…and Kira Hesser remembers where she was when she heard the news. Watching Notaro do a set.
While telling us anecdotes from these personal tragedies, all along the way, she assured the audience 'it’s okay, I’m going to be okay.' At one part, when she reached a dark place wherein most of the audience could not find the will to laugh, she said 'maybe I’ll just go back to telling jokes about bees. Should I do that?'
Daniel Tosh has made people laugh about murder. He's made people laugh about slavery. He's made people laugh about bear mauling. Even right after all those people watched a video of a bear mauling.
In order to get those people to laugh at the attack, he didn't have to convince them that being mauled by a bear is OK. And he didn't have to convince them that they should be happy that someone got mauled by a bear. To make them laugh, first he had to convince them that altho life is full of pain and fear and there's always a risk of damage and trauma, right at that moment no-one was being stalked by a bear. And he had to be pretty sure that they knew that a round of laughter was not going to conjure two she-bears out of the woods.
Then without that fear, all it took is a little wordplay on race issues, an ironic lack of sympathy, or better yet, some misplaced sympathy—for instance, feeling sorry for the bear when someone defending the woman throws a bottle—and the audience could both laugh at the ridiculousness of the comments, and not be happy that the lady was attacked.
The bear attack was the focus of one of Tosh's "Video Breakdown" segments on his show. After having been attacked by a polar bear, a Russian woman stumbles away in her underwear, pants around her ankles. The first joke Tosh offers up: "See, when you dress like that, ladies, you're asking to be attacked."
That opinion probably sounds familiar. It has become the symbol of blaming the victim. It's the callous and accusatory scolding that too many women have heard after having been raped. This is just a guess, but I believe Tosh uses that line knowing that it sounds harsh, and knowing that the person who says that line seriously, is an asshole. I'm guessing that Tosh also believes that being that type of asshole verges on the immoral dismissal of a woman's suffering.
But here's the important difference: it's the serious, earnest use of that line. The ironic use of that line is by definition, saying it without believing it. And that's what comedians do all the time. Either by exaggerating their views, or by contradicting their views, comedians are pretty much always saying things they don't believe.
But they can still make people angry. Because sometimes people believe either 1) that the ironic statement is sincere, or 2) that even the ironic expression of an idea gives comfort support and power to people who hold that idea earnestly.
And one of those was the thinking that led a Laugh Factory audience member to walk out of a show angrily, and write a blogpost about Daniel Tosh's act. She reports the experience as "terrifying and threatening" and she ultimately judges his jokes as "violent". I can't disagree with her experience. The same way that someone who laughed can claim it's funny, she can claim it was scary. It's almost always stupid to tell someone that they're not feeling what they say they're feeling.
And as for claiming that she was threatened… I would ask her, with honest interest, what she felt the threat was. It's one thing to think you're in danger, and another to actually be in danger, but there's very little space, when you're dealing with a person face to face, between reassuring them to make them feel secure, and simply dismissing their fear and disrespecting the honesty of how they've experienced something.
In this case, the audience member claims that Tosh made very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny. She stresses that he was insistent on this point, and that he also claimed that rape itself is hilarious I'm willing to bet that Tosh thinks some rape jokes are stupid, poorly constructed, simple, obvious, and contrived. Any blanket statement about every conceivable rape joke being funny is fairly considered a purposely ridiculous opinion. And the statement that aside from jokes about it, rape itself is hilarious: are we really to believe that Daniel Tosh finds the act of rape amusing? I don't believe that about him.
She writes that she disagreed with Tosh's supposed opinions by yelling Actually, rape jokes are never funny! It's completely within her rights to share that opinion. Even tho she's not on stage, and no one attended the show expecting to hear from her, I'll go a little farther than supporting her right. I'm going to agree with the importance of sharing her opinion. She claims that
sitting there and saying nothing, or leaving quietly, would have been against my values as a person and as a woman.
I disagree with her claim that Tosh was telling her how she should feel about something as profound and damaging as rape, because I believe that Tosh's jokes are not statements of his belief: they're performances. But because of how she understood the statements, I repeat that it was an honest and important decision she made to disagree at that moment. To reach out in the most honest way she could was important to her sense of self, to her integrity. And if she was hurt by the response, what else could she do but what she did? She left.
And altho I don't think Tosh's reaction (if it was as she reports it) was an important one for him to make (nor was it the only option he had) I believe—just as I do about his other jokes—that it was a valid and acceptable performance. So while I believe she felt threatened, I also believe that if someone had even started walking towards her or had thrown an ice-cube at her, Tosh would've called them out and told them to stop. Call me naïve, but I do believe it. And I'm not going to simply accept jokes about cruelty as direct evidence of a comedian's cruel character.
