is wrong with them.
All of this debate came from a controversy involving Joe Rogan’s podcast. I won’t get into all the details here but you can read this if you want a refresher. At some point over the weekend, a person edited together clips of Joe Rogan saying the n-word, among other horribly racist things. One of his guests once claimed that Black folks have a gene that makes them more violent than whites. All of this material was available online before Spotify gave him $100 million for the rights to his podcast. In other words, if they didn’t know what they were buying, they should have.
Some people in the comedy world have come to his defense, saying that removing episodes and adding content labels to his podcast is a form of censorship. Which, it is. Let’s be clear about that. It was his decision to censor himself, most likely as a last-ditch effort to move on from the controversy. I also don’t have a problem with what he generally does on his podcast, racial remarks aside. Bringing on people with different opinions and having a conversation with them isn’t bad, in and of itself. Where it begins to get dangerous is when the host of the show (Rogan) doesn’t push back on nonsense.
This guest is also a holocaust denier, saying that he doesn’t believe the 6 million figure and thinks it’s probably closer to 250,000. He also doesn’t hold the Nazis accountable for it, claiming that deaths occurred from disease. So, yeah. I’m not sure why Rogan is giving him a platform at all. Holding presenters of information accountable for the truthfulness of that information isn’t bad, it’s a good thing! Again, Rogan and Spotify aren’t doing this for their health. They are making A LOT of money off this. People have the right to deny them the ability to profit off racism, misogyny, and misinformation.
The comedy world has been going through a reckoning of sorts. Dave Chappelle faced serious criticism for some of his latest specials. I’m not sure what happened to Mr. Chappelle that made him turn his attention to the LGBTQ community. Just a year before he started his bizarre and hateful campaign against this group he provided some of the best material of his career. 8:46 is a moving, insightful piece of work. It is Chappelle at his best.
Why he turned his attention to other oppressed people makes no sense to me. Was it that he was pissed that Black people kept getting killed and white gays made progress? Is it jealousy? Is that material how he is choosing to process the loss of his trans friend? Only Dave can answer that. And while there was some good, funny material in his last special, the hateful, angry nature of his takes on trans people made my stomach turn. This goes back to what Carlin mentioned, the notion of “punching up” versus “punching down”.
When people are an oppressed minority, their lives are already designed to be a joke. How many times has the joke about a man in a dress been made in movies and TV shows? Trans people are hilarious, the thinking goes. But imagine being a trans person and feeling like a stranger in your own body. That must have been torture to live in a time where it wasn’t nearly as accepted as it is now, not that it’s even remotely close to being widely accepted now. Punching down only serves to further demean those people and dehumanize them. That has always been the goal of supremacy. By supporting people who make “jokes” like this, you are supporting oppression and a brutal caste system based on supremacy.
None of that is funny. None of that is entertaining. And as Marc Maron pointed out to Whitney, that’s kind of the point: