Buster Keaton

I find it annoying when people have an aversion to old movies and more so silent films such as the comedies of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. "Oh, there are no words and it's in black and white. I'm bored", they say. Well, "Meet the Spartans" was in color and had words and that film was disgustingly awful. (Seriously, how do those guys that make "Disaster Movie" and "Meet the Spartans" continue to get financed for their films. They are collective skidmarks on the medium of film.) Anyway, I whole-heartedly believe that if people would just watch one or two Buster Keaton films, they would be hooked. There is so much quality on all levels which I think surpasses the majority of films today that to dismiss them as a whole would be a grave mistake. Plus, I think it takes just as much, if not more, talent to tell a story without words than with them.
I have been watching Buster Keaton movies for a few years now and there are a few things I have noticed in them that I would use to convince the aforementioned rookies to get into silent comedy. First, funny or not, the acrobatics are incredible. Buster Keaton, who I believe is Jackie Chan's hero, does all of his own stunts. A movie like "Sherlock Jr." has jaw-dropping action and stunts that the mere fact that one knows that Buster Keaton is performing unaided is enough to enjoy the film.
Second, I think Keaton is probably the most accessible of all the silent comedies. Chaplin is a close second but Keaton is a true gem. Just like the character of the tramp, Buster Keaton's deadpan expression is an equally recognizable role in each of his films. The stunts, humor, storylines and camera tricks in many of his films can really hook a first time viewer. For instance, in a time when special effects were unheard of, Keaton was able to manipulate the camera exposures so that he could film himself over seven times to create an orchestra of Buster Keatons all playing simultaneously. Also, in "Sherlock Jr.", there is a scene in which the background is constantly changing with Keaton in the foreground. Such a task would be simple today but back then it was mind-boggling. So, for someone who is a fan of CGI movies and such, Keaton has an entire new level of appeal.
Third, the man is hilarious. I don't really know how else to explain that. If someone is curious, they will have to just watch a film.
So why isn't he popular amongst the kids these days? Well, in a sense, he still is. If his movies which were made in the 20's are still making top-ten lists of all time, then Keaton has certainly retained an appeal. I think that he could be even greater if people would just take the time to watch him. Brush off the stigma that comes with silent film. Ok, I admit, some of it is boring and underproduced but Buster Keaton will surprise pretty much anyone who has their doubts.
Recommended views: Long- "Sherlock Jr."; Short- "One Week" (they are on youtube, at least "One Week" is so there is no excuse)

The Three Stooges

After watching The Three Stooges in class, which many did not find "laugh out-loud" humorous, I wondered why so many people remain die-hard fans of the trio and re-runs continue to play on late night television stations.

One possibility is that each episode has an expectation as well as uncertainty. Many of the clips, if not all, follow a simple formula. They plan a scheme, fail, Moe gets hit on the head, retaliates and they end up weaseling their way out somehow. It isn't a complicated writing task and every viewer, especially the fans, expect that formula each time. However, with various plot lines, those expectations are met in unique ways every time. Maybe the lovers of the show find it exciting to see in which new way the stooges are going to fail or which object is going to hit Moe on the head this time. Imagine an episode where the boys are asked to paint a house (there probably is an episode which that storyline anyway). You know they are going to screw it up somehow and ruin the project. There is paint involved which is obviously going to get dumped on somebody. It's a recipe for disaster. Therefore maybe the excitement comes from the anticipation of the catastrophe. I can imagine a diehard Stooges fan just sitting back and thinking "Oh, this is going to be good..."

Maybe another possible explanation is that the humor isn't highbrow by any means. There isn't alot of witty wordplay or complicated character study. It is just three morons hitting each other with hammers, to sum it up loosely. And maybe such a characteristic is right up someone's alley. Say you get back from a long day of work and have a hectic evening. You take off your shoes and flip on the television for some midnight relaxation just to find The Three Stooges up to their usual antics. Take off your thinking cap, sit back and watch some idiots get into trouble. It is just a simple pleasure. 

Regardless of the reason for success, I think the show has extrinsic merit due to its place in comedy and influence. The role of the hopeless stooge is evident in every modern comedy (Homer Simpson, Larry David, Peter Griffin). I don't know if I will necessarily buy a Three Stooges box-set, but if I ever see it on late-night tv I will definitely watch a couple episodes for some good old-fashioned laughs. 

Bergson applied to Pop Culture

To sum up Bergson in a few words: A comic character is unaware that he is behaving comically or that his behavior is in anyway being judged. Obviously its more than that but that is how I would more or less paraphrase it.