The problems with communication begin when this becomes a matter of sides, and the two usually unopposed forces, sympathy, and levity, are pitted against each other. I refuse to agree to someone else's stricture that if I feel bad for a person, I can't laugh at a joke that makes light of their experience. Or that if I find a joke about some evil funny, I can't possibly sympathize with someone hurt by that evil.
Often, people who are upset about a joke will criticize any defense that focuses on the character of the performer rather than the effect of the act. It's a little weird to say that defending character is irrelevant, when much of the criticism focuses on motivation and character.
So then, what of those criticisms that say something like 'I'm sure so-and-so is a good person, but there is a dangerous result of these types of jokes'?
When the discussion goes there, we're heading into claims about what fear a person should feel at the ability of other people to balance the two values of sympathy and levity. Does making a joke about evil—or laughing, or not expressing outrage about a joke about evil—make that evil stronger? And if the joke is the supposed admiration for that evil?
Some critics of Tosh's reported jokes are focusing on the effect this has. Some have been as specific and direct enough to claim that joking like this about rape makes it seem acceptable. Nobody seems to care that jokes and glib statements about murder are going to make murder seem acceptable. There was no outcry that all the cannibalism jokes of several weeks ago were going to hurt the cannibalism statistics. Some people didn't like the jokes, but it wasn't out of fear of some effect on society. Why not?
Rape falls into a window of evil behaviors that are cruel enough to be clearly wrong and beyond discussion for almost everyone, but are somehow still being negotiated. We could probably put child-abuse, wife-battering, bigotry, and a few other things on the list. And so we get statements, like this one from the @mountain_goats twitter feed
to compare those jokes with "I'm gonna kill you!" jokes is inane. 1 in 5 of the people you know isn't likely to get killed.
It appeals to a sense of risk and personal interest. It's a very attractive argument: An already too common problem, becomes even more likely because of these jokes. So how common does murder have to be before we decide the jokes are too much of a risk? No jokes about accidental shootings? How many people have to be killed on the highway before we get upset at jokes about reckless driving?
But does a performance like Tosh's really make rape more common? Even if we accept the claim that someone might be convinced by a joke to care less about rape, it's a huge jump to say that culture is equally lulled into thinking that 'no' means whatever. Or that joking about rape means not caring about rape. This goes back to the argument of necessary opposition: the belief that vigilance for a value will be destroyed by humor.
When comedy begins to concern itself with reaching the absolute moral certainty of being obviously satirical and impossible to mistake for an earnest statement, it isn't as good. Some of the most precise, thoughtful, intricate, and beautifully constructed jokes have offended and misled audiences. Ridiculous statements can be seen as both hilarious and completely wrong. And often they're even more hilarious when they're structured and presented as almost indistinguishable from honest statements of belief.
Wired magazine recently devoted an issue to humor. Which means that Andy Samberg was on the cover and a couple articles were about jokes and comedians. Yeah, They went all out.
The issue includes an article by Joel Warner, "The Humor Code: One professor's attempt to explain every joke ever with a single Venn Diagram." Here's the quick summary of Peter McGraw's theory of humor, "the Grand Unified Theory of humor—in his words, 'a parsimonious account of what makes things funny.'"
This theory of "Benign Violation" looks easy to describe. It proposes that we laugh to signal our understanding that a challenge to dignity or other "norms" poses no real threat. Warner writes of one study carried out by the professor and his associates:
McGraw determined that funniness could be predicted based on how committed a person is to the norm being violated, conflicts between two salient norms, and psychological distance from the perceived violation.
That's a simple claim. All you have to do in order to find out if someone is going to find something funny, is measure the size of their values; identify what expectations they have and are able to perceive, and get out your "psychological distance" tape-measure. That's all. When you know those numbers, you know if something's going to be funny.
Here's the obvious problem with the theory: it's impossible to find a number, or value, for something like "psychological distance." And even if there was a number there, how would you measure it? And someone's commitment to a norm is probably even harder to fence in. But perhaps a questionnaire, and some psychological profiling will get us halfway there. So fine, if we accept that those are the variables, we know that we should measure them. Somehow.
But I'm very committed to the norm of not murdering someone. I'm planning to go my whole life without murdering anyone. And yet, I can find a joke about murder extremely funny. So am I more OK with murder than I thought?
