tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86482252909583548502024-02-20T19:16:48.742-08:00Dissecting the FrogHumour analysisDonnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-45684375728086867502017-05-14T08:51:00.002-07:002017-05-14T08:53:11.067-07:00<b>Housekeeping: old news</b><br />
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Exciting old news: back in January I had an <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2017/01/25/26705/target_practice">opinion piece</a> about the Barron Trump tweet which got Katie Rich booted off of SNL published on <i>Chortle</i>. It may be of some interest in light of the post below on Stephen Colbert.Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-63034789488065809072017-05-14T08:46:00.000-07:002017-05-14T08:46:59.133-07:00
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Colbert Report</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Steven
Colbert’s suggestion that Donald Trump’s mouth is suitable only to be “Valdimir
Putin’s cock holster” (above video, about 11:30 in) has drawn a great deal of
comment, both on its implications for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/08/stephen-colbert-cross-a-line-fcc">free speech</a> and how the issue (and
coverage of it) have been manipulated by <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2017/05/08/the-fcc-isnt-singling-out-stephen-colber">different</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/09/stephen-colbert-homophobic-joke-furore-donald-trump-vladimir-putin">political factions</a>.
Two issues which underlie a lot of the debate have not drawn such attention:
whether his joke was in fact homophobic, and how an answer to that first
question is best decided.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">I doubt if
Colbert himself is a homophobe, or if he intended to denigrate anyone but Trump
when he told this joke. Nevertheless, it is understandable that he has drawn
criticism, whatever the motivations of some of his critics. At the very least,
he and his writers were very careless in letting this joke through.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The joke is
making a point about Trump (that he is subservient to Putin) by assigning him a
fictional sexual relationship with Putin. The conceit of the joke is that the
fictional sexual relationship is a grossly exaggerated version of Trump’s
perceived relation with Putin. In order to grasp that conceit, one must assume,
at least for the purposes of the joke, that engaging in this kind of sexual
relationship (i.e., performing fellatio on someone else) is grossly subservient
behaviour. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">This trope
about gay men (and heterosexual women) has a long and disreputable history. If
a similar joke had been told about a gay man, say Milo Yiannopoulos, I take it
that it would have been obviously homophobic; likewise if it had been told
about Hilary Clinton. In each case, the joke would have worked by presenting a
stereotyped characterisation of the target’s sexuality which many people –
rightly, I think – would find offensive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">It might be
thought that a relevant difference is that Trump is not actually gay. This
matters insofar as Trump himself could not claim to be have been the victim of
a certain stereotype; rather, he was the target of a joke which made use of
this stereotype. But that is the point: that the joke employed the stereotype
meant that gay men were, so to speak, collateral damage. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">There is
another aspect to this debate which potentially has much father-reaching
implications. I am not gay, but I can give my opinion on whether or not
Colbert’s joke was homophobic. But is it not up to gay men (and perhaps women)
to decide whether or not this joke is genuinely offensive? If a number of gay
men were to say that they weren’t offended by the joke, or that no harm was
done in any case, who am I to disagree?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">One reason
to take what they say seriously is that they are presumably better placed than
me to know what gay men in general would think about this issue. Better placed,
but not necessarily right; after all, it seems that different gay men had
different views on the joke (as, for instance, Steven Thrasher acknowledged in
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/08/stephen-colbert-cross-a-line-fcc">his article</a>). I am Irish, but I wouldn’t presume to know what all Irish people,
or even the majority, felt about a certain joke simply because of my
nationality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">There is
something clearly amiss with a person who is not a member of a certain
community presuming to know when members of that community should be offended,
regardless of what they actually feel. In recent years we have become much more
sensitive as a society to the importance of different social and culture
perspectives when it comes to deciding what is or is not offensive. But there
should also be a place for critical reflection from one’s own perspective,
informed by views from other perspectives but not wholly dependent on them. </span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-9522367222636813522017-04-24T13:48:00.000-07:002017-04-24T13:48:55.074-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b>The Good, The Bad and the Smugly</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/05/how-late-night-comedy-alienated-conservatives-made-liberals-smug-and-fueled-the-rise-of-trump/521472/">Caitlin Flanagan’s piece</a> in </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Atlantic</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> is the latest in a long line of articles
berating American liberals for their condescending attitude towards their more
conservative fellow citizens, and suggesting that this attitude may have
contributed to the coronation of President Trump. A thread running through
these articles has been the role of satire, and in particular the late-night
talk-show monologues of John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">et al</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;">. As Emmett Rensin put it in a
<a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism">widely-discussed piece</a> from last year,</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Over 20 years, an
industry arose to cater to the smug style [of American liberals]. It began in
humor, and culminated for a time in </span><i><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Daily Show</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, a program that more
than any other thing advanced the idea that liberal orthodoxy was a kind of
educated savvy and that its opponents were, before anything else, stupid.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He also correctly predicted the wages of this style:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure
thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, </span><i><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How could anybody vote
for this guy?</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> until a morning in November when they ask, </span><i><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What the
fuck happened?</span></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Quite.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are points in both Rensin and Flanagan’s pieces with which one
could take issue. For instance, one could certainly question whether, as
Flanagan suggests, the </span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">late-night hosts decided </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">en masse</span></i><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> during the election to criticise not just Trump and his
retinue, but anyone considering voting for him. But it is hard to deny the
thought that for someone inclined to support Trump, it was reasonable to feel
that their views were being dismissed; or that the perceived smugness of
late-night comics and their liberal fans provides a convenient way of capturing
the liberal media and the whole liberal elite’s disdain, as more conservative
Americans see it, for Trump and his supporters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Smugness is a term which is hard to pin down, but which
feels right in certain circumstances – and as someone who watches a fair bit of
these late-night comics, I have to say that they often do come across as smug.
This is not so much a matter of what they say but as how it is said: it is a
question of tone, a sense of being overly satisfied with one’s own correctness
and of talking down to those who might disagree.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/God%20bad%20smugly.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
Flanagan picks out the following clip from John Oliver as epitomising this:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When John Oliver
told viewers that if they opposed abortion they had to change the channel until
the last minute of the program, when they would be shown “an adorable bucket of
sloths,” he perfectly encapsulated the tone of these shows: one imbued with the
conviction that they and their fans are intellectually and morally superior to
those who espouse any of the beliefs of the political right.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/God%20bad%20smugly.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Something which has not been much discussed in many of these
articles is the possibility that a certain format may contribute towards the
sense of smugness. All of the shows that Flanagan mentions involve their hosts
performing </span><span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">straight-to-camera monologues. Their styles
vary (Samantha Bee often comes across as irritated, verging on furious; Stephen
Colbert as trying to be suavely above it all; Seth Meyers as a little goofy)
but in each case the set-up involves the host assuming a position of authority.
They know what’s going on, they use this knowledge to expose the stupidity,
ignorance or hypocrisy of others (preferably Republican others), and they
invite you to follow their direction in laughing at the target. This is not a
format which tends to convey much self-doubt, even if the host acknowledges
that a particular issue is complicated or that different viewpoints are
legitimate; by acknowledging this, they are often implicitly contrasting their open-mindedness
with the dogmatism of others.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">Of course, any form of
satire will involve poking fun at a target, and will implicitly set up the
satirist (and the audience) as above the butt of the joke. But not all satire
conveys a sense of superiority, even if it is predicated on it. For instance,
Stephen Colbert rose to fame playing right-wing wing-nut ‘Stephen Colbert’,
delivering straight-to-camera monologues eviscerating spineless liberals, while
of course really sending up the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.
Insofar as Colbert’s persona was modelled on right-wing talk-show hosts and
commentators, he was implicitly claiming superiority over them in order to heap
scorn upon them. But this sense of superiority isn’t manifest in his
performance. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="margin: 0px;">This may be as simple a
matter as Colbert’s not talking down to his targets, but rather enacting their
hot air-fuelled rhetorical flourishes. The joke is still at their expense, but it’s
not spelled out. Colbert, in his old persona, showed the ridiculousness of
right-wing blow-hards rather than stating it. In contrast, a format in which the comedian is
constantly telling the audience just how wrong-headed certain people are can
hardly help being smug, whatever political stance the comedian is adopting. </span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/God%20bad%20smugly.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Rensin <a href="http://emmettrensin.com/blog/2016/4/28/fact-finding-with-jonathan-chait">subsequently pointed out</a> that he was not so much concerned with liberal
smugness as with what he termed the ‘Smug Style. This phrase is somewhat
misleading: as Rensin defines it, the Smug Style is not really a style but a
set of beliefs about politics, liberals and conservatives. In any case, what I
am more interested in is what is properly termed ‘style’, a style of comedy
which conveys a sense of smugness. This style may in part be rooted in the
beliefs which Rensin identifies, but it is not a matter of having those beliefs
but rather of how they are conveyed.</span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/God%20bad%20smugly.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Actually, I found this example unconvincing. Oliver’s segment on abortion is
predicated on the assumption that abortion is a legitimate option for a
pregnant woman, at least in some circumstances. The people he was advising to
switch over were those opposed to allowing abortion in any circumstances
whatsoever. Given the particularly divisive nature of this issue, it is hardly
the epitome of liberal smugness to suggest that those holding such a view would
get little of value out of what was to follow. </span></div>
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<br />Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-20672336875390264852017-01-23T13:19:00.000-08:002017-01-23T13:19:24.802-08:00<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Dissecting <i>The Lobster</i></span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">(Warning: some spoilers)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">A man checks
into a hotel, accompanied only by his dog. He has forty-five days to find a mate and
begin the process of reintegrating into the only socially acceptable way of
living, in a couple. If he fails, he gets turned into an animal. It’s not all
bad, though; he does get to choose which animal.</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The Lobster</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> combines a wry look
at relationships and social pressures with Yorgos Lanthimos’s trademark devious
scenarios and obscurely threatening atmospherics.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/The%20Lobster.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
The film has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/15/the-lobster-review-">widely described</a> as a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/16/the-lobster-and-captain-america-civil-war">satire</a> and also compared to
Kafka, whose work is not exactly satirical but functions in a similar way,
presenting what is recognizably an exaggerated and distorted version of our
society. What I found curious about the film was how these different elements
undermined each other. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Not everyone would agree. In the generally favourable notices, reviewers
saw the combination of the film’s carefully constructed fictional world and
satirical edge as providing much of its bite. Here’s Bob Mondello on <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/05/13/477853519/the-lobster-is-more-than-just-metaphor-in-this-romantic-comedy">NPR</a>:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Lanthimos is fond of hermetically sealed satires like
this, where the logic is rigidly internal and the results of following that
logic determinedly strange. <em><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; margin: 0px;">The Lobster</span></em> is his first film in English, and it plays
cleverly with the compatibility assumptions behind, say, singles groups and
online dating sites.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">‘Hermetically sealed’ is the mot juste; Mondello inadvertently puts his
finger on what I disliked about the film. The fictional world </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">is very cleverly
constructed, but it leads the film to overplay its satirical point.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The first half of the film, more or less, is set in the hotel, and there
is much fun to be had working out the rules of the game, both social and otherwise.