I mentioned to my group that such a theory reminds me of two television characters: Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) from "The Office" and G.O.B. (played by Will Arnett) from "Arrested Development", two shows which I think provide some of the best comedy in the last decade, if not longer.

Michael Scott is the oblivious boss that runs the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin. For those who haven't seen the show, Michael Scott can be easily explained as a socially-unaware and inept yet tremendously self-confidant manager. G.O.B. is the cocky son of the Bluth family that rides on his inherited coat-tails and is not as suave with the ladies as he thinks he is. 

The two reasons which make these characters so funny is that they have no idea people, both watching t.v. and those that surround them, are laughing at them. It is tremendously humorous is you are watching a comedy in which people don't know they are in a comedy. If you asked G.O.B. whether his life would me a comedy or a drama, he would probably say drama. He lives a overzealously serious life in the middle of a comic world. 

What makes this humorous? Maybe it is the contrast. Maybe it is the fact that someone that ridiculous and oblivious could exist. 

The Stand-up Character

Is a stand-up comedian, regardless of style, always playing a character?

Obviously some comedians play explicit character such as Larry the Cable Guy or Carrot Top (two comics that drag along the bottom of the comedy barrel as far as my tastes are concerned). These people are doing a skit onstage more than anything and their personal life certainly doesn't mirror their comedy persona. Others may play characters yet speak from a normal and individual standpoint like Rodney Dangerfield. Someone like that plays the "I get no respect" card as his onstage schtick and character but he doesn't outwardly create a costumed persona or made up person. He is Rodney Dangerfield the comedian instead of Rodney Dangerfield the man. Furthermore, other comedians come off through their routine as their everyday selves as if the act onstage flows smoothly into their behavior offstage. I think someone like Dave Chappelle would fit into this category. He comes onstage and speaks about normal subjects that Dave Chappelle the man has run into throughout his day-to-day activities. While he does imitate other people throughout his acts, it feels like he talks and thinks the same way regardless of a mic in front of him. Perhaps he is putting on this front to make the routine seem more natural or he really does think and experience such things (it would be difficult to tell the difference without his own testimony). 

However, no matter how natural or unnatural a comedian may seem onstage, entering the world of stand-up comedy immediately suggests an onstage character. For example, Chris Rock's material comes off as very personal and true to Rock's offstage behavior. Nevertheless, he is still putting on a character because he is doing the routine night after night. When he says "I'm going to tell you the only time you can use that word and I'm going to tell you one time, here in Johannesburg...", he is obviously not being sincere. Of course he is going to insert the name of the city he is in every night. As honest as he may come off, he is still putting on a character for that specific show. 

Another example is when comedians will say something like "Oh, I told that joke once in Ohio and..." Maybe that's a true story but more than likely it is a made up setup for another joke. Once again, to do stand-up you are admitting to telling a individual story which seems tailored to the audience but is repeated over and over. I guess the stand-up character that each comedian plays is the "personal, dedicated storyteller" who sells himself in such a way to each audience he performs for. 

Eddie Izzard Revisited

Eddie Izzard has a very unique comic style and delivery as opposed to several of the other comedians I have seen both in and out of class. Personally, it seems as if he is making up his monologue as he goes along. Many of his jokes turn into rambling tagents upon tagents until he eventually comes back to the original train of thought. It is as if he has a short setlist and peppers his own improvised jokes throughout until what could be a 30 minutes set becomes an hour and a half show. Furthermore, alot of his timing and delivery is mumbled such that his jokes come off as stream-of-consciousness ideas mixed into planned bits. This, of course, is not to his discredit since his work is extremly humorous and such whimsical comic style adds to the humor. However, is this planned or does Izzard really work on-the-fly?
It is very hard for me to believe that Izzard can go up in front of sold-out audiences every night with a loose structure planned in hopes that his spur of the moment jokes will fill the void. However, maybe he just is that quick on his feet. It would take an answer from Eddie Izzard to fulfill that question. Nevertheless, I will take the stance that he purposely delivers his act in a "made up on the spot" delivery. Such an approach would probably prove to be equally as funny. I find much more pleasure in watching improv than strictly planned setup-punchline jokes because it is far more impressive to see what someone can do without warning as opposed to someone who has ample time to write and rehearse their jokes endlessly. The thrill of improvisation, for the audience as well as the performer, is probably the unpredictability of the joke and neither one knows where it is going to end up. Sometimes amateur comedians will perform sets that seem so rehearsed and hokey that their jokes seem stale and dead. On the other hand, with comedians like Izzard, such off-the-cuff jokes inject life and fluctuation into the routine. If Izzard can convince the audience that he really is adding alot of this in as he goes along, we begin to pay closer attention as we anticipate which curvy path his stories will take next. I would personally think a joke is much funnier if it was made up as opposed to planned out and perhaps that is what gives Izzard such a humorous appeal. It is as if he pretends (or maybe not) to write his set as he goes along and therefore gives the audience a view of the driver's seat. By equalling the levels of audience-comedian by that much, we feel closer to him and more apt to laugh.
Obviously to go on stage and completely pull material out of thin-air is no recipe for success. In fact, watching a comedian struggle to reach for jokes can be utterly painful to watch. Therefore, whether or not Izzard is adding this humor on-the-spot or just making it appear that way, the end result is whether it makes the audience laugh. Izzard does in fact make the audience laugh and if that is the result of improvised and varying jokes, more power to him as a comedian since such a talent is rare.