Then, how is something that's said ironically, processed as a violation of anything other than discourse? How is a punchline that the teller doesn't "really believe" a violation of anything other than some rule about 'what shouldn't be said'?
To navigate thru that challenge, a theory like McGraw's would have to introduce something like 'a commitment to norms regarding ways of expressing commitment to a norm.' In other words, 'how sensitive someone is to comments about, or representations of, a norm.' In familiar words: a sense of humor.
One of McGraw's go-to analogies is tickling: we recoil from tickling because it's a violation of space and body comfort, but we laugh because we know we're not at risk. And we can't tickle ourselves because we can't violate ourselves. Well, in that case, I guess wasn't really caught doing anything that one time.
And even tho McGraw claims to be able to predict what isn't funny, all he seems to do is predict that some things aren't going to be funny to some people. They fail to be funny if the violation threatens the audience or its "worldview." But then why are some things that turn out to be benign violations not funny? Why is a car spinning on a bridge and stopping right at the edge, not a hilarious event? And what's the Venn Diagram for the difference between a successful and a botched joke? If someone messes up every joke with bad rhythm or a tipped punchline, how does this theory explain that failure? There are millions of ways of ruining a joke—most of them have nothing to do with the meaning or the content of the joke, or the issues being played with. The Venn Diagram only allows for two explanations for a failed joke: either it didn't violate, or it isn't benign.
Of course, I'm just going based on the Wired article. And despite every oversimplification that I've committed in this post, I'm always skeptical of dumbed-down versions of ideas. I still haven't read McGraw's paper, but I do plan to. He presented it in the journal Psychological Science last year.
In the article, Warner quotes Purdue Linguistics professor, Victor Raskin, who calls the theory "flawed and bullshit." Louis CK also weighs in. When McGraw tries to explain the theory, CK interrupts and protests "There are thousands of kinds of jokes. I just don't believe that there's one explanation."
There might be one explanation for all the different types of jokes out there. Puns, pratfalls, impressions, exaggeration, insults, absurdity and on and on. It's possible that all those varieties lead to one response—laughter—because of one feature or structure common to all of them. But in an attempt to keep it simple, McGraw's theory as reported doesn't offer anything beyond a restatement of the very dynamic it's supposed to predict. It doesn't look like this theory does what a theory should: make a disprovable claim. McGraw basically says that people find those challenges funny, that fit into their category of things that are allowed to be funny.
That's a violation of my belief that humor is more than mere disagreement. And it doesn't look anything like a threat to my worldview. Maybe that's why I find it so laughable.
I refuse to apologize for mentioning Marc Maron's WTF so often. In my opinion, it's the best one out there, so I might as well act like it. As good as it is on a regular basis, this week stood out. Maron and Louis C.K. were finally reunited.
You don't have to be a fan of comedy to enjoy this one. Buffy only occasionally finds these things interesting (and even when she kindly listens, I can count on her eventually saying in the middle of an argument "well I had to listen to that [whatever] that you played for me a week ago!" But the several clips I played for her from these interviews, were well-received. Even when she started to roll her eyes at one of the clips that she thought was just going to be silly and crass, she soon realized that it was actually a pretty powerful moment.
Maron And C.K. are friends from way back in the last century. They started together and earned their successful careers together. From those salad days, they both developed and matured. And in the process they grew apart, as many very good friends do. The reunion ended up lasting long enough to provide enough for two episodes.
They go over the rift, their careers, the business, writing, family, anxiety… really pretty much everything. And it's not light and fluffy conversation. Maron is alway good at getting his guests to talk honestly, and this visit goes so far as to get some tears flowing on one topic, which includes a really good line from C.K. about the amazing power of water.
He holds little back, talking about the experience of being a stand-up wanting to create more than stage performances, and the doubts and roadblocks he had to walk around, plow thru, or chisel away. He discusses his time writing for Dana Carvey, and Conan O'Brien, and the frustration of doing a well-regarded, tho not always fully-understood show for HBO, Lucky Louie.
TV sitcoms are written by Harvard graduates who don't like audiences. They don't like people. They're not popular people. And so they hate the idea that audiences can tell them whether something's funny or not. So they've built a system where they shoot on a stage in front of an audience but they ignore the audience. …
Most big sitcoms don't have an audience now. And they have a man called the laugh man and he puts in the laughs. And the laughs are short enough…that the clippy dialogue can continue. Jennifer Aniston never looks aware of the audience when she's perf— She's supposed to be performing in front of an audience on Friends. (That's how old I am.)
