Marc Ennis
Research project
Dr. Chandler
How
are Traditional Moves in Stand-Up Comedy Adapted to fit a Different Medium?
Introduction
The idea that humor is objective and what makes
people laugh, or what makes something or somebody "funny," has been a
debate almost as long as humor itself. But the fact is, there are people that
have been successful with great careers who some would argue meet certain
features that in fact, connect with and audience and elicits enjoyment.
In Jeannine Schwarz’s Dissertation
on standup comedians, she focuses on established comedians Jerry Seinfeld and
Stephen Write and what makes them funny. In the paper, she breaks it down by
explaining the different moves made by standup comics. These include things
like different techniques such as satire, ridicule, and what role the audience
plays in the process.
While she
makes many good points on the subject, she addresses the medium of comedians in
a live act on a stage. I would like to see how a comedian uses the moves when
he or she have the benefits from a taped show with the use of visual aids,
other comedians to play off of, and the benefit of current events at their
disposal.
Jon Stewart
has successfully hosted “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central since 1999 as a
hybrid talk show, parody of nightly news, relying heavily on political humor.
Stewart himself being a former successful standup comic, uses all the moves
that the two comedians do, but he is able to adapt them for not only making the
people who are live in audience laugh, but also the people at home as well.
Most comedians who write for themselves on stage are
usually hired to write for television such as “The Daily Show”, meaning that
studying this question is important to show how such transitions can be
achieved with success. This paper will examine how Jon Stewart adapts the
conventions of standup comedy into a different medium and how it has made him
successful.
Literature Review
In Linguistic Aspects of Verbal Humor in
Stand-up Comedy, a dissertation by Jeannine Schwarz, she breaks down the
history of standup comedy and the different ways it’s used. Where she focuses
most of her data is when she talks about a certain language moves and inserts
excerpts of comedian’s performances as examples. For the sake of this paper, I have chosen out
of the topics covered; Paralanguage, Ridicule, Hyperbole, and Satire.
When she
talks about Paralanguage she explains how it plays a central role in comedy in
general, and how it represents a crucial characteristic in stand-up comedy. She
sites nonverbal expressive movements, especially gestures that constitute an
important element of the key of verbal humor and emphasizes those gestures are
often “essential to convey the non-serious intent of the verbal message"
and "can also be exaggerated more readily for visual impact". The
revelation of "non-serious intent" by use of gestures can therefore
reinforce the incongruity predominant in humor. She states that "gestures
are important in humor that depends heavily on performance and acting"
These statements reveal that the quality of the humorists' performance depends
not only on the content of the jokes and the stories they reveal. It is far
more than just the actual words which contribute to a successful performance,
and she argues that intonation and body language are essential features of a
successful performance (Schwarz from Rudder).
The example she uses to back this up is by
describing Seinfeld’s character as an active, animated comic who imitates the
gestures of the people involved in his stories.
She juxtaposes this by describing Write, as a monotone apathetic
observer with no attempt at all to portray his characters in the way he observed
them
(Schwarz).
Ridicule and derision are another language move, and
she explains them as features of the joke telling techniques that display
impoliteness and aggressiveness. They are used to overtly reject another
person's or group's identity. Speakers often use ridicule to make fun of someone
else or even to insult or attack someone verbally. The ensuing laughter on the
recipients' part stresses their agreement and therefore strengthens the
intention of excluding a certain group. The author claims that this is a way
for the speaker to show his superiority over a certain group (Schwarz
from Wilson).
To
explain this, the author presents an excerpt of a Seinfeld performance
connecting cab drivers and B.O. In order to be able to make his audience join
him and share his attitude, he uses the strategy of presenting a situation
everybody comprehends.
The Author describes Hyperbole as mainly serving to
exaggerate familiar situations, to make the audience appreciate the joke
telling, and to enhance its laughter. The stand-up comedian often starts
relating a rather simple story and then makes it increasingly funny by telling
of overstated situations and occurrences which always result in hearty
laughter.
By using hyperbole, the stand-up comedians render
the situation funnier because they claim more than they have evidence for and
can objectively justify. In this context, overstatements should be semantically
interpreted as claims that are higher (or lower) on some scale than warranted.
Often the use of overstatements serves to top former punch lines in order to
keep up and steadily increase the audience's laughter (Schwarz
from Cuddon).
The
author goes on to present an example of the caricature as "one of the most
fundamental techniques of humor, " and that the "caricaturist
distorts by exaggerating features which he considers characteristic of his
victim's appearance or personality" It is important to note that those
caricatures can only be funny if the listener or the spectator knows the person
ridiculed because "the unknown cannot be distorted or misrepresented"
and can emphasize that caricature verbally, expressed through a change of on
the part of the joke teller. By "capturing and grotesquely imitating his
or her particular style of speaking or writing", the joke teller uses
exaggeration into ridicule the person in question (Schwarz
from Cuddon).
We can use caricature as a technique belonging to
the superiority theory because, like ridicule and satire, it is used to express
power and superiority over its inferior opponents. As the previous discussion
has shown, caricature always contains exaggeration, which justifies treating it
as a special case of hyperbole (Schwarz).
On
the move of satire, she presents theories that describe satire as a purpose of
showing the absurdity of certain mannerisms, class privilege, professional
pretensions, and institutional rules. They further note that "in
face-to-face interactions poking fun at or ridiculing or putting down another
person amounts to a refusal to accept the identity projected by the target and
the meaning of the social situation that the identity implies." Satire can
be considered a subcategory of ridicule and is thus a further humor technique
that can be regularly found in stand-up comedy sessions (Schwarz
from Koestler).