Women and Humor in the 21st Century

Recently we have been reading some articles written by 18th-19th century women. Many of these pieces formulate humor through subtle jabs at convention or by portraying common female stereotypes. However, such humor has not been getting a strong response in class or an immensely humorous reaction. I believe that the problem is not that these women are not humorous or that people are not understanding the content but that much of the content is out of place in our current age.

Several hundred years ago, women were not allowed to be as outwardly rebellious as men in their humor as well as lifestyle. Since much of humor can be considered radical rebellion (certainly not all), women in such time periods may have been at a disadvantage. Therefore they had to make quieter remarks and pass much of their humor under the radar.

While I am sure that these authors were popular in their time, seeing as they have remained in the canon, such approaches to humor do not stand out to current day audiences, especially the younger crowd. When I think of the prominent female comediennes which are popular today, several of them have loud and acerbic routines which have an "in-your-face" attitude. Performers such as Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli and Margaret Cho have very crude routines and have caught the attention of the public eye. One could even argue that these women have taken an unladylike and thus more masculine approach to humor. Do I think that women need to behave more like men to be funny? Of course not. Is such an approach easier to get the attention of large audiences? Possibly.

In addition, I think that people these days are more accustomed to louder humor in general. Inappropriate material just seems to get more attention these days because the shock factor interests people. Such topics would never fly back in the 18th-19th centuries for a multitude of reasons. 

Proposing a Modest Proposal

The satire involved with such arguments as "A Modest Proposal" is pretty tricky if one does not have their wits about them. Personally, that is what I find so entertaining about satire: it weeds out the "suckers" and rewards the sceptic.  Readers could potentially fall into three categories.

If one were to read "A Modest Proposal" and actually think that Swift were literally suggesting that the people of a nation eat their infants then that means you are got hosed by the author. I don't even think his intention was to see how many people he could trick. Therefore, to take such a proposal literally means that you haven't even stepped into the arena of the purpose of the article. You are disqualified. Continue getting your laughs from "Marmaduke" and "MadTV".

Second, some may read it and think "Well, yeah, obviously he's not serious but I don't see how writing such absurd advice could possibly help his plight, whatever that may be. I don't get it." And such a response is acceptable and common. I found it difficult to decide whose side he was on. Obviously he opposed the English for their treatment of the Irish but he doesn't paint a flattering picture of the Irish community whatsoever. If someone can at least recognize that the proposal isn't literal then they are on the right track. 

Third, those who "get it" (which I am not counting myself in that camp fully because I still debate it) are able to realize "Ok, the proposal is bogus and Swift doesn't want anybody to heed his advice as found in the letter. Let's step back. Why would somebody write this ridiculous piece of work in hopes to, not necessarily remedy, but critique the situation. Ignore the actual argument. What argument is Swift making by making this argument?" Satire is three-dimensional and can only be fully appreciated when both thought about from a distance and also placed into societal context. This is not an easy task to comprehend though. How many Midwestern Republicans were huge fans of The Colbert Report and its caricature of the right until somebody told them "He's making fun of you." We are so used to not fully thinking about these things that many of us miss the point of a good satire. Not only is it something to struggle with, at least more so than upfront literal fiction, but we also get the pleasure of those that got duped by it.

Personally, I think that one of Swift's strongest arguments from this argument is that the Irish are in a bad state and none of the political and community leaders are doing anything to help the situations. Any of those that do are either incompetent or unable to enact their plan. So, by posing as one of the "problem-solvers" that Ireland has heard from so many times, he is commenting on how stupid and ineffective these solutions are. I think his biggest targets are the leaders of the Irish community because compared to their inaction or inability to fix a problem, eating babies may not be the best solution but at least it is a solution.