‘Not Only Is There No God, Try Getting a Plumber on Weekends.’ (1)

How Stand-Up Comedy Functions as a Documentary of America.

Documentary comes in many different forms. Through photography, through films, through journalism and poetry. It is a discipline that allows the investigation of both everyday lives, as well as lives that seem distanced from our own perception of reality. Documentary is able to take the unusual, the unseen and unfamiliar and frame them in contexts within which we are able to understand the subject in a more lucid sense. Great documentaries, no matter what way we are look at them, can enable us to re-imagine the subject and our associations with them. They enable us to venture to places which we will never see, to converse with people that we will never meet and illuminate parallels which we may have never envisaged.

Documentary in whatever form though, is often a sub-discipline of mainstream skills. Photography for example is used in a multitude of different ways. It is used to create images that may play with our imagination, though not all photography can be referred to as documentary. It becomes documentary when attempting to capture real life. This can be said for many other forms that have come to be associated with documentary, for example documentary films are a subset of films, documentary poetry is a subset of poetry and so on. The key piece of information to take away from this is the malleability of the discipline, such as film or photography, that allows it to adapt to the documentary style, that is to depict real life. The understanding of framing real-life events in the form of a documentary style can be a contradictory exercise because as Michael Renov has said, ‘every documentary representation depends on its detour from the real.’ (1993, 2). As will be discussed in more expansive terms later on, each form of documentary has aspects that make it useful for documentarians, and flaws that make their use in certain contexts unreliable as a representation. Quantitative data is only as precise as the method that was designed, photography requires reading outside of the text to properly explain itself. Some groups and ideas do not present themselves easily in mainstream documentary format, minorities and counter-cultural movement are not able to properly exposed through mainstream documentary forms. Is there another form of documentary which could give us further insight in to minority or counter-cultural practises and mentality? A form that depends on a ‘detour from the real’ but reveals more truth by doing so?

This dissertation sets out an argument that stand-up comedy can, and should be, considered as a documentary form alongside more established mediums. That it shares the investigatory philosophical elements of more established documentary formats such as photography, films and journalism. It enables discussion and illumination on subjects in a documentary format that facilitates understanding of the subject further and introduce’s its audience to aspects of peoples lives that they may not have ever had access to as well as a reassessment of the audience’s lives.

Though many people may consider comedy, in particular stand-up comedy, to be a subject fit only for passing glance and analysis (4), it can in fact allow people if they are to look with the correct set of eyes, a discussion of valuable information in a way that other, more recognised attempts at documentary, fail to show.

Not to all stand-up comedians should be taken as documentarians. That would be akin to describing all photography as documentary, as all films as real and would be simplifying the argument to a dangerous degree. What stand-up allows, for the capable comedian, is the ability to react quickly to changing events, to investigate them, to question them, and to inform the audience of certain points of view or to allow them to be challenged.

A criticism that could be levelled at stand-up comedy when positing it as documentary is that comedians are well-known for exaggerating for comedic effect. That they may tell white lies to get their point across. Though this could be countered with statement from Renov earlier, I consider this a justified criticism and one that is worth investigating.

If we are to criticise stand-up comedy as a form in which non-factual items are delivered to prove a case, then we could look at in the opposite end of the factual spectrum, something that is outside of being constricted by a narrative or emotive attachments. If a stand-up comedian’s main attempts at communicating are treading the grey-line between truth and fact are delivered verbally, then we should look at what could be considered to be removing the morphing, contextual approach to language that stand-up comedy relies on- numbers.

Though words may be considered on occasion an imprecise form of communication, as each person is said to have their own personal understanding of that and within that their own preconceived conceptualisation, then numbers, which might be considered a more stable and obviously quantifiable form of measuring, should therefore be able to deliver a greater illumination of truth and information, free from the emotive subtext other disciplines enjoy. This brings me to perhaps one of the most influential studies and pieces of documentary rooted in anthropological quantification, Middletown.

Middletown was published in 1929 and is correctly hailed as great achievement. It took an anthropological look at what was carefully chosen to be a representation of the ‘average American town’ over several years and was received with great enthusiasm as it was the first time a study of this type to take place. A study of the text will reveal a great many descriptions coupled with corresponding numbers designed to allow an overview of specific aspects of society. Its stated aim, in which it was largely, if not totally successful, as we shall see, was to turn the discipline of anthropology not to a distant tribe but instead take the ideas and techniques that were available and apply that practise to what they considered a ‘typical’ town. In this way we can see that a discipline that was associated with another form of study can be appropriated to study subjects that people would consider familiar, and create an intellectual distance for a better study of the subject. As is stated in the introduction-

‘What is not realised is that anthropology deals with communities of mankind, takes the community, or tribe as the biological and social unit, and in its studies seeks to arrive at a perspective of society by comparing and contrasting these communities.’ (Lyndon, 1959, v)