But uh, we had to hold for laughs, and uh, it was a mess. But it was supposed to be.
C.K. has now achieved the first levels of an auteur. His work is good enough and reliable enough, and his choices are trusted enough to make his show almost completely his own. A big part of that is because he's a good writer and performer. Maybe an even bigger part of that is because he spent time learning how do his own editing and how to switch the lenses on cameras. Not every comedian will get "The Louis Deal." And very few would know what to do with it.
The last few minutes of the whole visit are about as honest an exchange as Maron has had on his podcast. C.K. begins his closing advice about friendship with "You don't have to put this in the podcast if you don't want to," then he goes on to talk about the value, pain, and challenge of friendship. Especially one with Maron. The best thing about WTF week after week, is that Maron leaves so much of that stuff in.
Stealing jokes isn't as cut and dry as we sometimes make it out to be. A lot of people joke about giving their kid a crazy name. Everyone knows how horrible an itchy butthole is. And often the only way we talk about it is to fit it into a story that makes us laugh.
My recent post about Dana Gould's show left out some very relevant observations that the comic's comic made a while back, specifically about the parallels between Gould's and Louis C.K.'s act.
I couldn't help but begin making instant comparisons (Boston-area heritage? check! In their 40s? check! No game with the ladies? check! Problems interacting with two young daughters? check!). So I turned off my TV and waited a bit to give Gould a fairer shake. After all, the two men may have more than a few things in common, but they approach their lives and their comedy differently.
Yep, there are lot of very common pieces in both acts. But remember, the pieces are very common. A good comedian can find something new to notice. But even the best will say something that we've thought about. And will complain about something that we too already hate. And will admit something we're all ashamed of. Comedy is part seeing something different, and part seeing something differently.
Who hasn't wondered what really happens when you're under for a root canal. Jerry wondered about it when he went to see Tim Whatley and Sheryl the hot hygienist. And Louie has his suspicions too.
The image of a patient coming up from the gas, and getting a glimpse of the dentist buttoning and zipping up, is familiar.
But they're different jokes. Sure, they're very similar, but you can't deny that the hallucination and the banana and Stephen Root's amazing delivery make this a very different experience.
Cranston creates a slick, confident, unnerved swinger; tag-teaming with his cooperating colleague's hygienist. It's a joke about 'Welcome to our club.'
Root gives us a soothing, tender, 'relax-I-won't-hurt-you' dentist, hiding from everyone. Showing shame. It's a joke about pedophilia.
My belief that Louis C.K. knew about and probably remembered the Seinfeld scene, is not an accusation. It's the opposite. It's a defense of him as a comic who knows and respects and references other comedians. Louie is about a comic living in New York. The show has almost no traditional plot, and it's structured around a stand-up act that is tangentially, thematically related to the action. He's using Seinfeld's structure very differently. And the irreverence that Seinfeld introduced with his show, C.K. has taken further. Knowingly.
C.K. doesn't need this defense, because he's trusted, and I haven't heard anyone accuse him. But there are comedians who are accused too easily. And a lot of fans, eager to show how much they know about their favourite comics, try to prove some worth by pointing and barking at every similarity like a terrier at a doorbell. Go do a word-search if that's how you want to spend your time.
Louis C.K. has announced a 30 city tour "Louis CK: WORD" starting in September. From September thru December these are the cities where he'll be performing. He'll be in Indianapolis in October.
**
UPDATE: Louis C.K. posted a notice on Twitter saying "scalper sites" are charging too much for tickets. He provides a link to the Ticketmaster page where tickets to most of the shows will soon be available to purchase for less. Here's the link.
I don't know how much the Indy tickets will be, but when I looked yesterday, they were going for at least $75. I'm hoping Ticketmaster can beat that.
** The cities he'll be doing:
Madison, WI; Mashantucket, CT; Boston, MA; Minneapolis, MN; Chicago, IL; Cleveland, OH; Indianapolis, IN; Detroit, MI; Riverside, IA; Kansas City, MO; Montreal; Washington, DC; Albany, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Red Bank, NJ; Reading, PA; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Denver, CO; Houston, TX; Austin, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Universal City, CA; San Diego, CA; Tampa, FL; Miami, FL; Atlanta, GA; Orlando, FL
Here's a clip from his new show, Louie, on FX. Do Not Watch It if you, or your interpreter can be offended by the way people talk.
His explanation of the history of the word faggot isn't accurate. But who cares? The show isn't produced by Funk & Wagnalls.
