obviously this is the kind of overbroad question that can't really be answered, and i'm sure the smart folks on ilx can come up with a lot of counter-examples. "conservative" is a slippery word, which is part of the problem.
in the past when i have thought this, it has been particularly in reference to humor i am drawn to about race and gender. these jokes derive the content of their humor from social inequality and also from types. do they, in recapitulating those types, fix them even more firmly in culture? our consciousness? some way i could put that that would be rigorous and not flaky.
this is basically coming from how sad comedy about race and gender sometimes makes me, a testament to how little seems to change. maybe a better way to put this would be, if the revolution ever came, these jokes wouldn't be funny anymore. maybe this is a really obvious thing to say. what do you think?
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:56 (1 year ago) Permalink
i guess if you wanted to broaden this question beyond my race and gender hobbyhorses, it would be more, is comedy about finding humor in things that never change and therefore asserting that things can never change?
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 01:58 (1 year ago) Permalink
i have a kinda traditional view that the best comedy is launched from from the powerless against the powerful. i also really love freud's explanation of gallows humor and camus' reading of it as sisyphean laughter
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
it's an interesting idea, especially in relation to all the ink spilled the last few years about how topical comedy is now ruled by liberals (cf. The Daily Show and the miserable failure of that Fox News "conservative Daily Show" thing). perhaps by going to that thought i'm kind of shooting past the point you're making, but i wonder if they're related at all.
― kitty shayme (some dude), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
so i guess i come down on comedy being essentially radical + not conservative
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:04 (1 year ago) Permalink
i'm not sure comedy is "essentially" anything
― yorba linda carlisle (donna rouge), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
Kate Beaton put up this TCJ piece about comic humorist Betty Swords on her blog, which I found both sharp and inspiring.
All at once, her “rather Pollyana view of humor as a kindly contemplation of life’s incongruities” (quoting Stephen Leacock) changed: she saw humor’s tremendous power “to kill as well as to amuse. Humor commits countless little murders of its victims’ self esteem. I saw that too often men used humor as a weapon against the Others of society, and it was women who marched at the head of this Hit Parade. And since each of us marches to a different drummer, we all join the humor hit parade at some time.”
― Word of Wisdom Robots (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
i think i've talked in ilx threads before about being uncomfortable with humor about, oh, say indians (which indian comedians sometimes play up) that's just using the fact of being indian as though it's funny. (comedy indian accents, the fact that a bunch of college freshmen in my entering class cracked up at the sight of the sikh character in the english patient, as far as i could tell, because the sight of an indian man onscreen was inherently funny to them.) obviously a lot of race humor is a lot better than this (partially because it's funnier, which isn't hard) but sometimes i wonder if, as funny as it is, it doesn't participate a little bit in the thing it critiques inasmuch as it keeps certain stereotypes in circulation.
or, like, the best comedy can do (which is amazing) is lay bare some deep racist/sexist hypocrisy, like that line about nbc only ever having one black person on screen in the live 30 Rock. but it's not really built for imagining a world that operates differently, better? now of course there are probably millions of examples of comedy that do that that i'm just not thinking of.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:07 (1 year ago) Permalink
― yorba linda carlisle (donna rouge), Monday, May 14, 2012 10:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yeah, the level of abstraction/generality/pompousness of this thread title makes me cringe tbh.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
At the end, excerpts from Swords' unpublished book on humor:
Excerpts from the precis for Betty Swords’ Humor Power* The male images of women created by cartoonists were accepted as the truth about women. For example: The woman driver is the safest driver, according to the National Safety Council—but not to the National Cartoonists Society. To them, she’s the quintessential “dumb driver,” an idea so set in the concrete of comic tradition that it’s become a humor shorthand: when we see a cartoon of a woman driver, we know automatically that she’s a dumb driver. Just ask a man which he believes—the Cartoonists Society or the Safety Council?