Sit down, Comic

What's a comic's job? Number one job is to be funny. But too often, stand-up and TV comedians decide they want to be a social influencer. They seem to confuse sarcasm in aid of a political stance with being humorous. It doesn't work. How much "ally-ship" can a good joke survive?

Preaching is inherently non-amusing. You, Stand-up Comedian, are heir to a long line not of preachers but of the opposite. You represent the begging-to-differ folks. Your forebears are clowns, jesters and jocose performers for royal courts in which kings and queens had to be amused -- but not openly challenged. 

Court jesters got away with saying the unsayable, the unpopular, by cloaking it in word-play and subversive artifice. Too often today's comics want to be social commentators and influencers: they're talking to their tribe. So they don't subvert ("turn under"), they parrot the correctness slogans of the tribe. 

But that's no surprise. since mainstream media, TV specials and comedy clubs want comics to please a hip, "woke" crowd. So the comic seems to feel safe focusing their act on personal grievance, since a grievance culture is what we now live in and people relate to it; audience members curate their personal brands of victimization. 

What a distance the comics have come from their jesting antecedents, whose role was to challenge prejudices, not to follow the crowd -- but to challenge cleverly, subtly, with double-entrendre. Sadly, stand-up today mostly rises only to single-messaging, confusing propaganda with humour, and reacting to the threat of cancel-culture. When that fear rules, it's better for the comic to sit back down.

It was more entertaining when comic-as-social-critic lampooned and laughed at the prevailing message, the "right thought" of the moment. The comedian is not supposed to prop it up. Let the social-improvers do that, the self-appointed dictators of values.

It's a cultural loss when the comedy community joins that crowd, because we need humour more than ever to play its subversive role in boosting mental health. Transgressive laughter heals; correctness fosters anxiety. So do your traditional job, Comedians -- transgress!

It's better than merely parroting correctness, or being a weepy fish shoaling with the grieviance crowd. 

                   

See also: "The Comic in Tragic Times" -- https://satiricalscene.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-comic-in-tragic-times.html

The Necessity of Inappropriate Laughter

If it was appropriate, it wouldn't be half as much fun. There's no such thing as inappropriate laughter of course -- laughter is so automatic that that would be like inappropriate breathing. Laughter bubbling up or bursting forth unplanned is a type of honesty. It bursts as a force of nature, not of manufacture. The world needs that safety valve.

Yet, in cartoons or performance, during a speech or at a party, some people do complain that a joke was "inappropriate". Tasteless it may have been, but it has a function: Neitzsche and other philosophers have mentioned the release of tension and the joy of surprise.

It's socially useful to have the ridiculous laughed at (from the Latin ridere, to laugh). It's more than a personal response, it's a social corrective.

When laughter is labelled inappropriate it's usually about sex, gender, race, religion, or something ending in "ism". One person's laughable "ism" is another's no-go area.

Yet laughter goes everywhere; that's why it's powerful. No one has been able to imprison it -- not chilly religions, dictatorial bureaucracy, humorless teachers or anxious parents, no matter how repressive their reactions are. Laughter Laughs Last.

Think of how dangerous the world would be without it. Neitzsche also pointed out is that to oppose a bad idea, laughter is more effective than anger. If we had only anger imagine how much more violent life would be, how full of warfare.

In former ages court jesters were a professional group. In ancient Greece, under the rule of Philip of Macedon they were linked with Court Poets and Philosophers. Likewise in the English Courts of Henry VIII, James VI, and Charles I, where William Summers, Archibald Armstrong and Muckle John performed respectively.

This was reflected in Shakespeare's plays, with their essential Fools. ("Fool", linked to "folly", comes from the Latin noun follis, meaning bellows -- which are full of air and provide oxygen, like humour does.) Being full of air, someone to be jeered at (Shakespeare also dressed characters in ass ears etc.), the Court Fool could say what no one else could, escaping the murderous censors of the time yet managing to tell truths. 

