Stand Up Comedians Are Not Funny
C omedy is in a catamenia of extraordinary flux. The past 2 years accept witnessed the reputations of revered comics, such as Louis CK and Aziz Ansari, implode in the wake of #MeToo allegations. Then there is the civilisation of unearthing sometime tweets, with standups being held to account for problematic "jokes" they've fabricated online (for Kevin Hart, it even cost him his most loftier-profile gig to date, hosting the Oscars). There are also increasing fears around political one-act and censorship. This month, Hasan Minhaj'southward Netflix special was pulled because he criticised the Saudi regime over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, while Michelle Wolf's searing political set at the White House Correspondents Association dinner in 2018 led to the board announcing that 2019 volition be the first time in 15 years that a comic would not be presenting the event. Elsewhere, Jim Davidson, a human once and so vile he was about allowed to judgment, was reported for detest speech, at his own birthday political party no less (although no action was taken). The one-act goalposts are shifting and there is a demand that the art form gets more socially conscious. Only can yous exist woke and funny? And are nosotros living in a time of such change and heightened awareness that the ii tin at present never be mutually exclusive?
"When comedians say: 'Oh you tin't say ANYTHING these days!', what they are actually saying is, 'I don't know how to be funny without stomping on people.' Which is fair plenty: not everyone has those skills," says Danish standup and podcaster Sofie Hagen. "But a lot of comedians practise and they're doing well based on that. Hannah Gadsby, Nish Kumar, Sara Pascoe, Mark Watson, Sophie Duker, Mae Martin: at that place are loads who manage to say a lot of things without repercussions; who are really, really funny while doing information technology. Information technology sometimes takes a scrap of actress work; you take to be enlightened of your own privilege and you have to educate yourself so you lot don't employ damaging language."
Comic James Meehan agrees. "The thing about standup is you tin joke about absolutely anything. Nothing is off limits. It's just how well yous tin can write and frame the joke. I know lazy comics who only complain virtually political correctness because they don't want to update their material. The other people who complain are those who desire a platform to spout mean rhetoric."
Just information technology is not just about laziness; sometimes there is a deliberate try to rile. Before the allegations, Louis CK'southward comedy was subversive: poking fun at the inequalities of American society, while simultaneously acknowledging the means they benefited him. Afterwards allegations of sexual misconduct appeared last year, even so, the comic seemed to react with horror at a new world that threatened his unexamined patriarchal mindset. Co-ordinate to reports, at a recent New York show CK made jokes nigh survivors of gun violence and minorities such equally non-binary teens. When some listeners appeared shocked, he allegedly responded: "Fuck it, what are you going to take away, my birthday? My life is over, I don't give a shit."
Information technology was as if CK had reacted to the new wave of wokeness by indicting political correctness; he became an virtually Trump-like figure, amplifying for shock value and catering to an audience who probably felt as if accusations about him were false or insignificant.
However, there is a new generation of comics retaliating against the old template of comedy. Nights such as The LOL Give-and-take (for queer women and not-binary performers) and FOC It Up!, standing for "femmes of colour", have emerged, along with the new comic voices including Chloe Petts, Jodie Mitchell, Kemah Bob and Sara Barron. Hagen is also emblematic of this new kind of comedian. Terminal twelvemonth, she demanded that every venue on her Dead Baby Frog tour was "anxiety safe" (meaning audition members with feet could be immune into the venue before others arrived, or exist warned of whatever words or topics that might exist triggering for them), had gender-neutral bathrooms and were wheelchair attainable. She had a positive response from fans, but faced an inevitable backlash online.
"The people who come to my shows, the people who savour my standup and my podcasts, they're on the right side of history. They get information technology," she says. "And I know that a lot appreciated information technology. The negativity I got was mostly online: loads and loads of hateful tweets and comments from people who were never going to become see my evidence anyway."
Is this the future of funny? Perhaps information technology is the merely fashion to survive. Comic Dane Baptiste thinks information technology could be detrimental to a comic's career to turn on with problematic sense of humor: "Information technology'southward not an obligation for comedians to exist socially enlightened in their narrative only I feel that if you accept no commentary on the mechanics that touch on your life and lives of others, you might find yourself rather detached, and eventually irrelevant."
When information technology comes to how people rest freedom of voice communication versus social responsibleness in their one-act, there is, perhaps, a generational divide. "The received wisdom would probably be that there is," says comedy writer and actor Liam Williams. "Though it would exist complacent just to presume that whatsoever backfire to increased nuance, consideration, and empathy in comedy is just coming from about-expressionless Daily Post readers. There'south a new sense of panic almost tolerance and not just among older people."
As if to clinch that point, just before Christmas, Russian-British comedian Konstantin Kisin pulled out of a gig for the Unicef on Campus society at London's School of Oriental and African Studies after refusing to sign a "behavioural agreement form". The form stated: "By signing this contract, yous are agreeing to our no-tolerance policy with regards to racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-disbelief." Kisin told the Daily Mail: "I grew upwardly under the Soviet Union. When I saw this letter, basically telling me what I could and couldn't say, I thought this was precisely the kind of letter a comic would have been sent there."