* Humor’s Role in History. Man creates society in his own image. Our unique culture, and our early tall tale humor, grew from feelings of inferiority—to the British and to the awesome wilderness. The British called the colonists “uncouth savages.” America’s first settlers couldn’t claim culture, so they made fun of it. We still ridicule the “eggheads” and the “absent-minded professors” who, supposedly, lack the “gumption.” Glasses remain the humor symbol for a wimp: he reads! The arts remain suspect as a haven for wimps—or worse. Early Americans chose for the hero of their early tall tale humor that boozing, brawling, boasting, wenching, anti-book-larnin’ son-of-a-gun, the Frontiersman. He lives on in John Wayne and Rambo, and in a president who admires them both. In Funnyland, no Real Man attends a concert or ballet. And President Reagan felt it necessary to note that his ballet-dancing son was really “all man.”* Humor helped establish stereotypes. Humor perpetuates these always derogatory images once they are set in the concrete of comic tradition. Even social scientists accepted the black stereotype of the lazy, thieving, stupid “coon” set by minstrel show jokes. Stereotypes are wonderfully useful in a pluralistic society: you don’t have to actually know a black or a Jew to know what they’re really like. What stereotypes are, of course, are lies, invented to keep certain people “in their place.” Ideas, as well as people, are the victims of stereotypes when their advocates are ridiculed as “kooks” or “crazies.” Stereotypical jokelore becomes folklore and affects our attitudes and even our laws.* Our history helps explain why women are the chief target of American humor: women represented culture and civilization to our tall tale hero—the enemy of his freedom—while allowing every insecure male to feel superior to someone.* Men are victims, too, of the stereotype they chose for themselves: that brawling, boozing, wenching, anti-intellectual frontiersman. … No other stereotype is so rigorously policed by jokes and ridicule–and it’s a killer, inflicting tremendous emotional and physical damage on the men who can’t live up to this rough-tough image, and on those who try to rise above it.* It’s humor which perpetuates the myths that deny minorities dignity and self-respect. So it was vital that minorities develop a private coping humor to stand the pain, to put down their persecutors—and so to raise themselves.* Feminist humor hopes to make changes by bonding with people, instead of laughing at them: the pick-up instead of the put-down.* When you’re the victim of jokes, don’t just die there. Do something. Responses range from simple assertiveness to aikido, a kind of verbal karate which turns the thrust of the humor weapon back on the wielder.* The larger the audience, the more conservative the humor, so newspaper funnies also reflect a static status quo made up of stereotypical humor myths—as does the press in general, newspapers and mass market magazines. Humorists are mostly merchandisers of the status quo; they must uphold the values of their audiences, especially if they’re large ones. (Political cartoonists and columnists are allowed more freedom). And yet, humorists are usually dissenters, who see the world slightly askew and ask us to share their laughter at its oddities.* If humor has the power to help shape society—and given that our society is one of growing violence and alienation—can we not alter and improve society, at least our corner of it, by changing our humor? Only when we recognize humor’s power—for good as well as for evil—can we control that power for positive purposes in both our personal and professional lives.
* The male images of women created by cartoonists were accepted as the truth about women. For example: The woman driver is the safest driver, according to the National Safety Council—but not to the National Cartoonists Society. To them, she’s the quintessential “dumb driver,” an idea so set in the concrete of comic tradition that it’s become a humor shorthand: when we see a cartoon of a woman driver, we know automatically that she’s a dumb driver. Just ask a man which he believes—the Cartoonists Society or the Safety Council?
* Humor’s Role in History. Man creates society in his own image. Our unique culture, and our early tall tale humor, grew from feelings of inferiority—to the British and to the awesome wilderness. The British called the colonists “uncouth savages.” America’s first settlers couldn’t claim culture, so they made fun of it. We still ridicule the “eggheads” and the “absent-minded professors” who, supposedly, lack the “gumption.” Glasses remain the humor symbol for a wimp: he reads! The arts remain suspect as a haven for wimps—or worse. Early Americans chose for the hero of their early tall tale humor that boozing, brawling, boasting, wenching, anti-book-larnin’ son-of-a-gun, the Frontiersman. He lives on in John Wayne and Rambo, and in a president who admires them both. In Funnyland, no Real Man attends a concert or ballet. And President Reagan felt it necessary to note that his ballet-dancing son was really “all man.”
* Humor helped establish stereotypes. Humor perpetuates these always derogatory images once they are set in the concrete of comic tradition. Even social scientists accepted the black stereotype of the lazy, thieving, stupid “coon” set by minstrel show jokes. Stereotypes are wonderfully useful in a pluralistic society: you don’t have to actually know a black or a Jew to know what they’re really like. What stereotypes are, of course, are lies, invented to keep certain people “in their place.” Ideas, as well as people, are the victims of stereotypes when their advocates are ridiculed as “kooks” or “crazies.” Stereotypical jokelore becomes folklore and affects our attitudes and even our laws.