Methods
For my methods, I decided to look at the four points
listed in my literature review, and find examples of comics using them on a
stage in front of an audience with nothing else such as props, other comedians
etc... I then researched and found
examples of Jon Stewart making the same moves on “The Daily Show” (TDS) and
examined how he uses them differently.
Data
For
this section I will break it down by each of the four moves separately.
A.Paralanguage
I examined for myself what makes Stephen Wright
stage persona so distinguishable when he performs.
You can see in this performance that the way he
takes on the role of schlep, or loveable loser which in turn, makes his punch lines
funny. Some of the things he says are just random or normal observations on
everyday life. So as you can see, his brand of humor totally depends on the way
he says it, meaning his brand of humor is tied directly to his stage character.
When examining Jon Stewart's paralanguage we can see
how he can change his character or persona to fit whatever jokes they might be
focusing on that night or even in a certain segment.
Here, he goes from serious news anchor, sarcastic
commentator, angry viewer incredulous observer, condescending wise guy, and
imitating and mocking character, and back to serious news anchor. This is
because Stewart, unlike Write, has the benefits of edited clips to play off,
and as such, can change the direction of the humor as he sees fit.
B.Ridicule
I looked at the lit review’s view on ridicule and
studied their example of Seinfeld’s bit on cab drivers and body odor. The
author surmises, and I agree, that Seinfeld uses ridicule here to make a
statement about cab drivers in general, not only certain cabs that he has been
in, but all of them.
On the other hand, Stewart uses ridicule to call
people out who he feels have mislead or deceive people. As TDS focuses on
what’s in the news and current events, it is easier for him to direct ridicule
as sort of a rebuttal to their views.
In
the clip above it is important to note that when Jon Stewart ridicules the
people in the clips, he makes it a point to back it up with facts and
figures. He is not making assumptions
about a single group, but shows you what these people think, and then shows you
why he thinks they're wrong. He is still setting up a scenario where he is
making himself and the audience feels superior, but with more context and
specific target for the ridicule.
C.Hyperbole (Caricatures)
Standup comics often use hyperbole or caricatures to
make a simple joke, or something that’s not even a joke, funnier. But as noted
in the Lit review, it’s a fine line to take because you have to make sure the
audience has a frame of reference for.
In the clip from “Americas Got Talent”, a comedian does
impressions of many famous people with an air of over exaggeration. Though he
gets laughs, he is walking the fine line of alienating his audience by quoting
lines from the movies of some of the actors he is impersonating which many in
the audience could not be familiar with, for example, Gary Busey. Buesy is one
of the actors who the comedian imitates in the clip, and was most prominent
during the eighties and early nineties, but has made less and less mainstream
films by the time of the comic’s appearance. This could lead to less laughs or
even confusion from a younger audience.
On TDS, Jon Stewart a system in place where before
he does a caricature or an imitation, he can show the audience not only the
person he is imitating, but a particular clip in which he can really exaggerate
the finer points of.
As you can see in the clip, after we cut back to Jon
Stewart, he immediately elicits laughs from the crowd without saying a word. By
mimicking the appearance of the Senator by playing off the clip he just
presented to the crowd, it allows him to be more free and is able to elevate
the imitation., and do it more safely then he would if he was on a stage with
no context for the audience to relate to. In many cases Stewart takes on
public figures is more risky that the comedians, because most people are more
aware of celebrities then politicians (Public Knowledge of…).
D.Satire
Satire has long been a way to use comedy to shame
things like companies or individuals into improvement or to highlight how
ridiculous something is like a certain subculture.
In this clip comedian George Carlin talks about
“Dumb people” and he tells you why they are stupid. He cannot simply just say
there dumb because he thinks so, he has to embarrass them by bringing forth the
behavior to the audience. He talks about how people in America think its “just
dandy” that they live between two shopping malls.
Out of all the things that John Stewart does on TDS
that differs from the way a stand-up comedian would do this, in my opinion,
this is the biggest difference.
For a stand-up to do successful satire they really
have to work to get your point across to the audience on describing exactly why
something is ridiculous and why you feel something’s deserving of the shaming.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-october-29-2013/good-badfellas---good-thing-or-bad-thing- (Copy and
paste)
In this clip, Stewart clearly thinks that CNN and
other news programs are being ridiculous and or stupid; with the way they ask
if news stories are a “good thing” or a “bad thing.” Unlike the George Carlin
clip though, Stewart never tells you directly that these people are being
absurd.
In just under nine minutes, without much context,
Jon Stewart is able to portray what he thinks about CNN’s choices by allowing
his comments play of the clips he shows and vice-versa. In the first clip, Carlin
has to constantly explain to the audience his feelings, while Stewart lets the
subject he satirizing speak for themselves and thereby make them walk into a
trap he has set for them.
While both take different approaches, they both
achieve the same desired results of shaming certain groups, Carlin with
America’s “stupid people”, and Stewart with cable news.
Conclusion
The way stand-up comedians use certain moves to
achieve laughter can be broken down into certain categories like the ones
listed above. But when a comedian moves to a different medium, they must find
ways to adapt them and make them work in a way that fits. What makes John
Stewart so successful is that he knows how to do this task seamlessly.
Work
Cited
Public
Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions.
Pew
Research
Center. 15 Apr. 2007. Web. 6 Dec. 2013
Schwarz, Jeannine. Linguistic Aspects
of Verbal Humor in Stand-Up Comedy. Dissertation.
Saarland University,
Saarbrücken, 25 Jan. 2010. Google Scholar. Web. 26 Sept.
2013.