Some comics do that today. In their act (or writings or cartoons) they present a farrago of material (a "mixed medley", originally meaning a mixture of fodder:  "far-corn").

Humour too is food, for both personal and social nourishment. Spontaneous laughter might erupt when we don't know what to think about something ... and then our subconscious tells us. Conflict is short-circuited, resentment deflected and something else takes the blame ... and escapes. Call it the scape-joke.

Homeless Man Identifies As Dog - Demands Housing in Animal Shelter

Regarding "BC politicans are aghast at blatant rights violation": https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/transgender-woman-denied-access-to-women-only-gym 

"People deserve to feel ... affirmed for who they are. Trans women are women — period.”              --- Kelli Paddon, B.C.’s parliamentary secretary for gender equity

News bulletin:

   Homeless Man Identifies As Dog                                                            

When he demanded the Animal Shelter give him free housing in a kennel, the Shelter explained that they only take in homeless animals.

The man sued the Animal Shelter under the BC Human Rights Code for "injury to dignity, feelings and self respect”. 

The Minister of Gender Equity was sympathetic: “Each individual knows their own gender ... uh, species ... best," she explained.

This homeless man has had his self-esteem attacked, say his advocates. (His what? ask skeptics. Wouldn't self-esteem involve working? renting an apartment?)

But "cool"! say animal welfare advocates. This means the Human Rights Code will need to be expanded to become the Human and Animal Rights Code.

Meanwhile, the government plans to table a Bill for the Eradication of Skepticism.

If I lose my case at the tribunal, says Dog-Man, I shall move to England. They have a Gender Recognition Act, under which if you have papers and present yourself as a member of another gender for two years and fill in a bunch of trans-forms, you legally ARE of that gender. Maybe they'll introduce the Species Recognition Act, establishing the same rights for trans-species citizens.

If so, I think I'll become a Corgi. With a bit of luck I might end up at Buckingham Palace, living in the lap of luxury.

 

The Comic in Tragic Times

When people want to look upon their times as tragic, tragic they become, or at least tragi-comic. All times have at least some bad things happen, to at least some of the people. 

In Canada during the COVID pandemic, “countless businesses permanently closed”, according to Mondaq.com (providing data from professional services firms). Statistics indicate that about 40% of couples are considering divorce, and only 53% of people say their mental health is good. Add fear of climate change, war, and price inflation, and you get a picture if not black at least grey.

This is a good time to escape into comedy, humanity's age-old response to tragic realities. Humanity wears two masks, which symbolize the theatrical arts and mirror the good-evil, light-dark dualities of religion. You'd think we'd need the smiling mask more than ever during times of pandemic and war, but it's hard for comics to play their role in a depressed society.

“It's not funny,” protest folks who don't want to be cheered up. 

Add to this the fact that so many groups feel “marginalized” -- while they clamour for compensation there's a feeling that humour is inappropriate. It's vague what they feel on the margins of, but resentment is a free-floating thing. Some people enjoy the pleasure of dis-approving more than the pleasure of approving; so in the Comedy Club called Life, laugh at your peril.

The comedian, whose role was always to play the “holy fool” and look askance at social “truths”, is an emergency responder, a front-line worker whose job is to get out of line. But you've got to be wise to play the fool. 

As a first responder the comic is looking for the funny side of things, but keeps finding hidden sides of miserable things. Life is funny that way -- but you don't dare let your first response be laughter. Too bad, because the pleasure instinct is the survival instinct, as the ancient Stoic philosophers knew.

In ancient Rome they'd sit on a "stoa" (porch) to offer spontaneous philosophy to passers-by. Keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, they advised, way before Kipling did. Don't stress about what you can't fix. Enjoy what's enjoyable. Maybe we need to spend more time on stoas today.

Whatever we do let's not cancel comedy (not censor the comedians and cartoonists). They may be our best therapists, in a time of resentments and obsession with mental illness. Jokes, jocosity and jests probably save more lives than mood medication does. They are mental vitamins.

(For more Stoic wisdom-humour, visit www.justjests.blogspot.com)