* Our history helps explain why women are the chief target of American humor: women represented culture and civilization to our tall tale hero—the enemy of his freedom—while allowing every insecure male to feel superior to someone.
* Men are victims, too, of the stereotype they chose for themselves: that brawling, boozing, wenching, anti-intellectual frontiersman. … No other stereotype is so rigorously policed by jokes and ridicule–and it’s a killer, inflicting tremendous emotional and physical damage on the men who can’t live up to this rough-tough image, and on those who try to rise above it.
* It’s humor which perpetuates the myths that deny minorities dignity and self-respect. So it was vital that minorities develop a private coping humor to stand the pain, to put down their persecutors—and so to raise themselves.
* Feminist humor hopes to make changes by bonding with people, instead of laughing at them: the pick-up instead of the put-down.
* When you’re the victim of jokes, don’t just die there. Do something. Responses range from simple assertiveness to aikido, a kind of verbal karate which turns the thrust of the humor weapon back on the wielder.
* The larger the audience, the more conservative the humor, so newspaper funnies also reflect a static status quo made up of stereotypical humor myths—as does the press in general, newspapers and mass market magazines. Humorists are mostly merchandisers of the status quo; they must uphold the values of their audiences, especially if they’re large ones. (Political cartoonists and columnists are allowed more freedom). And yet, humorists are usually dissenters, who see the world slightly askew and ask us to share their laughter at its oddities.
* If humor has the power to help shape society—and given that our society is one of growing violence and alienation—can we not alter and improve society, at least our corner of it, by changing our humor? Only when we recognize humor’s power—for good as well as for evil—can we control that power for positive purposes in both our personal and professional lives.
― Word of Wisdom Robots (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:08 (1 year ago) Permalink
I think her points about most humor – esp newspaper comic strips! – upholding the status quo is probably true.
― Word of Wisdom Robots (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
I feel like this is something I could talk about a lot if I had some time to chew over the question. Too bad this thread is going to expire tonight or whatever...
Um, in a nutshell: no. It's not by any means inherently conservative. But is the bulk of comedy in the popular consciousness conservative in nature? Yeah, I think it is. And I think a lot of the reason for that is that, as with pretty much every other entertainment medium, breaking the mold isn't a thing that's rewarded much (either financially or in terms of popularity) so you don't see a lot of people within the popular consciousness breaking the mold. Which isn't to say those people aren't out there. They just aren't as visible.
One of my greatest concerns wrt comedy is to always always always try to override the impulse towards cruelty. It's such an easy, tried and tested way to go, but it just puts so much more shit out into the world. A lot of people put (potential) fame and riches before humanistic concerns, though, so I don't think that's an impulse that's overridden as much as it probably should be.
The best and most popular example of someone fighting the good fight in this regard is Louie CK. There are probably lots of moments that back this up, but I hone in on the season 2 episode of Louie when he has to trust his neighbors with his kids. This is a moment that could have been played for big, dumb, xenophobic laffs but was instead an honest moment which recognized how disconnected we often are from the world around us. It was pretty brave, and I think most instances when an overt comedic persona tries to embrace truth over laughs are equally brave but also just not a thing that appeals to many comedy performers or audiences.
― Bob Bop Perano (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
when you remember this clusterfuck, remember me, please
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
jk I am going to read + think this
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
there's a whole argument about turn of century vaudeville humor that it used broad ethnic or racial humor bc the practitioners were looking to distinguish themselves from even more Other'd groups than themselves, to align themselves with the broader, whiter, popular culture. there's def conservative traditions of humor, but not ones i find particularly funny.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
maybe stretching the definition of conservative beyond useful meaning here, but i have also wondered if the "moment of recognition" nature of what makes you laugh is part of the conservatism? like, comedy shoots for maximizing the widespread recognition of something familiar and wringing humor out of it--does that make it necessarily backward-looking or, as Abbott put it, overcommitted to the status quo?
