Dave Chappelle

I have always been a fan of Dave Chappelle and his stand-up/television work. "Killing Them Softly" and "For What It's Worth" are, in my opinion, laugh out loud hilarious and able to produce the same response after repeated viewings. For example, I have heard that bit about kid's cartoons about fifteen times and when I watched it in class, I laughed about as hard as I did when I saw it for the first time.
Anyway, I tried to indentify why I found Chappelle so humorous. Yes, he does have good material and the subject matter and punchlines are hilarious. However, I think it is a little more than that. Eddie Murphy, when asked his secret to being funny, said that he was just born with the ability to tell a joke well and sound funny. I think the same is true for Dave Chappelle. A lot of this humor has to do with his voice and especially his "white person voice". Whenever Chappele imitates a white person, he always talks in a high-mannered, uptight and snooty tone and it makes the joke sound hilarious. I can understand why a black audience member would find it funny as it portrays a different race. However, I think that white people can find just as much humor in something like that. I don't find it offensive or degrading. I have met people that talk like that but I don't so I do not feel like I am really the target of any joke. What would happen if a white comedian tried to imitate a black person? I am sure that he or she would use a voice which sounds like at least a part of the racial population much like Chappelle uses a voice that sounds like a minority of the white population. A black viewer or listener would think "I know people that talk like that, not me, but I have heard it before". It may seem like a fair and equal comic trade-off but it does not work that way. The minority of a population is always able to poke as much fun at the majority but the majority is cruel if they jab at the minority. I am not quite sure how that works but I think it is fair.
In a democratic nation like America, the majority vote wins thus has the power. Therefore, whichever people are in the majority are most likely to control the power through numbers. (I am not saying white people are more powerful than the black race, or any other race for that matter, but simply that majority rules). Thus, just like I have mentioned before in such examples as presidential humor, there is a longstanding tradition of poking fun and making jokes at those in power. If the president came on TV and started ripping on the American public, surely it would not go over well. However, Letterman can go on TV every night and take shots at the government's expense. That is just how the humor flows. There is no vis-versa.
Therefore, to sum up, I think black people can make fun of white people but white people (for the most case, unless done very tastefully) cannot make fun of black people. And I am fine with that because I think it is all hilarious.

George Carlin, again.

On our second (or third?, maybe even fourth) viewing of George Carlin, I noticed many of the same things and even some new aspects to his humor.

I think a lot of Carlin's humor or appeal comes from the recitation which makes up a big part of his stand up routine. For example, in his "I'm a Modern Man" routine, there may not be a lot of jokes that are particularly laugh-out-loud hilarious. On the other hand, it is incredibly impressive that he not only wrote such a string of high-impact lines but also memorized and recited it well. I think it would be hard enough to memorize a comedian's routine of setups and punchlines not to mention such a dense and intricately worded speech as Carlin's. In fact, I think this applies to most of his stand up. Many of his bits, or rather speeches, seem as if they could be read by a man off of a sheet of paper at a lectern facing an audience. This is not only because of their length and basis on exact memorization but also because many of these speeches feel as if they are meant to lecture a crowd. Yes, they are for the purpose of humor as well but also to teach and harangue.

Also, it seems to fit into a common theme that Carlin, the anti-establishment/government/society comic would maybe tone it down a little bit as his career went on. I am not saying he cleaned up his act or made it cheerful and bright, but he did probably do less chaotic acts which resulted in arrests. Also, he played the conductor on the children's show "Shining Time Station" on PBS which is certainly not an venue for his "Seven Dirty Words" routine or anything or the sort. However, similarly raunchy comedians have been known to calm down as their careers progressed. Eddie Murphy, the man who came out in a red jumpsuit and dropped n-words and grabbed his crotch can now be seen in such family-fun movies like "Daddy Day Care" or "Doctor Dolittle". Steve Martin, the man whose routine used to involve spitting out his water onstage and mentioning drugs, etc. can now be seen in "The Pink Panther 2" and "Cheaper By The Dozen". Maybe humorists and comedians have some revelation as they age that they are maybe growing out of the profanities and crudeness and may need to refocus some of their material. Maybe it is because they have families. Maybe their priorities are rearranged. I will say though that for as old as Carlin was while remaining comedically active, his act didn't clean up all too much. At least not when compared to the aforementioned comics. So, in that sense, I guess he should be commended for keeping it relatively crude into old age.

Presidential Humor

As we read the Lyndon Johnson piece in class, I started to wonder about the entire concept of presidential humor. I think that it is only natural, at least in modern times, to make jokes at the expense of those in higher power. Since government is always the subject of scrutiny, it would only make sense that the head of the government would receive his fair share of flak. I am not sure if president jokes have extended back into the history of America, but they have certainly been a part of popular culture for the past fifty years (at least since Saturday Night Live has existed). 

It has been easy for comedians to find humor in the past few decades. They have had a president who resigned due to a criminal scandal, one who was impeached because of an extramarital "affair" and a cowboy with poor speaking skills. Humorists have probably been having a blast whenever any of those presidents spoke on national television. Also, it seems that recently, with criticism of George W. Bush, comedians have given off-handed comments about their personal political preferences (liberal in social and economic matters).