"As far every bit I could come across, the bulk of the outrage – coagulating around the idea that this represented a threat to free expression – came from older comedians and rightwing broadcasters, whereas younger people in the industry seemed to struggle to apprehend what the fuss was about," Williams says of the Kisin incident. "Almost decent comedy clubs offering some kind of disclaimer on their websites that abuse or discrimination volition not exist tolerated, from either audience members or acts. That's not a new affair, but maybe the intensity of the hysteria surrounding it is," he adds.
Amid such intense hysteria, mayhap it's not surprising that at that place is a sense of caution around humour, especially jokes existence made at major, highly scrutinised showbiz events. Have the recent Gold Globes awards. The comedy routines were curiously vapid, as though no one dared to gamble saying annihilation challenging in the post-Harvey Weinstein Hollywood era, for fear of a Twitter backlash. Co-hosts Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg set the tone. "Now we know what you guys are thinking," said Samberg. "Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh, the two nicest people in Hollywood? This is gonna be a snooze!" Samberg said, threatening to "roast" them "Ricky Gervais-manner". But, of course, the duo didn't. The gentle tone of the hosting was in marked contrast to the sparky Tina Fey/Amy Poehler hosting years of 2013 to 2015. In 2019, the concept of mocking your peers is definitely out.
Adjacent up come up the Oscars, already mired in Envelopegate, the #OscarsSoWhite campaign and the scrapping of a proposed popular film accolade category. Earlier this month, Kevin Hart plunged the Academy Awards into chaos when he decided he would rather picture Jumanji than host the effect, not least considering of the backlash he had been experiencing for homophobic tweets from 2009 and 2010 that had been unearthed. Because of the furore that surrounded Hart'south tweets and his subsequent reaction to the outrage, this yr'southward award prove will be hostless. Was Hart right to stand down? British comedian Stephen Bailey has an intriguing perspective. "I apparently, as a gay man, don't hold with what he said. Just it was a something he put out 10 years ago, others have had the same derogatory views," he says. "He has apologised, he seemed sincere, nosotros accept to hope he learns from it and grows and nosotros should give him that take chances; nosotros shouldn't want to destroy him. We are in such a time where instead of educating and allowing growth, we love to create a villain out of someone and so that we can play the hero – and that's not on."
Rather, Bailey suggests, there should be more than attention and urgency paid to acts of homophobia happening to people right now. "A couple were attacked in the last few days for holding hands by three thugs … shall nosotros shine a calorie-free on that? That'south helpful!"
Perhaps the death of traditional comedy has as well been ushered in because, as Hannah Gadsby has put it, the format suspends its practitioners in "a permanent state of boyhood". Gadsby, the most thoughtful comedian of recent times, deconstructed comedy at Sydney Opera Firm in her standup prove Nanette on Netflix final yr.
What was Gadsby's problem with comedy? In order to succeed at standup, the comedian said she had to exist cocky-deprecating: "I had to put myself downwards in order to speak." She described how, years agone, she would practise a gag almost an experience she had in which a man who threatened her for flirting with his girlfriend outside a pub eventually backed off when he realised that she was a woman. The punchline was most the man's ignorance.
In Nanette, however, Gadsby revealed she had distorted what happened for comic effect. The reality was far more disturbing. After walking away, the homo said: "I go it. You're a lady faggot. I'm immune to beat the shit out of you." No one stopped his subsequent set on on her, nor did she ever report the assault to police or get infirmary handling.
Her point was that comedy made her distort her experience of a homophobic hate criminal offence. Effectively, she was internalising the hate. "That's not humility, it'due south humiliation," she said. Comedy was akin to an abusive partner – something she needed to escape.
While Gadsby expressed a business organisation that comedy could be harmful to minorities, the promise, in the era of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and other struggles confronting oppression, is that comedy tin help past existence a vehicle for radical idea. Nanette arrived at a pivotal moment of reassessment in the manufacture. That it was on Netflix and watched by a mainstream audition at home held significance. Many of its viewers probably would have never seen the prove live otherwise. Its success and Gadsby's visibility was a sign that systemic change is afoot.
"I know that a lot of fat people, for instance, stay abroad from comedy clubs because they only presume that they're going to exist made fun of," says Hagen. "Perchance the people who felt victimised or attacked or marginalised by one-act at present run into that in that location is a whole other scene, where they're not the butt of the joke. I don't know, but I hope so."
So what is the purpose of comedy in 2019?
Baptiste thinks its role is the aforementioned equally it has always been. "[It's] to provide the residuum to tragedy in the theatre that is fine art and life," he says. "To rationalise trauma; ane of the most effective coping methods humans have in this crazy globe. It's the best alternative to politics and its censored, sycophantic, dishonest nature. And," he says, "it'due south to assistance me pay bills and never ever always get a existent job. This is the most important 1 for me."
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jan/19/is-standup-comedy-doomed-future-of-funny-kevin-hart-louis-ck-nanette
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