There are plenty of droll moments, from couples in the hotel being given
children to prevent them from arguing, to Colin Farrell inquiring into what
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmpL4A08mvU">sexual options are available</a>, </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">to Olivia Coleman, dependably superb as the hotel manager, reminding
Farrell of what he has signed up for:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">In this part of the film, the fictional construction and the satirical
points work together: the fictional world is unfolded for the audience in a
series of barbed comments about relationships, romance and the pressure to find
a partner. The world Farrell finds himself in is in many respects a version of
our own, but one where certain implicit social conventions have been codified
and are backed by the law. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The problems start when Farrell escapes from the hotel. The loners he
stumbles across living in the woods reject the strictures of mainstream
society, and are hunted for their pains by hotel guests. So far, so like a
number of science fiction films. However, the
loners do not only reject the requirement to form couples, they do not permit
their own members to pair off. This makes for a pleasing symmetry in the
fictional world: both ordinary society and the loners who reject it turn out to
be bound by rigid rules concerning relationships. But the satirical point of
this symmetry is less clear. The attitude of the loners feels like a
contrivance rather than an exaggerated version of something with which we are
familiar. It is noticeable that the jokes which studded the first half of the
film largely vanish during Farrell’s sojourn in the woods.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Perhaps </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">it might be suggested that in these scenes the film is
satirising something more general, namely any group which rejects mainstream
society but which imposes its own strict conventions. But in the context of
this film, such an interpretation feels like a stretch. The loners are
rejecting mainstream society, but specifically because of the requirements
concerning couples. It is not explained why they would wish to be bound by new
rules, and without any motivation for this the satirical point is unclear.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"> </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Granted, it is not made clear either why mainstream society in this
fictional world insists so rigidly on people forming lasting relationships, but
there is no need, since in our society there is a familiar pressure on people
to do so. Without some way to link the motives of the loners back to our own
social mores, even if that way is rejecting them – because of a fear of
commitment, or an exaggerated sense of isolation or of personal space – the fictional
world is untethered from our own, drifting too far away for the kind of
proximity that is crucial to satire.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/The%20Lobster.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span lang="FI" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span lang="FI" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="FI" style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">Dogtooth</span></span></i><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">, his first film, is highly recommended (both that film and <i>The Lobster</i> were written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou).</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-68150861134702573062016-12-31T08:01:00.000-08:002016-12-31T08:01:56.433-08:00<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Holiday Season</span></b><br />
<b></b><br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Jacques Tati
is frequently mentioned as a comic pioneer, and occasionally as a comic genius.
His body of work is relatively small, but has influenced some very well-known
comic figures (Terry Jones has recorded enthusiastic DVD introductions for some
of Tati’s films, and Rowan Atkinson has acknowledged the significant debt Mr.
Bean owes to M. Hulot, Tati’s most famous creation).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">I recently
saw<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Les Vacances du M. Hulot</i>, Tati’s
second feature and the only non-English-language film in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Time Out’s</i> list of the best 100 comedy films.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
It was a curious experience – I saw it in a cinema where the audience were
mostly silent throughout, and yet I didn’t get the impression that people were
put out by the film’s failure to coax many laughs. In part this may be because
some of the appeal of the film is less about comedy than about something harder
to pin down: nostalgia, simplicity, or an acceptance of the vagaries of life
and the idiosyncrasies of other people.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Or the
audience may have primarily come to admire the film’s technical
accomplishments.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a> Tati
has a superb eye for constructing a scene that develops (or falls apart) to
reveal one telling detail. To take one example, the sequence featuring tourists
boarding an overcrowded bus (starting at 1.10 here)</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jp-Fiqw6THI/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jp-Fiqw6THI?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">culminates in a spare child
popping up in the steering wheel, the kind of droll grace note of which Tati is
so fond. This meticulous construction of a scene around a single visual detail has
been taken up a number of subsequent directors, for instance Jean-Pierre
Jeunet, who has used it in films ranging from the rather saccharine (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Am</i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">é</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">lie</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">) to the inventively dark (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Delicatessen</i>).<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">That said,
these kinds of details are charming or at most somewhat amusing, rather than
being actually funny. More generally, the film sharply illustrates some of the
limitations of the kind of comedy Tati was working with, which might be characterised
as gentle slapstick.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The first
limitation is that too many of the jokes rely on people behaving extremely
stupidly. It is true that a great deal of narrative comedy relies on people
making mistakes of one sort or another, but this need not be an issue for the
audience (for instance, it may be plausible that from the character’s point of
view, what they are doing makes sense). In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">M.
Hulot</i> there is no attempt to explain this behaviour or put it into some
sort of context where it can be understood – it is crushingly obvious, and the
film is cheapened by including so many set-pieces which rely on it. Other
characters are endlessly prone to being distracted by Hulot and spilling their
drinks, or mistaking what is plainly a canoe for (presumably) a sea monster
(from 0.28 here)</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4f2gLy-A0hM/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4f2gLy-A0hM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">or proving to be the among most inept tennis players the world has
ever seen:</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SdZ5rMl1yc4/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SdZ5rMl1yc4?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">A different
film could probably get away with scenes like these – a film which was set a
few degrees further removed from reality, or one with a wilder feel or looser
logic. As a general rule of thumb, the more antic a film, the more stupid
behaviour can be funny in it. To complain about an entire marching band walking
into a wall</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q1v0jB3OswM/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q1v0jB3OswM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">or a fleet
of police cars finding new and inventive ways to enter a pileup</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LMagP52BWG8/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LMagP52BWG8?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">would be to
miss the point – and the tone – of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Animal
House</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blues Brothers</i>. But
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">M. Hulot</i>, such behaviour feels
forced – it jars with the gentle observations of much of the film.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The second
drawback of this kind of humour is its rigidity. Again, a great deal of humour
relies on fairly rigid conventions and rules, but again this can be moderated
or at least disguised, for example by varying the subject-matter or tone of
different scenes, or even by subtleties of phrasing and expression. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">M. Hulot</i>, the scenes are set up and
dispatched practically by clockwork, in a way which quickly becomes irritating:
things are always arranged so that Hulot inadvertently upsets the other
characters, or they inadvertently upset each other. This means that a sense of
the unexpected, so crucial to genuine comic creativity, is missing. The film
reminded me of a stand-up relying too heavily on puns – some might be genuinely
funny, but if everything is a pun then not only do they tend to become
predictable, but the element of contrivance becomes obvious and gets in the way
of enjoying the comedy. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">
Although it is, to all intents and purposes, a silent film. Nevertheless, it’s
the only representative on that list from the non-Anglophone world.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">
Roger Ebert has some very perceptive things to say on the matter <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-mr-hulots-holiday-1953">here</a>. I
can’t say I am entirely convinced, but he puts this line of thought very well.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">
About which Ebert is again spot on.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/M%20Hulot.docx" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: x-small;">
Co-directed by Marc Caro.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-32235709467793596312016-12-05T11:03:00.000-08:002016-12-05T11:03:59.402-08:00
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">In-jokes</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">(part of the occasional series What
is a joke?)</span></b></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Almost every
joke relies on background knowledge, something that the person telling the joke
assumes those hearing it already know, and so does not actually state. Indeed, it is often crucial to the success of
the joke that this knowledge is left unstated. To include too much information
in setting the joke up is either to risk confusing the audience or to lose the
element of surprise which the punchline requires. Hence, the classic way to
kill a joke is to explain this background knowledge, though of course this fact
has become such a staple of comic lore that it is ripe for comic use itself.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">A good
number of jokes not only assume this background knowledge but exploit it – it
is often crucial to a misdirection which is reversed, or in establishing the
connection between the setup and the punchline. (For instance, the hoariest of
‘and that was just the teachers!’-style humour relies on our knowing how
teachers typically act, in order to undercut this assumption).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">The
background knowledge is sometimes very general (jokes about the differences
between men and women) but it can be much more specific, e.g., limited to
knowledge common only to people in a certain social group, profession or nationality.
Any joke of this kind is an in-joke: it is intended to be heard by insiders,
people who will get the reference or already have the knowledge needed to
understand the joke. </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">One
interesting feature of in-jokes is that because they rely on this shared knowledge,
they can get a desired response not necessarily by being funny; often, they
work as a kind of shared affirmation that the joke-teller and the audience are
in the know, that they get the reference or are part of the relevant social
group. And yes, this can lead to a certain degree of smugness. But it does
raise the question of how an in-joke can actually be funny, as opposed to just
amusing those who understand what it’s about.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Here’s an example
of an in-joke which is clearly funny: two behaviourists have just finished
making love. The first says to the other ‘I know you enjoyed that, but how was
it for me?’<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">Why is this
funny? Well, it’s about sex, which helps; it’s a highbrow riff on a clichéd
situation, which is another plus; but basically, it’s funny because it brings
out a ridiculous consequence of a particular theory. It presents, in highly
exaggerated form, a line of thought which some people have been tempted to
follow, and it shows that this line of thought leads to an absurd dead end. In
doing this, the joke adds value to the reference: to get the joke, you need to
understand what behaviourism is, but in getting it you will also grasp how
ridiculous it is (at least in this exaggerated version).</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">By way of
contrast, here’s an example of an in-joke which is undoubtedly clever but not
particularly funny: three logicians walk into a bar. The barman asks ‘Does you
all want a drink?’ The first logician says ‘I don’t know’. The second says ‘I
don’t know’. The third says ‘Yes!’<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a>
<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">(If you’re
not sure what the joke is – and for what it’s worth, it had to be explained to
me, which may say something about my aptitude for logic – see below.)<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a>
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">In fact, I’m
not sure if this counts as a joke at all (at least two people who heard it both
said the same thing to me). It does follow a well-known jocular format, has the
rhythm of a joke (including what looks a lot like a punchline), and relies on
the listener making a connection which draws on relevant background knowledge.
