A Spectre is haunting comedy...

[Danny Weltman]

Your last two paragraphs do a good job of summing up your point, I think:

"And in a strange way, they are, because while comedy is definitely a
shared, group experience, it is not 100 percent “inclusive”. It almost
always requires an Other, an "out" group for those who "get it" to
reflexively position themselves against.

And that, dear reader, is what these critics represent. The necessary,
archetypal, ultimate component required for any truly successful and
transcendent comedy: the Square Left Out of the Joke."

But I'm not sure that's a great analysis of all of the cases.

I think it works pretty well for the Colbert one (for instance). The joke
there is on people who would actually set up something like that foundation
- in this case, the people who set up the Redskins foundation - and Suey
Park misses this by failing to realize that Colbert is definitely not one
of those people: he is being sarcastic.

Of course, to make his point, Colbert had to use racist language (otherwise
the joke wouldn't be funny). As you point out, comedians have to be on the
edge. If someone knows that Colbert is not a racist (as one who watched him
would be safe in assuming) then the joke is funny. I could definitely
understand someone who had never seen Colbert thinking otherwise, though.
Throwing around those kinds of words is effective for the joke only because
those are the sorts of words that whitey ought not to throw around, and if
I had to guess out of the blue as to whether some white guy saying
offensive shit about non-white people means it or not, chances are I'd
guess that, at some level, he means it. So it is perfectly understandable
why someone would get mad at Colbert for this stuff, although I think they
would be mistaken in doing so.

Notice that if Colbert were an Asian guy making the same joke, I doubt
anyone would have gotten offended, because it's very safe to assume that an
Asian guy is not racist against himself.

The same can't be said about Seinfeld. Seinfeld's joke was effectively "gay
people swipe like THIS." Who is that joke on? As you point out, comedy
requires an "Other," and here the Other is the gays, who we laugh at just
because they're different from us. That's the entirely of the joke. "Gay
people aren't like you - their wrists are limp!" I must confess that I
can't see any way of making the joke funny that doesn't rely just on the
idea that "we" aren't gay. Laughing at people who are different from us
just because they are different from us has a long and storied history, but
there's nothing much that's praiseworthy in there.

Notice again that if Seinfeld were gay, things would be a bit different,
but still not very much: he'd get flack from his fellow gay and bisexual
men for just buying into the Othering, just as Spike Lee got annoyed at
Tyler Perry for what Lee described as "coonery and buffoonery." And I think
there is a lot to be said for not wanting to laugh at oneself in a way that
just adopts the stereotypes imposed by society.

Danny


On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 7:12 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have some broader and more ambivalent misgivings about how the
> progressive version of "more outraged than thou" has accelerated with
> social media... but very little ambivalence when it comes to comedy, which
> has been a "firewalled" space to say *anything* in a lot of cultures for a
> long, long time before the First Amendment. See court jesters, satyr plays,
> carnivals & Lords of Misrule, giggly scandalous children's rhymes, etc etc.
> IMHO that has been and remains a good thing: if there's anywhere the
> Voltairean "...but I will defend to the death your right to say it" should
> be absolute, it's comedy.
>
> To put it another way: my own preference when I vehemently object to
> expressions of racism, sexism, etc. is to prioritize targets with actual
> legal/political power...
>
> Followed at quite a distance by random celebrities NOT in the sphere of
> comedy/ satire...
>
> Followed by the random racist/sexist/etc bozos in my face who attempts to
> sweeten his venom ingenuously with "Hey, just kidding! You [bien-pensant
> advocacy label here] are so humorless!"
>
> Followed, at the very very bottom of the priority list, by those who
> explicitly fly the cultural flags/tags of comic/satiric performance. Too
> many of my own cherished progressive tenets started out and/or gained
> momentum there.
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 2:46 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I wrote this for my blog a couple days ago.
>>
>> I realize it may rankle some here in terms of its implications, but I
>> would really appreciate feedback from a group of people whom I am pretty
>> much certain are, for the most part, a lot smarter than I am.
>>
>> So, by all means... critique away!
>>
>> Here's the link:
>>
>>
>> http://dailydirtdiaspora.blogspot.ca/2015/07/thats-not-funny-manufactured-crisis-of.html
>>
>> Thanks in advance for your help!
>>
>> Mark T. aka Jerky LeBoeuf
>>
>
>
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