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 (eleven years ago) link
bubbling colons? now that's funny!
― DX Dx DX (dan m), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:27 (eleven years ago) link
>:(
― lex pretend, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:28 (eleven years ago) link
ftr i didn't laugh at that either
― goole, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:28 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
the semi-colons...the semi-colons
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:29 (eleven years ago) link
aero otm
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:29 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
rickles is awesome fuiud
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:38 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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.
xp
― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:44 (eleven years ago) link
american standup comedy was invented by airplanes btw
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:45 (eleven years ago) link
airplanes and spendthrift women iirc
― horseshoe, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:45 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
― 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 (eleven years ago) link
an airplane walks into a bar
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:46 (eleven years ago) link
why the long wings asks the bartender
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:47 (eleven years ago) link
Haha also if comedy is essentially conservative then why are conservatives SO TERRIBLE at telling jokes?
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:47 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
the comic consists in there being "something mechanical encrusted on the living"
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:53 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
whoah, gross, get it off
― contenderizer, Friday, 17 August 2012 17:59 (eleven years ago) link
^^^lolz
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 17:59 (eleven years ago) link
there's a spark in yr hair!!
― catbus otm (gbx), Friday, 17 August 2012 18:00 (eleven years ago) link
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 (eleven years ago) link
i think about this thread often, i think the answer is p much yeah
― sleepingbag, Wednesday, 31 July 2013 01:48 (ten years ago) link