A tradition in comedy says: Always punch up, never punch down. That is to say, don’t attack people who are already marginalizedFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at… More.
Punching Up, Punching Down – The Good Men Project
But slapping someone in the face and saying it’s comedy isn’t enough.
Why Punching Down Will Never Be Funny
Suddenly, even the most powerful people in society are forced to be fluent in the concerns of those with little powerThe 20th Century political scientist Karl Deutsch said, “Power is the ability not to have to learn.”I quote this statement often, because I think it’s one of the most important… More, if they want to hold on to the cultural relevance that thrust them into power in the first place. Being a comedian means having to say things that an audience finds funny; if an audience doesn’t find old, hackneyed, abusive jokes funny anymore, then that comedian has to do more work. And what we find is, the comedians with the most privilegeTo not have conversations because they make you uncomfortable is the definition of privilege. Your comfort is not at the center of this discussion.Brené Brown Power can be understood as… More resent having to keep working for a living. Wasn’t it good enough that they wrote that joke that some people found somewhat funny, some years ago? Why should they have to learn about current culture just to get paid to do comedy?
The price of relevance is fluency
Comedians who can’t/won’t do a simple analysis of power are failing their calling. They fail their remit as comedians.
Power and Punching Up
A lady just thanked me for being the first comedy show she went to where the comic didn’t make fun of people with disabilities. That made me very happy then very sad.
@RonFunches
His targets are underdogs, and comedy traditionally has picked on people in power, people who abuse their power.
Women and gays and immigrants are kind of to my way of thinking underdogs.
George Carlin Interview – On Comedians Who Pick On The Underdogs – YouTube
The real differenceOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals… More is that comedy shows or segments that are legitimately funny always punch up. Instead of wasting their time going after people who are typically in the minority, they go after people with tangible power that’s being abused. A basic tenet of humor — and I mean real basic, we’re talking ancient Greece here — is that your best stuff will come from going after people bigger than you.
But slapping someone in the face and saying it’s comedy isn’t enough.
Why Punching Down Will Never Be Funny
There’s been a lot of talk, of late, about laughter. Laughter as power. Laughter as luxury. Laughter as empathy
Trump Mocks Christine Blasey Ford; The Rally Loves It – The AtlanticEmpathy is not an autistic problem, it’s a human problem, it’s a deficit in imagination.We all need to work on imagining things we have not been through.Empathy, Imagination and Autism… More. Laughter as beauty. Laughter as philosophy. Laughter as complicity. Laughter as division. The current political moment has been in one way a lesson in how easily jokes can be weaponized: Jokes can win elections. Jokes can insist that, despite so much evidence to the contrary, lol nothing matters. Jokes can contribute to the post-truth logic of things. They can lighten and enlighten and complicate and delight; they can also mock and hate and lie and make the world objectively worse for the people living in it-and then, when questioned, respond with the only thing a joke knows how to say, in the end: “I was only kidding.”
There’s a constant complaint from people in positions of power, mostly men, who keep making the ridiculous assertion that they’re not able to speak in public. What they actually mean is they no longer understand the basis of the criticisms they face. And it’s a phenomenon we see from so many people who have a public platform, whether they’re CEOs or comedians or other cultural figures.
Some of this is a familiar issue: the powerful think that ordinary people have no right to criticize them. There’s nothing new there, and certainly a lot of the dismissive reactions are simply these people thinking that they’re better than their critics, and so don’t have to listen to the pushback. But even those who think they should still be at least pretending to take feedback from the public are mystified by what they’re hearing.
But there is something new that’s also helping cause all this fuss: the rate of change in culture is increasing.
Suddenly, even the most powerful people in society are forced to be fluent in the concerns of those with little power, if they want to hold on to the cultural relevance that thrust them into power in the first place. Being a comedian means having to say things that an audience finds funny; if an audience doesn’t find old, hackneyed, abusive jokes funny anymore, then that comedian has to do more work. And what we find is, the comedians with the most privilege resent having to keep working for a living. Wasn’t it good enough that they wrote that joke that some people found somewhat funny, some years ago? Why should they have to learn about current culture just to get paid to do comedy?