But what do you get, when you ‘get’ this joke? </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">I</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">t is true that in understanding
why the final logician answered as they did, the listener grasps the thought
processes behind the first two answers, so there is a leap from the information
in the premise to the conclusion; and it is true that in many jokes a similar
leap is required to get the punchline. But it is characteristic of jokes that
the final piece of information not only throws the rest of the joke in a new
light, but reverses or undercuts something (either our understanding of the
previous pieces of information, or some assumption which we had been led to
make). </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">I don’t think there is any comic reversal here. (At most, if you didn’t
understand why the first two logicians answered as they did, the final answer
might have clarified their thinking – but this doesn’t seem like a genuine
reversal so much as clearing up something which had seemed confusing or arbitrary.)
This a clever connection, and the way you grasp it might be quite like the way
you grasp a punchline, but the line itself is more like the answer to a riddle,
presented in a joke-shaped format.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
</div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Douglas Walker had a great example of this in his <a href="http://dissectingthefrog.blogspot.ch/2015/08/dissecting-thefringe-edinburgh-diary.html">Edinburgh show</a> a couple of
years ago.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
This joke is aimed primarily at logical behaviourism – see b.ii <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/behavior/#SSH1b.ii">here</a>.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Tip of the hat to Vincent for introducing me to this one.</span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Each logician either wants a drink or does not. If the first logician did not
want a drink, then she would have known that the answer to the barman’s
question was ‘No’ (since in order for the correct answer to be negative, all it
takes is for one of the logicians to not want a drink). So because she did not
answer ‘No’, she must want a drink. But she does not know if either of her
colleagues want a drink, therefore she could not answer ‘Yes’, hence her
answering ‘I don’t know’. Same goes (more or less) for the second logician. But
the third logician, having heard the answers from the first two, deduces that
each of them wants a drink (since if either of them had not wanted a drink,
they would have said ‘No’). And since the third logician wants a drink, he knows
that the answer to the barman’s question is ‘Yes’. QED.</span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/In-jokes.docx" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
There’s a further issue here with some background assumptions which the joke
requires. Specifically, it only works if each of the logicians knows whether or
not they want a drink. If it is possible that they do not know this, then the
final logician could not conclude that the other two did want a drink, and so
would not be in a position to answer ‘Yes’.</span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-23547529689671825282016-08-20T07:59:00.004-07:002016-08-20T07:59:58.451-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Satire Paradox<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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Malcolm Gladwell’s <i>Revisionist
History</i> podcast on the <a href="http://revisionisthistory.com/">satire paradox</a> touches on a number of
familiar themes, some of which are handled rather more surely than others.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_edn1" title="">[i]</a></span></span><a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_edn1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><br /></span></span></div>
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As Gladwell tells it, the paradox of satire is that because
different audience members will bring different assumptions and prejudices to
bear on the same material, what one person regards as satire another can regard
as a genuine expression of the position being satirised.<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Heather LeMarre, an academic who has published on audience reactions to
satirists such as Stephen Colbert, emphasises the degree to which in effect we
see and hear what we want. To quote from the <a href="http://hij.sagepub.com/content/14/2/212.abstract">abstract</a> of a paper she
co-authored on Colbert (back when he ‘was’ a rightwing wingnut), <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">individual-level political ideology
significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology […] </span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">conservatives were more
likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant
what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire
and was not serious when offering political statements. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
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On the face of it, this example betrays fairly basic
ignorance on the part of conservative viewers,<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
given that Stephen Colbert (the comedian, not the rightwing wingnut) is quite
clear that he does not mean what he says, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-colbert-report/">describing his character</a> as a “well-intentioned,
poorly informed, high-status idiot”. I don’t have any specific reason to
doubt LaMarre’s findings, but I suggest that there is another sense in which
satire is often more open to interpretation than it might seem. Indeed, it is
quite predictable that this is the case.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Satire works by presenting an exaggerated version of its
target, inflating some of its distinctive features beyond their usual
proportions. The exaggeration is intended to make the target look ridiculous
(or more obviously ridiculous), but the exaggerated version can also be taken
as an outsized celebration of just these features. What’s more, people can take
it this way even if they are aware that the exaggerated version is intended to
look ridiculous. In other words, they can embrace the exaggerated presentation
of the target while simply ignoring the satirical intent. Hence hand-wringing
articles on <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i>
being <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/01/04/the_war_over_wolf_of_wall_street/">celebrated by the very bankers it targets</a>. Hence also Al Murray’s
<a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/al-murray-my-audience-isnt-thick/15625#.V7dGeCh97IU">response</a> to critics who accuse his audience of being too keen on his often ignorant
and bigoted Pub Landlord character: “I think the people who are sympathetic to him may well be enjoying
laughing at themselves, which is a thing people are allowed to do as well.”<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
After all, people who enjoy Woody Allen’s films very often share the views and
sensibilities he mocks, and very often are well aware of this. If this is possible
for left-leaning cultural elites, it is surely possible for boorish bankers or
UKIP voters as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Gladwell’s other main point concerns what seems to be one of
the results of the satire paradox: more often than not, satire is intended to bring
about some kind of change but fails to do so. One of his examples is Harry
Enfield’s Loadsamoney: </div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5CNJmPOucVs/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5CNJmPOucVs?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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a broad satire of lower-middle-class mores in the
Thatcher years which ended up being co-opted by its targets and failing to make
any difference.<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Gladwell goes on to raise questions about the
effectiveness and even appropriateness of satire more generally.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One problem with this line of criticism is that Gladwell
relies on a rather rigid view of the aims of the satirist, as when he suggests “Satire
works best when the satirist has the courage not just to go for the joke”. This
assumes that the primary aim of satire is political and at most secondarily
about comedy. But why should we assume this? It might be that some satire is in
effect political commentary or protest through the medium of humour, but there
are other examples that are better characterised as humour directed at political
targets.<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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The limitations of Gladwell’s view are exposed in his
criticism of Tina Fey’s spoofs of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.</div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0pinZNYxQeo/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0pinZNYxQeo?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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He
tells us that “SNL brought Tina Fey in to skewer Palin out of a sense of
outrage that someone this unqualified was running for higher office”. But it is
highly questionable if a sense of outrage was the primary motive for this
decision. For a commercial comedy show the imperative is to produce something
which gets attention and viewers. No doubt the liberals who make SNL dearly
wanted to take Palin down a peg or two, but that wasn’t the reason they wrote
those sketches, still less why Palin herself appeared on the show. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A more general issue here is how satire, on Gladwell’s view,
is supposed to ‘work’. If the satirist has the courage to not go for the joke,
what are they going for, and what constitutes success in their endeavour? An
obvious answer is: to bring about political change, by challenging established
ideas and changing people’s minds. As Gladwell correctly points out, satire
often fails to achieve anything like this. But this line of criticism is in
danger of stacking the deck, by tasking satirists with a responsibility out of
all proportion to their influence. Satire is for the most part an ineffectual form of
protest, but as Bob Mankoff drily <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/bob-mankoff/one-and-a-half-cheers-for-satire">responded</a>, “for the most part, even protest
is an ineffectual form of protest”. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Gladwell suggests “real satire […] uses a comic pretence to
land a massive blow” – but a blow to what end? His own example of ‘real satire’
is the Israeli left-wing sketch show <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Sdkps0Quo">Eretz Nehederet</a> (A Wonderful Country). But more than a decade’s
worth of ‘massive blows’ from Eretz Nehederet have accompanied a steady
rightward drift in Israeli public opinion.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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This doesn’t mean that satire has no effect: it just doesn’t,
by and large, tend to change people’s minds. It is hard to believe that a
supporter of consumer capitalism would come to a radically different opinion after
seeing Loadsamoney. I suggest that when satire has a political effect, it tends
to do so in other ways: it can form or consolidate our opinions on someone, or
provide people with a prism through which a general sense of distaste or unease
can be focused. Gladwell does not discuss this kind of effect, but considering it
allows for a very different take on some of the examples he considers. For
instance, SNL’s send-up of Palin is not particularly vicious as satire goes,
but it undoubtedly had an effect in cementing the public’s view of her: as
Gladwell himself admits, it can be hard to remember the difference between what
was said by the real Palin and by her SNL facsimile. On the other hand, while
Eretz Nehederet has not been particularly successful at winning over Israelis
who do not share the liberal-left outlook of its creators, it may be a very
appropriate vehicle for expressing the frustrations of those who do. Satire engages
with political targets, but it has more ways of doing so than Gladwell
acknowledges.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Despite what I go on to say, the podcast is well worth a listen.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
This is a familiar enough phenomenon to have a name: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law">Poe’s Law</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Or it suggests they have adopted a complex and subtle view according to which
‘Stephen Colbert’ the rightwing wingnut is a ‘creation’ of ‘Stephen Colbert’
the left-wing comedian who is himself the creation of a person called ‘Stephen
Colbert’ whose own views are more in line with the first of these creations
than the second. This sounds rather too complex and subtle to be very
plausible, but perhaps as left-wing liberal elitist I would be expected to say
that.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
As opposed to those, most famously Stewart Lee, who charged that Murray’s
popularity meant that he attracted a following of people who missed his
satirical point.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> And
yes, it has aged rather badly.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/The%20Satire%20Paradox.docx#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Of course, comedy with no political or social target would presumably not be
satirical at all, but this isn’t Gladwell’s point: he is discussing when satire
works or does not work, not the difference between satire and non-satirical
forms of comedy.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-55123724604151514542016-07-02T07:10:00.000-07:002016-07-02T07:10:21.398-07:00
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The
Engaged Intellect</span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In voicing the suspicion that stand-up is
an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jun/24/poetry-quotes-standup-comedy-liam-williams-philip-larkin-josie-long">anti-intellectual artform</a>, 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 </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“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.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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,</span><a href="file:///E:/Comedy/Dawn%20of%20the%20Intellectuals.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
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.</span><a href="file:///E:/Comedy/Dawn%20of%20the%20Intellectuals.docx" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/Dawn%20of%20the%20Intellectuals.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> 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.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/Dawn%20of%20the%20Intellectuals.docx" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
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. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-3106828794619515542016-01-21T13:53:00.000-08:002016-01-21T13:54:48.477-08:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Top
10 comedy films – an alternative list<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">No. 8 – Fargo<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">After a brief two-year
interlude, the <a href="http://www.dissectingthefrog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/top-10-comedy-films-alternative-list.html">alternative list of comedy film classics</a> resumes.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Fargo.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Number 8 is not a straight
comedy, and not one of the Coen Brothers films routinely celebrated as their best
comic work, but as someone who’s never been convinced by either <i>The Big Lebowski</i> or <i>Raising Arizona</i> I’m plumping for <i>Fargo</i>, a film which I enjoyed more than either of those and which
does more interesting things with comedy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">One reason to nominate <i>Fargo</i> is its influence on subsequent
films and in particular television series (<i>Breaking
Bad</i>, <i>Better Call Saul</i>, the <i>Fargo</i> series). It pioneered a mix of comedy
and often violent drama, where the tone of the comic scenes differs only
minimally from the more serious and sometime shocking moments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The other striking feature
is the range of comic devices it uses. Chief among these are the Minnesota nice
accent </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lt5GsfNcDzA/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lt5GsfNcDzA?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">and the increasingly brutal range
of misfortunes which befall Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi, in the quintessential
Steve Buscemi role), from dealing with an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqIGiVLOY4E#!">uncommunicative partner in crime</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> and an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXcxWsdjYHA">overly-officious car park attendant</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> to beatings, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhm1X1FvC_U">being shot</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPhsD1vHGk">worse</a>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The most interesting comic
feature of the film is Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand). She is the hero and
clearly the smartest person on show, but at same time she’s an innocent, a hick
and in some respects a comic figure. It wouldn’t be quite fair to say that the
film makes fun of her, but it has fun with her good-naturedness, and with the
fact that she outwits every other character, no matter how cynical they may be.