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
i guess this question is kind of trolly or challopy or something. Abbott, i am going to read that article now! Betty Swords sounds cool.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:20 (1 year ago) Permalink
yr leaving out the best part of that scene which was a monumental juicy hospital fart
xp to deric
― he bit me (it felt like a diss) (m bison), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
(just to clarify, i like comedy! inasmuch as my humorless tendencies allow! i mean the term "conservative" half-descriptively, here. it's not my intention to be pejorative, exactly.)
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
Was this inspired by the 30 Rock discussion on the racism thread?
No I don't think comedy is necessarily conservative. I do think 30 Rock is a bit conservative. It also happens to be really, really good. But I don't think it even remotely approaches radical stances on pretty much anything.
― this guy's a gangsta? his real name's mittens. (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
isn't the way that humor allows us to discuss and laugh about things that generally aren't allowed as serious topics a kinda radical element? even if the thing it's letting you talk about is conservative in certain ways? like the fracture in society has an almost anarchic element.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
I would argue if you're liberal-minded, you're not going to be seeking out inherently conservative humor. So if you're talking about Louie, you have to bear in mind how much more vastly popular and part of general popular consciousness someone like Jeff Dunham is. Lord knows I will get almost teary with love for the rabble-rousers and thorns in our side of the comedy world. But Vaughan Meader was outselling the Fugs by a fatty-ass margin! You know?
― Word of Wisdom Robots (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:23 (1 year ago) Permalink
This is why I always half-sucked at improv: way too in my own head trying to avoid easy and regressive bullshit. While castmates minced merrily across the stage or did their best Breakfast At Tiffany's-era Rooney without giving a rip.
― Bob Bop Perano (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:24 (1 year ago) Permalink
we should include friends, family + social circles too, and not just "professional comedy."
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
Something like 30 Rock is at least discussing third wave feminism, racial politics, etc, with some level of thought and even affection, which you won't find in hardly any modern comedy. Which is why it gets talked about to a degree that I find totally exhausting. There aren't dozens of other competing shows with similar ideologies to compete for attention from Slate & whatnot.
― Word of Wisdom Robots (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
The fart was icing on the cake.
― Bob Bop Perano (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
i would also point out that Louie has its "radical" tendencies and its conservative ones. louis ck's views, as expressed on the show, about wanting to have sex/masturbate being inherently disgusting and indicative about something animalistic about masculinity in particular are as old as the hills.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:25 (1 year ago) Permalink
well, as old as the 19th century
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
in some sense even the most transgressive humor leeches the bile just a bit to allow the persistent context to continue. if you laugh then maybe you can deal with it today.
on the other side, lots of powerful ppl throughout history (on macro and micro levels) have been very concerned with the threat that laughter contains
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:26 (1 year ago) Permalink
i hate how defending my dumb thread idea is going to force me to criticize all these things i like, like Louie.
I'd say "no," to the thread title, but not to the concerns raised by it. It's a tricky thing. Picking up on what Mordy said about power, I think comedy can either laugh up or down. (And of course it can sometimes be hard to tell which is which -- just ask Dave Chappelle.) What's most transgressive about comedy -- like, say, the first Eminem album -- is often also what's most brutal about it, and that brutality is most effective when it's least conveniently or even consciously aimed. See also the entire run of South Park, obviously. Does South Park subvert anything, or does it just reify existing power structures? The problem is that that question is always going to miss something essential about what makes comedy work. Funny South Park episodes aren't really more politically or socially defensible than lousy South Park episodes, they're just funnier.
Which doesn't answer the question, obviously.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:27 (1 year ago) Permalink
what is more conservative dreams or comedy
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
i guess jonathan swift would make swift work of this thread question
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:28 (1 year ago) Permalink
xp whoa
btw every time I see live comedy I basically feel like I am watching someone have a nervous breakdown on stage, I can't really do it anymore
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:29 (1 year ago) Permalink
No, but you're right. And that's the thing: there really isn't any comedy I can think of in the popular consciousness that isn't at least a little conservative. It's just a matter of degrees, and all of the degrees are worthy of criticism.
― Bob Bop Perano (Deric W. Haircare), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:29 (1 year ago) Permalink
funny dreams for sure the most radical. unfunny reality sometimes the most conservative but also funny.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:29 (1 year ago) Permalink
Humor has and always will be a reactionary force.
isn't the way that humor allows us to discuss and laugh about things that generally aren't allowed as serious topics a kinda radical element?