Here’s the thing, though: It’s not that hard. It’s not difficult at all to ask people how they want to be identified. It’s not tricky to listen to what people are saying about their concerns and their issues, and to try to understand what that means about how culture is evolving. It’s not hard at all to be humble about unfamiliar aspects of society and ask for information in respectful ways, then take those responses into consideration going forward.
And in fact, that’s the simple price of continued cultural relevance. If someone wants to maintain power in culture, all that’s required is a sincere and honest engagement with those who are granting that power through their attention and support. All it takes is a little bit of curiousity and some basic human decency, and any of us who are blessed with the good fortune to have a platform will get to keep it, and hopefully to use it to make things a little better for others.
The price of relevance is fluency
Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, that’s not satire, it’s bullying.
grow fins, go back in the water on Tumblr
Shame
I built a career out of self-deprecating humor. …And, I don’t want to do that anymore. Because, do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from someone who already exists in the margins? It’s not humility. It’s humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak. And I simply will not do that anymore. Not to myself or anyone who identifies with me.
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette – Netflix
But in the course of the hour-long set, which was filmed at the Sydney Opera House (Gadsby has also been performing at the SoHo Playhouse, in New York), “Nanette” transforms into a commentary on comedy itself-on what it conceals, and on how it can force the marginalized to partake in their own humiliation.
“Nanette,” Reviewed: Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix Standup Special Forces Comedy to Confront the #MeToo Era | The New Yorker
None of those jokes about women’s bodies give any room for women to experience their own body.
You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes : Hannah Gadsby
The closet can only stop you from being seen. It is not shame-proof.
And that is what happens when you soak one child in shameShame, she points out, is not the same as guilt. Guilt happens in response to an action or inaction. It is linked to an event, not a person. It can… More and give permission to another to hate.
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette – Netflix
…find a love for identity politics…so that we can draw battle lines between those who want shame to grow on trees and those who want to overcome it.
Video Episode 310: Live from the New York Comedy Festival 2018 @58:30 | Harmontown
The Spectacle of Cruel Laughter
CW: Trump, bigotry, abuse, suicide
We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era.
The Cruelty Is the Point – The Atlantic
Ford testified to the Senate, utilizing her professional expertise to describe the encounter, that one of the parts of the incident she remembered most was Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge laughing at her as Kavanaugh fumbled at her clothing. “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” Ford said, referring to the part of the brain that processes emotion and memory, “the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” And then at Tuesday’s rally, the president made his supporters laugh at her.
The Cruelty Is the Point – The Atlantic
The Cruelty Is the Point – The Atlantic
Tuesday the president of the United States, his crowd cheering him on, mocked a citizen who has come forward to claim herself as a victim: of violence, of misogyny, of laughter itself.
And so Donald Trump has managed to find yet another way to say the quiet thing out loud: This is a moment, for some, in which cruelty and comedy have become indistinguishable. This is a moment in which a vote for a Supreme Court nomination has become a proxy battle in a far greater war-one whose skirmishes, it seems, will be fought through petty jokes and easy mockeries. A moment in which so much comes down to the question of who will get the last laugh.
Trump Mocks Christine Blasey Ford; The Rally Loves It – The Atlantic
“One detainee told us, ‘I’ve seen a few attempted suicides using the braided sheets by the vents and then the guards laugh at them and call them “suicide failures” once they are back from medical,’” the inspectors said in their report.
Inspectors Find Nooses in Cells at Immigration Detention Facility – The New York Times
Their cruelty made them feel good, it made them feel proud, it made them feel happy. And it made them feel closer to one another.
The Cruelty Is the Point – The Atlantic
Further readingThere are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child’s Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and… More,