This is most clearly demonstrated in the lecture she delivers to Gaear Grimsrud
(Peter Stormare):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vmoYpJIUWhY/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vmoYpJIUWhY?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">There are no funny lines
in this scene, and Marge’s homily does not come across as ridiculous:
everything she says is correct, and true to her vision of the world. It just
sounds funny when delivered to a man she had a short while ago found stuffing
his former accomplice into a wood chipper. By placing her homespun wisdom in
that context, but in no other way undermining it, the Coen Brothers manage to
have their cake and eat it too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Fargo.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> An
alternative to the Guardian’s list from a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/oct/11/top-10-comedy-movies">few years back</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-73376446799937499662015-12-21T04:27:00.000-08:002015-12-21T04:29:33.892-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Peep Thought<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As
<i>Peep</i> <i>Show</i> concludes its final (and somewhat disappointing) season,<a href="file:///J:/Comedy/Peep%20Show.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> it
is worth reflecting on one of the many sources of its greatness. One of <i>Peep</i> <i>Show</i>’s
main weapons is the comedy of awkwardness, but the way its cringe-worthy
moments are achieved is different to some other noted examples of this art. The
most obvious contrast is with <i>Curb Your
Enthusiasm</i>. Simplifying a little, the plot of most <i>Curb</i> episodes involves constructing a climactic scene where Larry
David is placed in an embarrassing situation in part because of something he
did (or said, or didn’t do, or didn’t say) previously. Frequently this scene
will bring together two hitherto separate plot lines, the combining of which
generates the awkwardness. To take just one example, in the final episode in
Season 8 Larry accuses Michael J. Fox of harassing him and using his Parkinson’s
Disease as an excuse, while also trying to buy a suitable present for his
girlfriend’s son. Hence the climactic scene, where Larry’s demonstration
through mime of what present he bought is mis-interpreted by Fox and everyone
else:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f48KdQidXjM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f48KdQidXjM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In
<i>Peep Show</i>, this kind of plot is used, as when the untimely death of a family
pet is clearly a set-up for the following scene: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cKaqzvzlgKU/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cKaqzvzlgKU?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">However,
awkwardness is frequently established in less circuitous ways, e.g., Jeremy’s
unprompted musical advice:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jC16DsO8GDw/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jC16DsO8GDw?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Or
Mark trying to guess the names of <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2yfy3v">indie bands</a>:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That
<i>Peep Show</i> can develop the comedy of
awkwardness with so little plot machinery is suggestive of how the show as a
whole works. These scenes rely on an unusual degree of realism, both with
regard to the central characters and to the reactions of the rest of the cast.
Mark and Jeremy are sufficiently well-developed characters that their
behaviour, though typical for each of them (one of the hallmarks of the classic
sitcom) is not entirely predictable. Add to that the tone of the show, where
characters rarely break into complete hysterics when something goes wrong, and <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>the superb grasp of the details of everyday social
interactions, and you have a show sufficiently nuanced and rooted in reality to
be able to generate awkward moments in a single scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Larry
David is less of a dramatic character, more of a machine for creating awkward
situations. He is not stupid (<i>Curb</i>
wouldn’t be nearly as funny if he was), just bloody-minded, completely
unwilling to accept or even consider the possibility that he might be in the
wrong, and unlucky - the best <i>Curb</i>
episodes tend to be those where Larry is has done little wrong, but faces
calamity <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q5ZFYFatvI">anyway</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That said, sometimes he just gets what he deserves:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xY4FteCvcco/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xY4FteCvcco?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There
is less detail or subtly to him than either Jeremy or Mark. It doesn’t follow that
Larry is less funny, but it indicates one of the ways in which <i>Peep Show</i> was such a successful and
unique creation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///J:/Comedy/Peep%20Show.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"> It had its moments – Super Hans’s wedding vows were a thing of
beauty – but overall it didn’t reach the admittedly stratospheric level of
previous years. Maybe it’s true what they say – you should never go back to
make a ninth season. </span></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-73056103920379400512015-09-28T07:10:00.001-07:002015-09-28T07:10:28.652-07:00
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Comédie sans frontieres?</span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The national
sense of humour, much like national characteristics more generally, is hard to
define though often recognisable. This is particularly true of Finland, where
the <a href="http://www.visitfinland.com/article/what-are-the-finns-like/">distinctive sense of humour</a> is often <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/scandinavian-miracle-brutal-truth-denmark-norway-sweden">one of the first things mentioned about the locals</a>. Having recently moved to Helsinki, I was curious to
see what evidence of this dry and self-depreacting wit I could uncover.
Obviously this is the work of a lifetime, or at least more than one blog post,
but in the interests of making a start I went along to a local alternative
comedy night.</span></span><a href="file:///E:/Comedy/Comedy%20Idiot.docx" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: FI; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> What was most interesting about the
experience was how little I learned about the Finnish sense of humour, and what
it suggested about stand-up as a form of entertainment.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The night I
attended, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ComedyIdiotHelsinki">Comedy Idiot</a>, had seven Finnish performers out of nine, and
what was striking was how like any multi-stand-up night in the UK it was. There
were different accents and local references (the politician most sneered at was
Alexander Stubb rather that David Cameron), but in terms of themes and the
attitudes displayed by the acts and clearly expected of the audience, it could
have been Headingley or Hackney rather than Helsinki. Topics touched on
included ex-girlfriends, hipsters, Ikea, parenting, growing up in a strict
ethnic-minority household, the perils of drinking too much (it may lead to
involuntary euthanasia, apparently), plus the regulation edgy material; any of
these would have been familiar to UK audiences, and would have been received in
much the same way.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The biggest
difference was the style of the performances. As might have been expected, few
of the performers could have been classed as high-energy. In general they were
more understated, and in a couple of cases very dry indeed. But this difference
should not be overstated - that style is currently quite popular in the UK,
albeit often with a Stewart Lee-esque running commentary on the comedian’s own
performance which none of the performers at Comedy Idiot undertook. One other
difference, related to the lack of energy, was how few of the performers spoke
in any voice but their own; there was very little imitating other people or
enacting dialogues. This might suggest something about the Finnish sense of
humour, but more likely it suggests that most of the performers did not come to
stand-up through university drama or comedy improv.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I can think
of two possible reasons for this similarity with stand-up in the UK, apart from
the fact that the performances were in English. The first is that the
performers might, consciously or not, have been modelling their acts on British
or American prototypes. After all, this is often the case with stand-up in the
UK or the US, and one of the main reasons for the fact that many newer acts
there feel familiar, if not downright derivative. The second reason is a
tentative thesis to do with the nature of stand-up itself. As a practice and
set of conventions imported wholesale, it may tend to smooth out local idiosyncrasies.
The beauty of the format, it has often been remarked, is its simplicity – the
performer can in principle say or do whatever they want. But that very lack of
technical or co-operative demands arguably tends to make performers, isolated
on stage and wholly responsible for their own success or failure, cling to what
they know works; and what works is usually fairly familiar and restricted in
terms of range and style. None of the performers at Comedy Idiot presented
anything avant-garde, let alone a local subversion of the genre, but this
arguably tells us less about the peculiarities of the Finns and more about
stand-up as a global entertainment form. When you think of the sheer number of
active comedians, the percentage who are doing anything particularly inventive
or parochial will be very small indeed. Therefore, if I wanted to discover
something about the peculiarities of the Finnish sense of humour, a comedy club
was the last place to which I should have ventured.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<a href="file:///E:/Comedy/Comedy%20Idiot.docx" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: FI; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In
English. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The English-language comedy scene is thriving in
Finland – Helsinki is hosting the upcoming <a href="http://arcticlaughs.com/">Arctic Laughs festival</a>, with
a mixture of local acts and UK-based performers.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Finland
also has a native language comedy scene, which to the uninitiated seems <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fH9lRRfgwQ">mildly terrifying</a>, like listening to theoretical physicists, or
Harry Potter devotees discussing the rules of quidditch.</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-45657019223556901952015-08-28T10:19:00.000-07:002015-08-28T10:19:45.614-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Tommy:
What’s Comedy Got To Do With It?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “I’ve been doing this for eighteen years. I
could be doing it for another twenty. I’m tired of it, like. What interests me
is just getting up now and talking, and seeing if that encounter between a
person and a crowd where it’s totally spontaneous, if that can bring the
adventure back into it”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It feels like
being wilfully shit. It makes you feel like you’re an artist taking chances but
you’re not. It’s indulgent.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">– Tommy Tiernan, <i>Tommy: To
Tell You The Truth</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There is something very attractive, in
prospect at least, about an artist rebelling against convention and pursuing
their own vision even at the expense of popularity. In comedy, the artistic
risks come with an extra edge, since an alienated audience will make clear what
they think in such a stark manner. Perhaps because of this, pretty much any
comic who is seen to break new ground has been praised for, among other things,
ignoring or at least <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/jan/04/stewart-lee-i-dont-know-where-the-ideas-come-from">downplaying the wishes</a> of <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/shows/tour/d/14999/daniel_kitson%3A_lover,_thinker,_artist_and_prophet">audience members</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Tommy Tiernan’s all-improvised tour of
Europe last year, documented in <i>Tommy: To
Tell You The Truth</i>, outwardly fits the above description. In fact,
it is very different. On what is shown
there, his performances consisted of him alternately rambling and ranting, with
a sprinkling of genuine wit (as when in Zurich he discusses Marx’s quixotic
attempt to incite socialist revolution in the most bourgeois city in the world).