No. Humor acts as a mechanism of release and pacification. Energy that is potentially directed towards dismantling the existing power structure is used up in counterproductive emotions such as "laughter".
To be humorless is a necessary precondition for creating a better world.
― Banaka™ (banaka), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:29 (1 year ago) Permalink
I recently reread a bio of Will Gaines, which I had read in my teens and it lead me to idolize the dude and early MAD as the unparalleled liberal iconoclasts. Which, of course they weren't. They basically wouldn't hire female humorists, wouldn't allow wives on the legendary and exorbitant annual staff international vacations, used racial slurs, made horrible (and unfunny) jokes at the expense of Prohias and Aragones for their ethnicity, etc. All a reminder that one must not have too much love for heroes, who are fallible, including my favorites such as Tina Fey.
― Word of Wisdom Robots (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
omg am i banaka?
xp
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
hey banaka, knock knock
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:30 (1 year ago) Permalink
banaka, i am sorry but you are wrong. laughter will be the song we sing as our consciousnesses are uploaded to the singularity. u didn't get the memo?
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
for real i think this used to bother me more when i was a self-styled revolutionary. it's probably a naive way to think about social change.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
satire can be sort of conservative i guess. if everything is worthy of ridicule and scorn then why do anything differently than we do now? feel like this is often the case with british satirical humour. if you skewer everything then the subtext is to just keep going with the status quo. though you could probably get into a whole class thing about the kind of people who make comedy in britain, which is just boring imo.
― zverotic discourse (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:32 (1 year ago) Permalink
the joke that the universe is cold + empty + meaningless > the revolutionary joke so i guess the question is whether the void is conservative or not
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:32 (1 year ago) Permalink
see my thing about "humorless" is that it's often slung at people who actually understand the machinations of humor (usually better than the people lobbing the accusation in the first place)
― yorba linda carlisle (donna rouge), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
doctors who understand farts better than I do can be humorless ime
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
targeted satire isn't, though, is it? i am just thinking of "a modest proposal" here. it's some next-level imagining a worse world to invoke a better one.
xxxp
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
i think humorless tends to apply to ppl who take themselves seriously
― Mordy, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 02:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
I fart a lot tho, like all the time, people tell me about it all the time, like I fart more than most people
i'm not funny at all!
^^^this is precisely why you are funny bro
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:26 (9 months ago) Permalink
every time i try to make a joke in writing i can feel the semi-colons just...bubbling under the surface of the sentence
― lex pretend, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:27 (9 months ago) Permalink
bubbling colons? now that's funny!
― DX Dx DX (dan m), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:27 (9 months ago) Permalink
>:(
― lex pretend, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:28 (9 months ago) Permalink
ftr i didn't laugh at that either
― goole, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:28 (9 months ago) Permalink
what i really wanted to read was a kind of *historical* account of comedy & its relationship to transgression, like a "genealogy of comedy."
yeah but max people spend their entire careers trying to say something definitive about this and failing. it's one of the biggest subjects and one where you're never going to get resolution. you can take an ancient comic tradition course and get a little more clarity (it's these classes that tend to lead toward the "comedy is inherently* conservative" idea) but for the most part you disappear into prehistory before you're satisfied. plus "western" vs. other models which are even less rigorously documented.
*"inherently" is a poor word here - what it means is "originally," I think, and that some of those origins are present in all comedy
― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:28 (9 months ago) Permalink
the semi-colons...the semi-colons
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:29 (9 months ago) Permalink
aero otm
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:29 (9 months ago) Permalink
lex yer great btw, your opinions on comedy are ridiculous but I p much agree in my heart of hearts I think
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:30 (9 months ago) Permalink
saying comedy is inherently anything seems like a really bizarre, unfounded contention imho
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:30 (9 months ago) Permalink
it's one of the biggest subjects and one where you're never going to get resolution.
both "not admitting of resolution" and "trying and failing" are comic qualities, so, i say go for it.