This makes it very difficult with the election of Barack Obama. First of all, he stands for many of the things and issues that several of these comedians criticized Bush for not having. Second, he is black. Can these comedians and late night hosts(who are mostly white, i.e. Leno, Conan, Letterman, Ferguson, Kimmel) come us with any sort of material to make their time-honored pokes at the president. He hasn't made many blunders yet, at least not compared to Bush, and any jokes about his race would be borderline offensive. I am sure it could be pulled off tastefully but I don't think many white comedians are willing to take the risk.

I do not know how to circumvent this "humor problem". My best advice would be for comedians to hammer down their best Obama impressions (Fred Armisen has already nailed an immaculate one on SNL). That would definitely provide laughs. Other than that, I guess this people are just going to have to wait for the president to screw up, for better or for worse.

Zora Neale Hurston/Paula Gunn Allen

I found Zora Neale Hurston's anecdotal passages in Redressing the Balance very interesting not because they were dealing with particularly enticing subjects but because they had an intriguing amount of ambiguity. "Turpentine Love" was simply a paragraph or two and left just enough information out that one becomes extremely interested in the motives and backgrounds of the characters and their behaviors. Also, the story of of Cai'lin required even further guessing by the reader. What was she doing with the axe? Did she kill her husband, his lover or both? Why did she become outraged at this point? Many of these questions are unanswered in the facts of the story and are left up to the reader. While this is an interesting way to read such stories, I ultimately do not find much redemption in their endings. Many people are different but I personally enjoy stories with factual substance instead of ambiguity. I especially think that this sort of ambiguous storytelling is difficult in terms of finding humor. The author has to be careful or else the humor may be lost. It would be like telling a joke with an unclear punchline. 

Paula Gunn Allen's poem was much more straight-forward in its delivery and objective. The most interesting part of her poem is that much of the humor was pivoted on a single word, "ruins", and the various interpretation of its meaning. Furthermore, I think that such a poem deals with the same "in-crowd/out-crowd" setup as many of the stand-ups we have viewed. Just like how black comedians are able to make racial humor/comments that white comedians cannot say, so do the Native Americans in this poem. Both the man and woman are presumably Native Americans and therefore both are able to find humor in the misinterpretation of "Indian ruins" at the end. However, the humor is not lost on those outside of the group. While a non-Native American would not be able to make the joke, I feel that they can still appreciate it.

Margaret Cho

It is interesting to examine the difference between Margaret Cho's early stand-up routines such as the one we saw in class and her more recent acts. There has definitely been a persona change for starters. In her early stand-up, she wore typical feminine clothing while now she sports more exotic garments with the addition of tattoos on her bodies. Furthermore, the content and nature of her routine as evolved drastically. Whereas she used to speak about the circumstances of being Korean in America with a little bit of emphasis on her dating life, now her act is overly explicit in regards to topics such as sexuality and politics. 

I wonder why she changed her image in such a way. It seems to me that she probably has a more universal appeal to the mass public with her original stand-up routine seeing as some people might be offended by the content now. In addition, the topics of sexuality can be very specific to certain demographics while many others are excluded. However, as long as she is not worried about appealing to the greatest amount of people, the image change is probably a good choice. First, it makes her an identifiable face. Instead of getting painted in with all the other comics which talk about race and relationships, she is now known because of the brutal honesty of her routine. So, in that sense, she is able to reach greater fame even if she doesn't have as wide of an appeal. Yet, by broadcasting her outspoken views in her comedy act, the sympathizers of cause are able to have a comedienne to call their own. Something like that would result in a larger audience perhaps than if she stuck with her original act. Whether or not such comedians are well-received by the public aside, people remember the ones that stand out (Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Kinneson) because they were so in-your-face and in some cases obnoxious that they are difficult to forget and easy to recognize. 

No place for satire?

After watching Idiocracy, I did some research as to the production and marketing of the film. Since it was made by Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and Office Space, I was surprised that it had not received stronger marketing. I had seen the film on the shelves of Blockbuster but that is about it. I don't remember seeing any commercials or ads for the film and I don't even think it played in a theater near me.
It turns out that the film did not, in fact, receive any sort of marketing campaign. It was released in a few theaters in a handful of cities and that is it. There were no posters or commercials for most of the general public. In fact, the movie only grossed about half a million dollars which is less than most independent films. This seemed odd considering a notable cast and writer/director. Perhaps the reason the film got swept under the rug is because the studios do not appreciate such strong satire.
I can certainly understand why the studios, namely 20th Century Fox, wouldn't enjoy a movie which completely bashes consumerism, advertisements and corporations. But I never thought they would purposely squash a film's potential in order to keep the message from getting out. Are film studios really that afraid of humor that they will accept a profit loss in order to manage it.
Mike Judge isn't completely innocent though. He does suggest that the only news channel which plays in the future is Fox News, one of the only conservative news sources. So in that sense, he is biting the hand that feeds him. But it just doesn't settle well with me that a studio would try to completely eradicate a work of satire like Idiocracy. The movie, which wasn't even screen for critics, received mostly positive reviews from the critics which did report on it. Therefore a studio would rather produce mindless junk than a pretty critically acclaimed film which shows them in a bad light. That's a sad state of affairs.
Nevertheless, Idiocracy is a valuable tool for studying satire at the high school and college level so hopefully teachers will continue to show the movie because it is enjoyable and also educational.

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)