Early in the film he presents himself as taking artistic risks, but by the
middle of the tour, in the face of bemused audiences and car-crash gigs, he
expresses doubts about the merits of his new approach.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is interesting to consider the difference
between what Tiernan does on this tour and the kind of artistic risk-taking
that seems worthwhile. One tempting response is to say that it’s a question of
what you like: something is ‘risk-taking’ or ‘adventurous’ if you enjoy it,
‘self-indulgent’ if you do not. But I don’t think this is quite right. After
all, it is possible to admire an artist for striking out on their own path,
even if you find what results boring. For instance, I admire Paul Foot for his wilful eccentricity, even though I personally don’t enjoy the results:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V9jjEX1Aqf0/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V9jjEX1Aqf0?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What seems lacking in Tiernan is a sense of
the possibilities and the value of what he has been doing, i.e., comedy in
general and his comedy in particular. On stage he seems rudderless (which is
very different to an improviser who is control of what they are doing, even if
they don’t know exactly where they are headed). It is worth contrasting his
approach with anti-comedians like <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/comics/e/549/ed_aczel?review=15382&type=2">Ed Aczel</a> and <a href="http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/the-anti-snl-movie-neil-hamburger-dismantles-comedy-in-sundances-entertainment/">Neil Hamburger</a>. They create
comedy by subverting and mocking the conventions of stand-up and the
expectations of the audience, but they do so in effect by establishing and
exploiting new conventions based on rejecting the standard approaches. What
Tiernan is doing is, in a sense, a <a href="http://www.dissectingthefrog.blogspot.ie/2012/08/dissecting-fringe-edinburghdiary_12.html">purer form of anti-comedy</a>, one which undermines much more basic conventions of stand-up (that the
comedian is funny in a way which the audience can be expected to appreciate)
but not for any discernibly comic end. His tour manager describes the show as
‘Like punk rock improv… there are no rules’. But apart from the fact that the
majority of improvisers do use rules, improvised comedy only works if it is
directed to a certain purpose, i.e., being funny.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Tiernan himself worries that what he is
doing is self-indulgent, which usually has connotations of arrogance and
self-importance, but arguably he is also suffering from a loss of faith in the
value of making people laugh unless it is accompanied by some <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/review/2014/01/23/19453/tommy_tiernan%3A_stray_sod">philosophical insight or catharsis</a>. This view might be understandable, though still curious, in someone who did not tour European cities playing what were presumably billed as comedy shows. Furthermore, the exercise is not only unfair on the audience members; Tiernan is selling himself short as well. C</span>omedy which forsakes the search for laughter
in favour of higher concerns will not only be poor comedy, but will sabotage
its chance of achieving anything else. </div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-63057012921250063822015-08-17T09:15:00.000-07:002015-08-17T09:15:24.595-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Freely Speaking<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The right to offend, and the corresponding right of
audiences to bellyache about it, is an <a href="http://www.dissectingthefrog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/offensive-charm-rape-jokes-i-know.html">ongoing topic in the comedy world</a> and elsewhere. <i>Spiked</i>, the online
home of contrarian libertarianism, hosted a debate on the subject at the Stand
in Edinburgh earlier today, and assistant editor Tom Slater has published
articles <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2015/08/11/23007/the_easily_offended_are_silencing_todays_lenny_bruces">here</a> and <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/lenny-bruce-the-dapper-laughs-of-his-day/17253#.VdIIe_lViko">here</a>. My response, which tries to tease out the
differences between the rights of the interested parties and broader threats to
freedom of speech, is <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2015/08/17/23051/the_freedom_to_offend_%E2%80%93_and_to_be_offended">here</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-88966323120504687842015-08-15T11:01:00.002-07:002015-08-15T11:01:59.572-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Dissecting
the Fringe: Edinburgh Diary<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span lang="EN-GB">Tuesday 11<sup>th</sup> <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span lang="EN-GB"><sup><br /></sup></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Matilda Wnek & Rosa Robson, the duo who
make up Beard, describe <i>The Grin of Love</i>,
as mixing <a href="https://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/article/72647-fringe-preview-beard-the-grin-of-love/">‘sketch, clown, theatre and nightmare’</a>. For some of us, the
term ‘clown’ will always have nightmarish connotations, but Beard carefully
disarm any such link. Their pocket description is in fact as accurate and
succinct as one could hope for. Not hoping to match it for brevity, I can
nevertheless fill in some of the details.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">The
Grin of Love</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> is one sense an abstract work. Instead
of sketches with discernible plots or scenarios, Wnek and Robson present a
series of set-pieces, most of which bear a delightfully tangential relation
with reality. But in another sense their work is rooted in the concrete. Rather
than beginning with characters or situations, each set-piece is anchored in a
particular prop or props (e.g., a glass of wine, a veil and some disturbing
make-up, an orange and a banana) deployed in a particular way (to indicate,
respectively, a bored person of substantial means, a twisted gentleman’s club,
and the miracle of reproduction). Some of the props look ridiculous and are
played for laughs, but more often they are entry points to an otherwise
hermetic world, and vehicles for the performers to playfully explore their own
presence on stage. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Almost every sketch features audience
interaction, but in keeping with a recent trend (for instance, <a href="http://www.dissectingthefrog.blogspot.ie/2014/09/dissecting-target-ben-target-interview.html">Ben Target</a>) it is neither threatening nor humiliating. The first audience member
brought up on stage is asked to participate in a weird rite where the humour
lies in the strangeness of what happens rather than what is happening to the
victim. Later on, the entire audience is invited to wear blindfolds, to throw
beans through two hula-hoops in answer to survey questions, and to collaborate
in the supposed magic powers of each performer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This way of approaching sketch comedy is
the polar opposite of such troupes as <a href="http://www.dissectingthefrog.blogspot.ie/2015/08/dissecting-fringeedinburgh-diary-sunday.html">The Pin</a> or <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comedy/what-to-see/edinburgh-minor-delays-gilded-balloon-sportsman-review/">Minor Delays</a>, who use
few if any props and tend to provide variations on a more orthodox
characters-in-a-recognisable-situation formula. But for sheer inventiveness and
the detail with which they have worked out their ideas, Beard are a match for
any of these groups. The Grin of Love may look ramshackle and deliberately odd,
but it shows all the signs of having been thought through in some detail<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>. </span></div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-37045258507740564692015-08-12T04:19:00.000-07:002015-08-12T04:19:06.492-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Dissecting the
Fringe: Edinburgh Diary<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Monday 10<sup>th </sup><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><sup><br /></sup></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The one-person character-and/or-sketch show is a formidably
versatile vehicle, as demonstrated by Douglas Walker’s <i>Möglich</i> and Daniel Nils Roberts’ <i>Asp</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Walker’s is the more theatrically accomplished of the two.
His improv background shows in the precise characterisations and range of
accents, accompanied by a relatively sophisticated lighting design. Between the
sketches the stage is strongly back-lit, with Walker telling short jokes in
almost total darkness; the same effect is also employed very effectively in one
of the sketches where a journalist recounts his ordeal at the hands of
kidnappers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The most effective sketches – an intrusive psychiatrist, a lollipop
man facing a crisis of confidence, and an elaborate set-up for a wonderfully
contrived pun – come at the end of the show, following some less interesting
ideas in the first half-hour. Each of these sketches is quite involved and
demands a certain commitment on the part of the audience – for instance, the
journalist sketch has no jokes for well over a minute – and perhaps Walker was
reluctant to risk these too early. As a result, <i>Möglich</i> has a rather lop-sided feel of a very accomplished
performer and writer who is perhaps a little tentative in how he approaches a
fifty-minute show.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Asp</i> has a less
ambitious range of characters, and overall feels more like a work in progress.
Roberts relies heavily on powerpoint slides, which can be inventive but
sometimes feel like a crutch for characters who have not been developed in
enough detail. A sketch character need not have a fully worked out backstory,
but – to take one example - the UNICEF representative is so ill-informed about
his job and the organisation he works for that the sketch feels somewhat pointless.