― goole, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:30 (9 months ago) Permalink
there probably are ways to document certain aspects of things, though. like i'd be interested in hear from, like, guys from the Don Rickles generation about whether they think standup has actually gotten meaner or dirtier over the last few decades, or whether they can get away with blue material in bigger rooms or on TV whereas that stuff might've been limited to small clubs back in the day. (xpost to aero)
― some dude, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:31 (9 months ago) Permalink
maybe "originally" is what i meant, but i don't even know anything about the origins of comedy tbrr. this was a thread started in ignorance, for sure.
― horseshoe, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:32 (9 months ago) Permalink
im not looking for a "theory of comedy" or a "definition of comedy"! i think the search for universal answers to those things ends up sidetrack the more interesting question of "what role does [this kind of] comedy play in this specific time/place"
― max, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:33 (9 months ago) Permalink
some dude otm. interested in both micro and macro histories of comedy
i don't think i 'get' don rickles
i always assumed that irl he was totally gross and vicious but if it was just like his 'you hockey puck!' business you see on TV then i'm really mystified.
― goole, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:33 (9 months ago) Permalink
rickles talked about some of this in the joan rivers doc I think I don't really remember tho, but I think so
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:34 (9 months ago) Permalink
i mean it's interesting to me that up until a certain point in time, it seemed like the only comics really known for pushing the envelope for language/content on large stages were the really respected and clever guys like carlin, bruce, pryor -- then at some point after andrew dice clay (or maybe eddie murphy's needlessly nasty stuff) it became the province of the hack, that you could go on hbo and say awful shit and not have to justify it with major creativity or wit.
― some dude, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:35 (9 months ago) Permalink
have you seen that mr. warmth documentary from a few years back, goole? helped me get the rickles.
― contenderizer, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:37 (9 months ago) Permalink
swear to god i read something a while ago that dealt pretty deftly with the whole compassion thing in humor. something like comedy must, at some break point or w/e, when the clown slips on the banana peel, be dispassionate.
also where's the weird dissertation about humor that Tracer (?) posted lo those many years ago, about humor being the moss growing on rust or some old bullshit
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:38 (9 months ago) Permalink
rickles is awesome fuiud
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:38 (9 months ago) Permalink
The audience for those guys were the middle class, no? I've only heard a couple Rickles routines. Is the class itself a target?
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:38 (9 months ago) Permalink
there probably are ways to document certain aspects of things, though. like i'd be interested in hear from, like, guys from the Don Rickles generation about whether they think standup has actually gotten meaner or dirtier over the last few decades, or whether they can get away with blue material in bigger rooms or on TV whereas that stuff might've been limited to small clubs back in the day.
oh, no doubt. but if somebody's shooting for a unified theory of how comedy works (the premise of the thread) then you're going to get to about Aristophanes and then hit a brick wall. Early Roman comedy is also pure supposition, there's just fragments. As far as we know it was basically a guy standing in front of an audience and falling down over and over, really broad physical comedy. Whether a form's original tropes inform it forever is a question you could really chew on for a long time, though it'd be hard to argue that an original formal impulse didn't remain present without a documentable "here's where the shift occurred" moment.
it is interesting stuff, because it necessarily turns on the question "why is (x) funny," and that's a question that ends up facing a brick wall very quickly. "The ball...his groin...it works on so many levels" is kind of what you end up saying in less funny terms.
― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:38 (9 months ago) Permalink
yeah that was a cool flick -- saw the joan doc too, although it's been a while so i'm not really sure if either got into what i was talking about. (xpost)
― uncleshavedlongneck (some dude), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:38 (9 months ago) Permalink
no, progressive comedy was the subject of this thread! or comedy that's created with an anti-racist/anti-sexist intention but somehow seems to reify racist/sexist stereotypes unintentionally. or whatever.
― horseshoe, Friday, August 17, 2012 6:12 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Like, comedy that fails on it's own terms, or comedy that succeeds, but is embedded in and reinforces other oppressions?
My first thought on reading the thread title was Monty Python, which is explicitly leftie political comedy without getting preachy, but also five white straight public-school boys (with occasional appearances by a lady with very large breasts).
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:39 (9 months ago) Permalink
i'll have to check those docs out.
w/o much familiarity i have a certain respect for old showbiz hoofers/lifers omg is that conservative
― goole, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:40 (9 months ago) Permalink
but I will say, from what we know about early western comedy, it seems to have been mainly about laughing at the misfortune of others? and sometimes about upending the privileged, but there are plenty of laughs had at the expense of eg slaves, too - and I think "finding amusement in the misfortune of others" is maybe inherently conservative?
― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:40 (9 months ago) Permalink
i think American comedy would be a good-sized topic to tackle, since it still exists kind of a distinct flavor from other English-speaking countries and you'd only have to go back a couple hundred years, although it's probably most oral tradition that's hard to document, no idea how much non-literary comedy/humor made it to print before a certain point. (xpost)
― uncleshavedlongneck (some dude), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:41 (9 months ago) Permalink
i think more the latter, comedy that is embedded in and reinforces other oppressions. that's better-put than my original post, for sure. i think i was talking about a really specific and historically contingent thing and pretending it was general, for one thing. so yeah, i am interested in max's history of comedy, too.
xxp to Andrew
― horseshoe, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:41 (9 months ago) Permalink
i think there is something at the psychological root of a lot of comedy that might lend itself to reinforcing the status quo -- like a lot of time a joke has to function by playing off of some widely understood truth or idea or social norm. if an idea or norm is inherently racist or misogynist etc., then yeah, a lot of the jokes constructed around will probably essential saying "check out this ridiculous situation in which our accepted ideas of this minority are defied." which by the way would be a horrible way to tell that kind of joke, usually it's done much more smoothly, but i'm not a comedy professional.
― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, May 14, 2012 11:04 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark
i was about to try to write a post but i think i was just going to kind of reword this old post
― uncleshavedlongneck (some dude), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:43 (9 months ago) Permalink
Is the class itself a target?
I'd say in Rickles comedy everyone is the target. it's very meanspirited but in an oddly magnanimous "hey EVERYBODY is a joke" way. not defending all of his material cuz he definitely worked racist/sexist, but I do think there was something genuinely appealing in his "I am an equal opportunity offender" schtick.
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:44 (9 months ago) Permalink
american standup comedy was invented by airplanes btw
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:45 (9 months ago) Permalink
airplanes and spendthrift women iirc
― horseshoe, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:45 (9 months ago) Permalink
but I will say, from what we know about early western comedy, it seems to have been mainly about laughing at the misfortune of others?
seem to recall taking some shit somewhere (probably some other thread) where I made the broadly reductive assertion that all comedy was based on either the suffering of other people or nonsense/non-seuquiturs
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:46 (9 months ago) Permalink
― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, August 17, 2012 12:40 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
cutting against this is that the "lol slaves" bits of these pieces were the only points where non-aristo, non-heroic life was even depicted?
― goole, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:46 (9 months ago) Permalink
an airplane walks into a bar
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:46 (9 months ago) Permalink
why the long wings asks the bartender
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:47 (9 months ago) Permalink
Haha also if comedy is essentially conservative then why are conservatives SO TERRIBLE at telling jokes?
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:47 (9 months ago) Permalink
good question, they're long, but, you know, they sure are tired, replies the airplane
this is my favorite dylan song, says the airplane
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:48 (9 months ago) Permalink
mine too, says the bartender, mine too
then in Shakespeare you get a panoply of fools and low lifes who on the page delight in words but on stage also indulge in an awful lot of the slapstick and pratfalls of Roman comedy.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:48 (9 months ago) Permalink
http://archive.org/details/laughteranessay00berggoog
here it is
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the ComicHenri Bergson
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:49 (9 months ago) Permalink
the comic consists in there being "something mechanical encrusted on the living"
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:53 (9 months ago) Permalink
gbx your post just reminded me that if anyone is interested in this subject and hasn't read hugh kenner's book The Counterfeiter's they should, it doesn't function as an all around deal, but it gets at a lot of what max wanted out of a piece or w/e
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:56 (9 months ago) Permalink
the whole buster keaton part is great, the rest is too, it is very dry and wonderful
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:57 (9 months ago) Permalink
whoah, gross, get it off
― contenderizer, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:59 (9 months ago) Permalink
^^^lolz
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:59 (9 months ago) Permalink
there's a spark in yr hair!!
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 18:00 (9 months ago) Permalink
I don't think that's the case - cf Horace especially re: his dad but maybe that's what you mean. Horace's satires are so gentle that to call them "comedy" is stretching a little imo
― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 17 August 2012 18:09 (9 months ago) Permalink