The study itself succeeded but also failed in parts. The reliance on hard statistical measurable data stopped it from being a fluid study. It is a rigid, almost binary, stance in looking at its subject that itself is not rigid or binary- the average American town, and therefore the average American citizen. For example, the base line of 1890 was chosen as the starting point for statistical data ‘because of greater availability of data from that year onwards.’ Already we see short comings in purely dealing with numerical data. If we are to make an infallible study using purely numbers, then we are limited by the amount of data that is available to us. If there is no available data, then the subject of study which required these numbers, is flawed also. If the study is unable to properly study events, accurately show an average, or properly depict an event or populace numerically, then we cannot say that Middletown gives as accurate a depiction of events; this is by its own definition. As is said in the study- ‘In the attempt to combine these various types of data in to a totalitarian picture, omissions and faults will appear.’ (Lynd and Lynd, 1959, 6)

It is in fact these omissions which lead to very salient criticism. The Middletown study failed to include African-Americans and Jews, in their data (5). That is not to say that Jews or African-Americans did not exist in Muncie, they did, but they were deliberately dismissed from their study so the team could get a clearer picture or more ‘accurate’ findings. Though this does not totally dismiss the importance of the findings, it does exhibit faults and flaws in the findings. If we are to ever get a thorough report through numbers, then it must surely be of vast importance to make sure that the data that is being used to document your findings should be accurate and not deliberately censor the subject. Although this was an early study, there can still be flaws found very recently in attempts to do similar work in the ghettos of America. In 1989 Sudhir Vanktesh, now a prominent Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, started an investigation into urban poverty by using a questionnaire (6). The first question of on his questionnaire shows how even very recently, quantitative data can be handled badly by prominent and capable scholars. This is the question-

How do you feel about being black and poor?

a. )Very Bad

b. )Bad

c.) Neither bad nor good

d.) Somewhat good

e. ) Very Good

(Dubner and Levit, 95, 2009)

This is not to say that this type of study is not wise or worthwhile, it has hugely beneficial qualities, I only use the above criticism to explain how even a long-term observation can be inadequate in documenting a society, no matter how carefully planned.

The problem as we see is that it is unable to encompass meaningfully those who live at the periphery of society, or the ability to investigate a more thorough emotional understanding. This is where I suggest stand-up comedy is essential. By dismissing what can be considered ‘real’ and aiming more for the ‘truth’ of a situation, the stand-up comic is able to make observations that would not be possible in those more quantitative aspect demonstrated. Those who do not have an established outlet in mainstream culture can be difficult to document. Studies such as Middletown are unable to document fringe cultures, counter-cultural movements that have a significant impact but are not captured in established mainstream media. It is the inability for counter-cultures to document themselves through the mainstream, by definition they take place away from ‘everyday’ culture. Great counter-cultural movements can lead to a reassessment and extension of more common modes of communication and documentation. The most accurate summarisation can be found in this quote- ‘The significance of ‘spectacular subcultures’, as Dick Hebdige defined them, is their true expression of socially forbidden content- ‘consciousness of class, consciousness pf difference’- in forbidden social forms- ‘transgressions of sartorial and behavioural codes, law breaking.’ and as seemingly ‘profane articulations’ when first raised as social critique. (2 13)

Another established documentary format is that of journalism, but I wish to concentrate on the bastard-child of journalism and literature that grew to be a defining style of an era- new journalism. It is important to consider new journalism in its appropriate context. With the publication of The New Journalism Tom Wolf, one of the most proponent journalists of this form had finally codified the style that had come to document much of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The importance of new journalism as a documentary style was the breaking down of the artificial barrier set up by the journalist who would traditionally ignore and erase their presence from the article through an impersonal journalistic tone. The consequence of this was that of a detached demeanour that wouldn’t accurately reflect the emotional intangibles that were involved on reporting on a subject; the traditional style would not involve the emotional aspect or character, of the journalist or subject. The purpose of new journalism was ‘to give the full objective description, plus something that readers had always to go to novels, and short stories for: namely, the subjective or emotional life of the characters.’ (Shommette, 1992, 64) Importantly, one of the main characters in the article is the actual journalist themselves. Norman Mailer became one of the main proponents of new journalism and his article are some of the most pertinent of the era (8). Through the use of literary techniques outside of regular journalistic tools, new journalists were able to propose observations in their article that ordinary documentary sources would not be able to capture.

The use of humour and surreal images in the work of Hunter S Thompson is central to his Gonzo style. Although the content was not necessarily completely accurate, his talent was telling the emotional truth of a situation, while not giving a fully factual account of his subject. This was not totally detrimental to his work, or to journalism. Covering the American presidential elections in 1974, Thompson’s reportage of the experience was described as ‘the least factual but most accurate.’ (10)

Having seen how humour can facilitate a better understanding of a subject, and document how it more factual than the truth itself, we should now turn to how comedy works and how it relates to stand-up comedy as a documentary form.