Even the more successful sketches, such as the bellicose army cook, work
because of individual jokes rather than a carefully-developed character or
plot. Where <i>Asp</i> shows the most
promise is in left-field touches such as the recurring theme of things seen or
described from a bear’s point of view – not all of these work, but the
Shakespearean reference he contrives is a delight, showing how effective his
more lo-fi approach can be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-14211508177408743952015-08-09T14:55:00.000-07:002015-08-09T14:59:21.610-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Dissecting the Fringe:
Edinburgh Diary<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Sunday 9<sup>th</sup><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><sup><br /></sup></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since at least <i>Monty
Python</i>, a criterion on which sketch shows have been assessed has been their
formal inventiveness. Four years ago The Pin, a freshly-minted ex-Footlights
troupe, offered a baroque twist on what was once a formal novelty, the idea of
developing an overall narrative through a series of sketches. In their case,
the sketches not only formed a narrative, but were presented in reverse order
in such a way as to reveal how each situation was set up by previous events. It was <a href="http://www.dissectingthefrog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/dissecting-fringe-edinburgh-diary_24.html">undeniably clever</a>, but it wasn’t
clear if the chronological trickery added much by way of humour. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This year’s model, <i><a href="http://www.comedy.co.uk/fringe/2015/the_pin/">Ten Seconds with the Pin</a></i>, marries formal invention with a running theme
of explaining the mechanics of sketch comedy to the audience, and crucially,
both elements have been precision-tooled for comic effect. For the sheer number
of ingenious premises and formal ideas this show, and in particular the first
half, is as good as anything I have seen. To convey this properly one would
need to outline the mechanics of several of the sketches. One example will have
to suffice: the three versions of a sketch featuring a character called Jason recounting
how his date has gone. The sketch calls nominally for three parts, two of which
the duo (Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen) play in turn in each version; each time
they elicit new humour from the variation, and the humour is on each occasion
of a different kind (from revealing that one of the characters is superfluous
to the scene, to showing what Jason’s friend is really like). Metacomedy plus
new ways of presenting sketches plus laughter generated by each of these: this
sketch, and much else here besides, is a model of what cerebral and
self-reflective comedy should be like.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having raised the bar so high, it’s understandable that The
Pin don’t always meet their own standards. The finale felt a little like their
2012 show: a clever twist on an existing idea (in this case, sketch shows
featuring spoof ‘cast and crew commentaries’, a la DVDs) but one which generates
admiration rather than mirth. In not delivering on its premise, this sketch
throws into sharp relief how impressively Ashenden and Owen have succeeded, for
the most part, in extracting the maximum reward from thinking hard about their chosen
form. <o:p></o:p></div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-66782673774646940512015-05-04T07:56:00.000-07:002015-05-04T07:56:27.385-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Philosophy of Humour: A Debate<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite the fact that I’m interested enough in humour to
write the occasional blog post about it, and that my day job is teaching/doing
philosophy, I’ve always been rather suspicious of the philosophical study of
humour. Philosophers can and do discuss humour, but I suspect it’s always going
to be of rather limited interest as a philosophical topic.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Teaching at Leeds alongside Dr. Nick Jones, whose staff
profile lists among his research interests The Philosophy of Humour, provided
the opportunity to explore these issues in the context of a relaxed debate for
the Leeds University Philosophical Society. The contributions from both Nick
and myself can be found <a href="https://soundcloud.com/donnchadh-1">here</a>, in separate files.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Philosophy%20of%20humour.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Philosophy%20of%20humour.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Nick’s talk contains numerous references to Great Dead Philosophers and their
weird and occasionally wonderful thoughts on humour and laughter. Readers
interested in chasing some of these references up could do worse than have a
look through <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/humor/">this</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-17807806031158795182015-04-24T12:19:00.000-07:002015-04-24T12:19:08.801-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Menace of Comedy<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
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Watching <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3630276/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Force Majeure</a></i>, I was strongly put in mind of a term which to my knowledge
has hardly ever been applied to recent work: the comedy of menace. If this term
is heard nowadays, it is usually in relation to theatrical writing in a
specific context (Britain in the late 1950s) and in particular to the early
work of Harold Pinter.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Comedy%20of%20menace.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><b> </b>But it strikes me as a precise
characterisation of what Ruben Öustlund is up to in his film. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The comedy of menace is perhaps easier to recognise than to
define. Francesca Coppa notes that menace “depends on ignorance; the terror of
it stems from the vagueness of the threat. We do not know what is happening or
why, and the lack of information leads us to fear the worst”. In contrast, black
comedy “treats serious themes comedically, without the respect they deserve; it
says too much, it says what should not be said”.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Comedy%20of%20menace.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
That is, it makes it too clear what is really going on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To this point, I would add that a sense of menace requires
not just that characters be under threat, but that the audience empathises with
them enough to feel a kind of vulnerability themselves. The effect is very
different to seeing a comedy where you know something bad is going to happen to
one of the characters, but you feel no empathy with them:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/O5Dec6RdFzw/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O5Dec6RdFzw?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<br /></div>
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Tomas and Ebba (Johannes Kuhnke & Lisa Loven Kongsli)
are taking a holiday with their children in a ski resort. In the face of an
unexpectedly violent avalanche, Tomas abandons his wife and children to their
fate. The avalanche turns out to be harmless, but Ebba cannot get over this
betrayal. The incident and the themes it raises are discussed in three scenes –
a dinner with a couple they met at the resort, a dinner with their old friends
Fanni and Mats, and a scene between Mats and Fanni – which are masterpieces of
tension and awkward comedy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Awkward or <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CringeComedy">cringe comedy</a>, where the humour is rooted
in the social embarrassment felt by the characters, has been a staple of
<a href="http://www.avclub.com/tv/the-office-uk/">television</a> in <a href="http://www.hbo.com/curb-your-enthusiasm#/">particular</a> for years. Where <i>Force Majeure </i>develops the form is in
the length of these three scenes, and the naturalistic presentation of the
characters before and during them. Larry David and David Brent are well-rounded
characters, but we are never in doubt that they are comically deluded about
themselves. Neither Tomas nor Ebba are presented as comic prior to the incident
with the avalanche – indeed, the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the film
could easily pass as a finely-observed drama of bourgeois life. The comedy is
introduced slowly and inexorably, with far less plot machinery and a much more
drawn-out (in a good way) pay-off than is typical of sitcoms specialising in cringe
comedy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One difference between the comedy of early Pinter and that
found in <i>Force Majeure</i> is that the
menace in the latter is not that vague. We have a pretty good idea of what’s
happening and what will happen, in outline at least – indeed, it is so
excruciating precisely because of this. That said, there is still menace afoot,
in that we certainly fear the worst, even as it is unfolding before our eyes.
This is perhaps the novel element which cringe comedy introduces to the comedy
of menace: the sense of vulnerability we feel is heightened not the by the
vagueness of the threat, but by its gruesome familiarity. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Comedy%20of%20menace.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedy_of_menace">Wikipedia</a> entry on ‘Comedy of Menace’ focuses almost entirely on Pinter’s
work, with a brief discussion of the article in <i>Encore</i> by Irving Wardle which popularised the term.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Comedy%20of%20menace.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
‘The Sacred Joke: Comedy and Politics in Pinter’s Early Plays’, in <i>The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-83405898959886854482015-04-20T13:30:00.000-07:002015-04-20T13:30:21.278-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Contextual Analysis<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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While Jon Ronson’s <i>So
You’ve Been Publicly Shamed</i> discusses the role played by shame and
shaming across contemporary society generally, it is in large part focused on
internet firestorms where thousands or hundreds of thousands of strangers
anonymously ridicule and abuse supposed miscreants. In some cases, the victims
are famous people who have committed some sort of transgression – for instance,
the author Jonah Lehrer, who was disgraced after it was revealed that he had
<a href="http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions">made up quotations from Bob Dylan</a>. But non-celebrities can also be swept
up in the whirlwind. The examples Ronson discusses by and large centre on jokes
which were either misunderstood or interpreted in the most damning way
possible. Ronson’s key example is Justine Sacco, who was cyber-lynched for the
following tweet in December 2013: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1fmD8Ff2D5K66ja5MNJPYzeNCxRZl7x2qoGW8O8BiG9AL-yvoWrKaiuLh6u3lK6SHHUzi1y7CG8FX8RaLrcoK38ryUOj6mNInX8H4BU-N5wovox9Q4p4dLGRMX9Sx5SB1PkVDu8OGrkj/s1600/Justine-Sacco.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1fmD8Ff2D5K66ja5MNJPYzeNCxRZl7x2qoGW8O8BiG9AL-yvoWrKaiuLh6u3lK6SHHUzi1y7CG8FX8RaLrcoK38ryUOj6mNInX8H4BU-N5wovox9Q4p4dLGRMX9Sx5SB1PkVDu8OGrkj/s1600/Justine-Sacco.png" height="187" width="320" /></a></div>
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In each of the firestorms Ronson describes, the joke which
sparked the rumpus was taken out of context.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Context.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
This is an obvious diagnosis of why people became so furiously indignant at
Sacco’s tweet, and exulted in her demise. But it also suggests certain features
about context, and how the internet changes in the context in which humour is
produced and, more importantly, received. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Perhaps the most obvious aspect of context is the audience’s
personal knowledge of the person telling the joke. If we are acquainted with
them, or are with them when they crack wise, we know that they are joking and
we will usually have a pretty good idea of the spirit in which their remark is
intended. One of the frequently-remarked aspects of internet communication is
the degree to which subtleties of tone are lost, so what is intended as ironic
(Sacco’s tweet) comes across (to her persecutors) as gleefully mocking those
less fortunate than her. This isn’t primarily a matter of anonymity (although
this is certainly relevant, particularly when considering the often-hateful
nature of much of what passes for internet commentary) – it is primarily a
matter of not personally knowing the person telling the joke, rather than not
knowing who they are. People who knew Sacco would presumably have known she was
joking, even if they might have disapproved. They wouldn’t have taken her to be
expressing a racist view, just trying to make a shocking joke.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A second aspect of context is a shared experience or common
background knowledge. A huge number of jokes, from cliches about airplane food
to political satire, depend on the joke teller and their audience having enough
in common to be able to pick up on certain cues and make certain judgements
without having to think too hard. This is one of the reasons why so much comedy
is relatively parochial – it relies on quite specific references and
assumptions, and transplanted to another culture or society, it ceases to
function as comedy. Of course, the internet is particularly well suited to
bring about such cultural transplantation. But I don’t think this is what
happened in the case of Sacco, or the other cases Ronson mentions – or at any
rate, what happened is not as simple as a piece of parochial comedy failing to
travel well abroad. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What happened here concerned background knowledge of a quite
specific kind: it included the understanding that conventions for joking exist,
and that people who are making jokes should not be held to other standards
(similarly, understanding what people say often requires knowing that they have
said something metaphorical, and that what they have said should not – indeed,
must not – be understood literally). At least some of the responses to Sacco’s
tweet which Ronson quotes (e.g., ‘Her level of racist ignorance belongs on Fox
News. #AIDS can affect anyone!’) seem to have overlooked or deliberately
ignored the fact that she was making a joke.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Context.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
A related convention is that certain people, in certain circumstances, are
licenced to say things which would otherwise offend. Sacco acknowledged that
part of the problem was that she was not perceived as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=0">benefiting from this convention</a>: “Unfortunately, I am not a character on <i>South Park</i>, or a comedian, so I had no business commenting on the
epidemic in such a politically incorrect manner on a public platform”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The conventions governing when someone is joking, and when
it is appropriate to joke, have not disappeared with the coming of the internet
– arguably, they have not changed at all. What has changed is the degree of
complicity or shared knowledge between a person tweeting a joke and the
potential audience of strangers, who may neither share this knowledge nor be
terribly interested in its relevance. Not only do people online not know you –
worse still, they might not even know whether or not you are joking. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<div id="edn1">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Context.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> As
Ronson put it <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html?_r=0">concerning another case</a>, a photo taken by a woman as part of a
running joke of pictures disobeying signs, “shorn of this context, her picture
appeared to be a joke not about a sign but about the war dead”.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Context.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Without knowing more about the respondents in question, it’s impossible to be
sure. But the response quoted in the main text certainly seems to be accusing
her, not of making a tasteless joke, but of making a non-jocular statement
predicated on a factual inaccuracy. Put another way: if one felt that Sacco was
making a tasteless joke, it would seem peculiar to respond by pointing out that
white people can also be victims of AIDS.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-51503074257961189102015-04-06T02:19:00.000-07:002015-04-06T07:45:49.665-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Offensive Charm<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i>(Note: this post contains
a couple of jokes which are offensive (and one which might be construed as such
– see below for further details). Obviously I don’t endorse the thinking behind
said jokes.)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
Rape jokes – I know, they’re <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/17/heard-one-about-rape-funny-now">so 2012</a> – are back in the news after Ray Badran’s <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2015/03/30/22127/youre_a_piece_of_shit_and_i_hope_you_die">unpleasant</a>
<a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/there-is-nothing-funny-about-rape-so-rape-jokes-cant-be-funny-right-wrong/story-fnpug1jf-1227289730480">encounter</a> with a <a href="http://www.mamamia.com.au/lifestyle/rape-jokes-told-by-comedians/">protester</a> at the Melbourne International Comedy
Festival. Apart from its specific details, this incident raises some general
questions: when are jokes offensive? Can offensive jokes be funny? Is it ever
legitimate to laugh at such a joke?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The category of ‘offensive jokes’ isn’t a particularly
clear-cut one. Here is Badran’s, as quoted verbatim by <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/stories/s4208247.htm">ABC</a>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">If you've been to a comedy night before then you
might know that there's a bit of an unspoken rule in comedy right... gay people
can tell jokes about being gay... black people can tell jokes about being
black... so I don't know if you can tell, just from looking at me, but I...
