The
Engaged Intellect
In voicing the suspicion that stand-up is
an anti-intellectual artform, Brian Logan seems to have overlooked some
larger and more interesting themes. In particular, he is working with a
severely constrained notion of how intellectual themes might feature in comedy.
The ‘intellectual’ aspects of comedy which he considers are confined to highbrow
references, e.g., lines adapted from Philip Larkin or musings on Walt Whitman.
Witness Liam Williams, musing “I do enjoy having a magpie approach to
high literature, [to splicing] high culture into standup. I like the effect
that creates, having something very poetic next to a joke about wanking.”
Logan has a point in criticising the
cultural cringe whereby some comedians feel the need to apologise, even half in
jest, for dropping erudite names or using even vaguely highfalutin’ terms. But there
is a reverse side to this, one with which any observer of recent comedy will be
familiar: comedians using unexpected (often highbrow) references to get a
laugh. Sometimes such a reference can be deployed in a genuinely amusing
manner,[i]
but often it is used as flattery: the audience understand the reference and by
laughing are, in effect, applauding their own knowledge. Indeed, the fact that
references sometimes get a reaction of this sort itself indicates a different
kind of cultural cringe: stand-up audiences by and large don’t expect to hear
Sophocles or Degas or de Beauvoir mentioned at a stand-up gig, and are
pathetically grateful when it occurs. There is a difference between clever
comedy and comedy which merely sounds clever, and highbrow references
frequently blur this distinction, either wittingly on the part of the comedian
or not.[ii]
The other point is that the intellectual
element in comedy should not be confined to, or even particularly concerned
with, erudite references. In any other kind of art or entertainment, the
intellectual aspect of a work concerns either the form itself (e.g., challenging
conventions and expectations concerning works of that kind) or the content of
the work (expressing or engaging with complex ideas). For instance, in the
theatre intellectual concerns might find expression in a political or social
themes, or in experiments with theatrical form. A playwright who drops
impressive-sounding names or ideas into the dialogue if anything risks reducing
the nuance and complexity of genuine intellectual engagement to something
little more than dinner-party badinage. And what goes for the playwright goes
double for the benighted stand-up. This challenge – to give ideas and theories
their due while also being funny – is the real issue facing the comedian who
would be an intellectual.
[i] The godfather of this comic trope is probably Woody Allen, and when
his references work they are either witty in addition to the reference (as in
the famous joke about cheating in a philosophy exam), or they work as a kind of
shorthand to illustrate a cultural outlook at which Allen is poking fun.
[ii]
To illustrate this difference, think of a comedian such as Demetri Martin whose
jokes are as cleverly constructed as anyone’s, but who rarely hangs a joke on a
recherché reference.
