The mirror of stand-up humour.
Things that make us laugh tell a lot about us.
“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I prefer to laugh since there is less cleaning up to do afterwards.” Kurt Vonnegut.
Content and style of jokes are indicative of our collective mood. They reveal our buttons and inform us of our anguish.
Stand-up humour has always been about the unsaid and politically incorrect (it’s funny because it’s true).
It used to be just a bunch of drunk smart mouths raging after a week of industrial slavery before getting elevated to mainstream entertainment when the king of Late Night, Johnny Carson, invited Steven Wright from the stage to guest seat. Standup became commercially hip and took off.
George Carlin operated like a social analyst and treated his acts like theatre. He brought a sheen of intellectualism, creativity and finesse to his gigs, raising stand-up to a status of fine art. Carlin referenced the mindset of Picasso in one interview when asked about hanging his gloves. Bill Hicks attributed the rise of stand up in the late 80s to its place as the last bastion of free speech on stage for people. Even then comedians had leeway. Their concern was landing the satire well instead of getting cancelled.
People looked to stand-up comedians to learn how to laugh at their own lives. At its core, content that fueled this was opinionated & unapologetic social commentary conceived in the odd observations of life’s struggles, staleness and hypocrisies.
Stand-up humour has always been a coping mechanism. Only difference now is we’re not fully allowed to know what we are coping with. Because it seems to be everyone’s job to ensure that everyone is dealing with the right issues. We fear to openly laugh at our oddness and with it not only kill a lot of fun but a chance to let go.
Canadian artists like Jeremy Hotz, John Wing & Derek Edwards laughed at their oddness. Elegant, intelligent, self-aware and great at making docility seem hilarious. They joked about being insipid as a culture, the Canadian military, the Montreal French, their place in world affairs, and being polite in addressing suffocating social structures.
The immigrant community, perhaps by design, seems to have pushed boundaries a bit more. Russel Peters not only appealed to Asians, though in a podcast with Jordan Peterson he admitted his family was embarrassed by his material at first, he appealed to all ethnicities. Akaash Singh, born in Texas, appeals to all demographics on account of his ability to humour borderline cringe worthy thoughts we tend to avoid.
Louis CK pulled in the born rich and bored millennial bourgeois, unveiling an absurd society only to show his helplessness towards it. A kind of nihilism, one could say. Notice the kind of laughter he evokes in his live shows — it’s deep and hysterical. And often CK is in a stoic expression when such laughs are heard. His Emmy winning show ‘Louis’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Horace & Pete’, which did not use background laughter, are on this brand as well. This indicates that such a style of humour appealed to a much wider base than just those interested in typical comic content.
It’s not a stretch to say that the leeway we have as people to express ourselves has attenuated. There’s a fear of getting cancelled in a hidden, cancerous way by an invisible presence that isn’t even consistent except for its continuity to serve the powers that channelize wealth. And the face of power has changed. It doesn’t rule by blunt force but through an autocratic wokeness chokehold. In this year’s NBA, ESPN reporter Rachel Nichols was removed from covering the finals because of a leaked private conversation. A private conversation where she expressed her point of view and frustration of being replaced by a black reporter, Maria Taylor, stating the reason to be the channel’s attempt to improve their diversity image. She expressed that Maria is talented and deserves more screen time, but why remove an expert who was already slated to cover the finals? I hold an objection to her assuming that it’s not because Maria is better. Regardless, that was a private conversation, recorded without consent, leaked and then used by NYT. People say dumb things in privacy and this wasn’t even terrible but an emotional reaction borne out of professional jealousy. Or how about the gush at Megan Rapinoe for saying ‘’It sucks to lose to Canada’’? Haven’t we said this for the neighbourhood team we always defeated or even your younger brother?
Sure, a part of that leeway concealed bigotry. But not all of it did and people definitely had thicker skins. A sense of paranoia & stifling presence in conversations could only get worse. Stepping out to meet people again, we re-evaluate ourselves, almost pathologically, wondering if we said the right thing then or to them. And it’s evident that there is money to be made through an online brand peddling a utopia that inspires and scares strangers.
It seems like natural progression for stand-up humour to be even more provocative.
Provocation will only appear in starker contrast against hyper-sensitivity. These make for naturally opposing forces. The big guns are firing at this uneasy, invisible presence demanding us to be one way, all the time, or else.
Being wrong and pissing important people off are vital ingredients to individual growth. You don’t really know yourself without it. Whichever category of people or community these stand-up artists represent, they seem to be making us laugh at things considered shameful, things which can’t be said by that community. Going more against the notion of shame. Offending few but perhaps comforting more.
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