can... tell rape jokes.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Offensive%20Humour.docx#_edn1" title="">[i]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Offensive%20Humour.docx#_edn1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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This is our old friend, metacomedy: this isn’t so much a
joke about rape (although the punchline is meant to imply that Badran is
himself a rapist) but about rape jokes, and more generally about the comic
convention that members of a minority group can tell jokes about that group
which would otherwise be unacceptable. That said, Badran has chosen to use the
r-word, presumably deliberately. This might be a piece of metacomedy, but its
intended effect is one of shock.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This joke is edgy, and it might reasonably be said that a
comedian who uses edgy material can hardly complain if some audience members
find it a little too close to the bone. But not all comedy which might be
classed as edgy is offensive, at least not beyond the fairly trivial sense that
some people might be inclined to take offense at it. Badran’s joke doesn’t work
on the assumption that rape is ever ok, or that rape isn’t something we should
be concerned about. A joke which carried such a message would be offensive, in
the sense that it would be predicated on repugnant values. Someone may object
that Badran’s joke makes light of the real trauma suffered by victims of rape,
and that this is what makes it offensive. But there is an important difference,
in my opinion, between a joke about rape or one which refers to that topic
without minimising the seriousness of the crime, and one which does.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Offensive%20Humour.docx#_edn2" title="">[ii]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Offensive%20Humour.docx#_edn2" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><br /></span></span></div>
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It doesn’t follow from this that Badran’s joke is not
objectionable. It might be better if comedians were not so quick to reach for
rape gags to make all matter of points. On the other hand, jokes with shock
value are an important weapon in the arsenal of comedians (quite why is itself
an interesting question – but it seems to be a fact that people, or enough of
them at any rate, appreciate jokes intended to shock them). There is no
straightforward answer to this question, because there is no straightforward
way of deciding when a point is best made in a shocking fashion, or when a
comedian is reaching for shock in lieu of inspiration.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If Badran’s joke is not offensive, that leaves another
question: can a joke predicated on distasteful assumptions about people ever be
enjoyable, even if one does not share the assumptions? Here is an example from
an unlikely source, President Sebastian Pinera of Chile, who was quoted as
telling <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16063229">guests at a conference the following</a>: <o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
Do you know what the difference
between a politician and a lady is? When a politician says ‘Yes’, he means ‘maybe’,
when he says ‘maybe’ he means ‘No’, and if he says ‘No’, he’s not a politician.
When a lady says ‘No’ she means ‘maybe’, when she says ‘maybe’ she means ‘Yes’,
and if she says ‘Yes’, she’s not a lady.</div>
</div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 13.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
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There’s no doubt that this is a sexist joke: it is
predicated on tiresome stereotypes of female behaviour and (worse than that) an
extremely worrying view of female consent (you’ll notice there is no way for
the ‘lady’ to say ‘No’ and to mean it). But I would suggest that it is a joke
which can be enjoyed even by those who do not share these views. For one thing,
it is genuinely well constructed without being horribly contrived; for another,
it is a joke which very obviously is comparing stereotypes, and so can work as
a comment on them rather than just endorsing them. To enjoy this joke, you must
be familiar with the stereotypes and accept them for the sake of the joke (a
sort of jocular suspension of disbelief), but the very archness of the
comparison allows you to step back from them as soon as the joke is finished. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Post scriptum</i>: the best piece on l'affaire Badran (apart from the above, of course), is by <a href="https://medium.com/@greglarsen/what-is-a-rape-joke-3bd379abfe52">Greg Larsen</a>, who runs the night where the whole debacle took place.</div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Offensive%20Humour.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The joke was reported in a shorter version in <a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2015/03/30/22127/youre_a_piece_of_shit_and_i_hope_you_die">other outlets</a>: “<span style="background: white;">So you know how gay people
can make jokes about being gay, and black people can make jokes about being
black, well I can make jokes about rape.”</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="edn2">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Offensive%20Humour.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
For examples of rape jokes which are, to my mind, genuinely offensive (and
fully intended as such), click <a href="http://www.sickipedia.org/sex-and-shit">here</a>. To take one example from there, ‘9
out of 10 people enjoy gang rape’ only works as a joke on the jocular
assumption that the enjoyment of the rapists is to be treated as in some way on
a level with the suffering of the victim. In saying this, I am not overlooking
the fact that this is a joke, and that the person telling it will not (or at
least need not) accept that assumption. But that assumption is still required
for the joke to work.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
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Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-7433950587852316232015-03-09T13:31:00.000-07:002015-03-09T13:32:54.651-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>New York Plays Itself<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<i>Appropriate Behaviour</i>,
written, directed by and starring Desiree Akhavan, is the latest film about creative,
independent-minded twenty-something women trying to scratch out a living in New
York, usually while negotiating complicated relationships with their families,
friends and paramours. These films often feature graphic depictions of female sexuality,
but by and large the characters’ lives do not revolve around male appreciation;
the nuances of female friendships are at least as important. In different ways,
<i>Frances Ha</i>, <i>Tiny Furniture</i> and <i>Obvious
Child</i> meet this description, but it is undoubtedly <i>Girls</i> which has defined the trend.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Appropriate%20Behaviour.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title="">[1]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Appropriate%20Behaviour.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><br /></span></span></div>
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The emergence of this micro-genre is itself a good thing,
throwing into sharp relief just how few coming-of-age films about young women
there were until quite recently. (While the films mentioned are comic and are
about romance, they are very different from standard romantic comedies, and
light years removed from the likes of <i>Sex
and the City</i>, to which <i>Girls</i> was
bizarrely <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2222200/Girls-What-TVs-new-Sex-And-The-City-reveals-lives-young-women-today.html">compared</a> when it <a href="http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/news/a8856/all-the-ways-in-which-girls-has-already-been-compared-to-satc-40847/">first appeared</a>). In thematic terms they form a
female response to a previous battalion of awkward young men hesitantly
exploring themselves and their romantic lives (<i>Youth in Revolt</i>, <i>Garden State</i>,
<i>(500 Days of) Summer</i>, <i>Adventureland</i>). In terms of tone, they
are generally different: less sentimental, more sexually frank, and much more
New York. A better reference point might be such films as <i>The Squid and the Whale</i>, <i>Tadpole</i>,
<i>Rodger Dodger </i>or<i> Igby Goes Down</i>, each
of which features a much younger male protagonist, but each of which is set in,
and is very much a product of, the Big Apple.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s interesting to consider why <i>Appropriate Behaviour</i> and its sister films share this setting. New
York features as a heightened version of a much broader phenomenon: a place
where young people from middle-class or even privileged backgrounds look for
alternative careers to suburbia or finance, living in insecure and low-income
conditions without being what would be traditionally termed poor. Very similar
stories could be set in many other cities, but New York helpfully combines
cutting-edge trendiness (or at any rate what is perceived as such) with a long
tradition of attracting precisely these kinds of people. If this story was set
elsewhere, many of the characters would probably be longing to move to
Brooklyn.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Appropriate Behaviour</i>
belongs if anything too comfortably in this sorority; it cleaves so closely to
the tropes laid down by <i>Girls</i> that
‘imagine if Hannah Horvath was an Iranian-American lesbian photographer’ isn’t
too bad as a capsule summary.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Appropriate%20Behaviour.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
Its other main limitation is its episodic nature and lack of a strong
narrative. This isn’t necessarily a problem – some of the episodes,
particularly a threesome and a scene in a lingerie shop with an empowering sales
assistant, are very funny, showing a flair for short-form comedy which illustrates
Akhavan’s background writing an <a href="http://theslopeshow.com/episodes/">internet sitcom</a>. But while <i>Appropriate Behaviour</i> never loses one’s
interest, it doesn’t coalesce into something more than a series of vignettes,
vignettes moreover of a world which already feels over-familiar. These
limitations together suggest a filmmaker who has mastered detail but who needs
to find something more distinctive to say (and perhaps a different medium –
maybe a sitcom?) Perhaps the best response to New York Desiree Akhavan could
have would be to leave it, at least thematically. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Appropriate%20Behaviour.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> These
films are also for the most part written and directed by women (Noah Baumbach
directed <i>Frances Ha</i>, which he
co-wrote with Greta Gerwig).<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Appropriate%20Behaviour.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
It’s amusing to read that <i>Appropriate
Behaviour</i> is an <a href="http://www.indiewire.com/article/sundance-review-tired-of-disgruntled-new-york-hipster-comedies-appropriate-behavior-is-a-welcome-update-to-the-formula">alternative</a> to ‘disgruntled New York hipster comedies’, when that is what it so blatantly, and for the most part successfully,
is. Akhavan is well aware of this, and of<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/05/desiree-akhavan-appropriate-behaviour-not-being-iranian-bisexual-lena-dunham"> comparisons with Dunham</a>. Such are the wages of making critically-acclaimed films about young urban bohemians in twenty-first century America.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-44126013617451666002015-01-07T13:12:00.001-08:002015-01-07T13:12:25.623-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Tragedy plus time?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A number
of perennial talking points were raised by the announcement that Channel 4 have
commissioned a script for <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/big-ideas-for-2015-a-famine-sitcom-music-running-body-painting-and-food-1.2044322">a sitcom set in Ireland during the Great Famine</a>. Hugh Travers, the writer, explained his thinking:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">They say ‘comedy equals tragedy plus time’.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Dissecting/Famine%20comedy.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> […] I
don’t want to do anything that denies the suffering that people went through,
but Ireland has always been good at black humour. We’re kind of thinking of it
as <em>Shameless</em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>in famine
Ireland.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
announcement has already generated a good deal of <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/famine-historian-criticises-unsavoury-channel-4-sitcom-1.2054163">predictable</a> <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/declancashin/potato-famine-comedy#.fbGYDpDGK5">(sought-after?)</a>
<a href="http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2015/01/05/21580/30%2C000_protest_c4s_famine_comedy">blowback</a>, and some predictable defences. Channel 4 <a href="http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/channel-4-hungry-famine-sitcom-response-1861859-Jan2015/">tells us</a> that “It’s not unusual for sitcoms to exist against backdrops
that are full of adversity and hardship”, which seems a rather harsh as a
description of its commissioning department. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/it-doesnt-matter-if-a-tv-show-is-set-during-the-potato-famine-ww1-or-the-holocaust--that-doesnt-make-it-offensive-9958854.html">Rory Fenton</a> suggests that
people calling for the show to not be produced “have failed to see the
difference between comedy about the Famine and a comedy set during the Famine”,
going on to note that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">The
slaughter of the First World War wasn’t funny and yet <i>Black Adder Goes Forth</i>, set in the trenches, was. The Holocaust
couldn’t be further from humour and yet <i>Life
is Beautiful</i>, set in a concentration camp, was very funny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I have no
desire to see an official list of topics which are or are not suitable for
comedy, or for any other dramatic or literary depiction; nor would I wish to
see C4 prevented by law from going ahead with this programme if they see fit.
But there are reasons to wonder if this project is appropriate, or whether it
has been properly thought through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">First,
there is Travers’ pocket description: ‘<i>Shameless</i>
in famine Ireland’. Granted, this may well have been a throwaway remark rather
than a summary of his pitch to C4, but it’s a pretty worrying comment to
include in an interview. It’s hardly stretching things too far to suggest that
much of the humour in <i>Shameless</i> comes
from a family whose members are presented as feckless and irresponsible, though
often sympathetic and even lovable. For all that can be said about the
structural and cultural causes of long-term unemployment and the serious
problems faced by people in that situation in modern-day Britain, their
predicament pales in comparison to people dying in their thousands for lack of
food. The premise of <i>Shameless</i> is
that no matter how hard things get or how badly the people behave, the safety
net of social welfare is always there. In Ireland in the 1840s, this was
emphatically not the case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Second, to
return to Fenton’s distinction between a comedy about the Famine and a comedy
set during the Famine, it is worth asking why a sitcom should be set during
that period, unless the situation itself can be mined for humour? In order to
deliver on its audience’s expectations, and in order for the decision to make
creative sense, the script will have to address the reality of what happened,
even if in a light-hearted way. What’s required is something much more like <i>Blackadder Goes Forth</i> than <i>Dad’s Army</i>, a sitcom set during a terrible
war but which scarcely addresses it.<span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Dissecting/Famine%20comedy.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title="">[ii]</a></span></span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Dissecting/Famine%20comedy.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><!--[endif]--></a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Finally,
there is the choice of genre. The famine is, in principle, perfect material for
black comedy – indeed, one of the earliest and greatest examples of that genre,
Swift’s <i><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm">Modest Proposal</a></i>,
concerns similar conditions of dire poverty in Ireland. More recently, Alan
Partridge famously gave his considered opinion on the matter: "at the end of the day, you will pay the price if you're a fussy eater".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">However, Swift
and Steve Coogan were driving very different comic vehicles to that which C4
are considering. Swift’s is a short and pungent essay – any longer and it would
be in danger of becoming fascinated by its morbid subject-matter and descending
into horror-show tourism. Coogan gave Partridge a few lines about the famine in
a longer episode, lines which, in the context, clearly reveal him to be the
butt of the joke. This kind of distance won’t be available for a sitcom set during
the famine; nor will it enjoy Swift’s brevity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A good
rule of thumb for black comedy is that less is more. The butt of the joke is
usually something pretty simple (the pig-headedness of military leaders during
WWI, or the stupidity and ignorance of a certain kind of Englishman when it
comes to the sometimes complicated history of Empire). To keep going after
the point has been made risks losing the humour and (even more importantly) changing
the tone, from the casual understatement which is the genre’s hallmark to
something shrill or blankly nihilistic. It may be that Travers can pull off the
delicate balancing act his project requires, but it will take some doing. It
might have been better for him never to have mounted the tightrope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Dissecting/Famine%20comedy.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"> <a href="http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/25/comedy-plus/">They do</a>,
although the most famous use of this phrase is perhaps the mocking employment
of it in <i>Crimes and Misdemeanours</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Users/Dons/Documents/Comedy/Dissecting/Famine%20comedy.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Which is not to
say that Dad’s Army is not about WWII, just that it considers that war not as a
colossal waste of life but as Britain’s Finest Hour; and because the war was
widely remembered along those lines, there was no expectation that it would
address any of its more grim aspects.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-67492598458385202902014-12-07T08:59:00.000-08:002014-12-07T08:59:57.446-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Jeremy Thorpe: A
Life in Comedy<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The flamboyant former leader of the Liberal party, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/04/jeremy-thorpe">Jeremy Thorpe</a>, passed away last week. A noted raconteur and apparently a
devastating impersonator of political rivals, he will be remembered for, among
other things, two contributions to comic history. The more direct of these was his famous quip about the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18722428">Night of the Long Knives</a>, when Harold MacMillan sacked seven of his cabinet ministers:
“Greater love hath no man than this – that he lay down his friends for his life”.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other contribution was a more roundabout affair. The
exact details of Thorpe’s relationship with Norman Scott and his <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/thorpes-friends--and-a-murder-conspiracy-1352118.html">possible involvement in a plot to kill the latter </a>are still a source of dispute. Thorpe was acquitted
of conspiracy to murder Scott, but the judge’s remarks to the jury before they
retired to consider their verdict were widely seen as prejudicial (see the
section on Committal and Trial<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorpe_affair"> here</a>).<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The following week Peter Cook, appearing in Amnesty
International’s first Secret Policeman’s Ball, needed some new material to
respond to a critic’s complaint that the show lacked satirical bite. The rest
is comedy history:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-83863884244598671962014-09-10T14:33:00.001-07:002014-09-10T14:34:17.514-07:00<b>Dissecting the Target: Ben Target interview</b><br />
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One-man comedy laboratory Ben Target was the subject of the <a href="http://www.dissectingthefrog.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Ben%20Target%3B%20avant-garde%3B%20character%20comedy">very first post</a> on this-here blog. Three years later he is still every inch the idiot-savant man-child. I caught up with him on the last day of his Fringe run to find out what made him tick.<br />
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The interview, complete with incredibly unprofessional opening sequence, can be found <a href="https://soundcloud.com/donnchadh-1/ben-target-interviewwma">here</a>.<br />
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<br />Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8648225290958354850.post-28468854269479176642014-08-26T11:08:00.000-07:002014-08-26T11:08:28.293-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Dissecting the
Fringe: Edinburgh Diary<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><i>Saturday 23<sup>rd</sup><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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Until last Saturday I had never seen <a href="http://www.latenightgimpfight.com/">Late Night Gimp Fight</a>. This might seem like something of an oversight on my part given their
prominence at the Fringe and in London over the past few years, but everything
I had read and heard about the group had suggested that they were not what I
was interested in, comically speaking. Sitting through their greatest hits in a
raucous Pleasance Beyond confirmed this suspicion: rarely have I felt more out
of place in an audience, or felt that a show was aimed at people other (i.e.,
younger) than myself. This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it. The troupe are
relentlessly professional and dispatch their sketches with ruthless aplomb. A
couple of the presentational ideas (sock puppets made using the legs of the
performers, and a silent piece where all the audience can see are translucent
gloves and other accoutrments) were superbly executed, and one of their songs
was wittier than any <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV1y0ebthrA">ditty about bestiality </a>has a right to be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nevertheless, there’s arguably less to LNGF than meets the
eye. The point isn’t that too often they fall below the level of their best
ideas – after all, this is true of almost any sketch troupe. Rather, what was
surprising to me was how unchallenging the show is, in the sense of how closely
it conformed to its audience’s expectations. Unlike the traditional late-night
Fringe gig, with drink-fuelled heckles and put-downs and a genuine battle of
wills (if not wits) between audience and performer, this was entirely slick and
controlled from the word go. In fact, it put me in mind of a children’s show,
albeit one marketed at children who found references to masturbation and
paedophilia hilarious.<a href="file:///C:/Users/donnchadh/Documents/Comedy/Dissecting%20the%20Fringe_Gimp.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
The edgy humour which is the group’s selling point was delivered in spades, but
a show where the audience expects shocking material and is there precisely to
see it is one whose edge is automatically blunted. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Not to mention, somewhat more dismayingly, a number of sketches where the
punchline involved nonconsesual sex.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Donnchadhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06068516532219248680noreply@blogger.com0