Freud considered wit and humour as of theoretical importance (4) writing The Joke and the Relation to the Unconscious and Humour . In them he describes how humour, or wit, relates to the clash of the ego and the superego and by implication on some levels, the unconscious. He describes wit, that which we would ascribe to a stand-up comedian, as different to humour. Humour being milder, gentler, style such as Garfield a soft and enjoyable joke that reveals little. Freud describes wit as based on technique, on the teller- the stand-up comedian in this case. If we are to describe humour and wit and how it works in accordance with Freud, it creates an interaction between the superego, the part that deals with morality, and the ego, the part of us that helps to define ‘us’, our sense of judgement and other conscious faculty’s.

The wit, operating on a more sophisticated system than humour, deals also with the above, but is also an aggressive form of humour. It is a form of attack, it has a specific subject that reveals conflicts between the ego and the super-ego and releases this tension. An everyday example of this would be making a joke to break the tension after an awkward incident. No one knows what to do due to conflicts of what was expected and the actual event, the conflict between the ego and the superego, and someone makes a joke about it to release the build-up of psychic tension. The disarming nature of wit, I would argue, is one of its greatest strengths in terms of revealing a subjects true feelings. Comedy, humour and in particular wit can provide ‘an inconspicuous entrance to a person’s group, or society’s innermost chamber, which continually knocking on the front door may never disclose.’ (Walker, 1998, 2).

Unlike the photographer who may shows pictures of their experiences, or anthropologists like those in Middletown who can share data and accredited observations to prove their experiences, the stand-up comedian is forced to talk about familiar subjects and shared knowledge of current events whilst talking about them in a way that people recognise but at the same time unravelling ways of observing them differently. More precisely explained ‘the great clown is a creative artist. Like the analyst, he is interpretive. Unlike the scientist, he does not interpret facts of the outer world; he interprets subjective precepts of the inner world.’ (Grotjahn, 1966, 125)

Comedy is often indicative of its time. We can surmise it from more quantifiable and tangible subjects such as the use of humour in films, TV or radio. However, these would not indicate the forms of humour that would be performed in the areas such as the ‘Borscht Belt’, a holiday destination of almost exclusively Jewish residents. That figures such as Mel Brooks and Jackie Mason, two iconic figures of ‘Jewish comedy’ who performed there before moving in to mainstream comedy, gives an example of the style of comedy that would be performed. That by just mentioning ‘Jewish humour’ we can bring a subject, a character, to mind and document a groups identity should be noted. That there were also the so-called ‘Chitlin’ Circuits’ (12) where African-American stand-up comedian’s wrote and performed ‘black humour’ for African-America patrons underlines again the importance of stand-up comedy within a community for documenting its habits and allowing for self-reflection of a kind.

It should be pointed out that these stand-up comedians did not operate in a way we would appreciate today. They would have simple jokes that relied upon ethnicity for effect, and were rarely truthful in events. They do however allow for an opportunity to witness how stand-up comedy can be used as factor within communities in terms of reflection and observation. It must also be remembered that these acts were rarely visited or seen by people outside of these circuits (2).

Out of these circuits came some of the most influential comedians of the era who started performing provocative, material. Out of all these figures, perhaps the most well known is Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce was initially a comic of the traditional style but changed his style and became the primary American stylist of ‘confessional comedy’. Where this differs from the monologists and those who would use ‘safe’ material, artists such as Lenny Bruce talked more candidly about themselves and about the world around them, revealing the potential of stand-up comedy as an outlet for intelligent discussions of the world around them, not just events but the emotional, and inadvertently the unconscious, aspects of society. Unlike the more traditional stage comedians whose use of jokes to appeal to as many people as possible, Bruce realised it could be used to confront prejudices, document how people saw the world and unmask the paradoxes that resided in it. The time when he was at his most successful, I would argue not uncoincidentally, was during the time of JFK and Dr Martin Luther King, when America was dealing with a huge change in dynamic after the end of the McCarthy Era and the continuing struggle for African-American civil rights (13).

The McCarthy era had left America paranoid and frightful of its own reflection and with the demanding of equal civil rights, America’ differing generational point-of-view had announced itself front and centre. That the battle would be expressed most uncensored by those who existed on the alternative side of culture, by stand-up comics like Lenny Bruce, is no surprise.

To contextualise this in a Freudian manner, through revealing or investigating events in a humorous manner, causes a friction of the ego and superego. Furthermore, Freud found that when undergoing therapy, his patients, having had their dreams interpreted by Freud, would elicit laughter at the illumination of their particular psychological obstacle, he therefore would point to laughter not only as a result of a joke, but as laughter pointing to the release and revelation of the unconscious. This is a key factor in my argument. Stand-up comedy can be taken as a documentary form to provide a potentially incisive tool for the investigation and illumination of a societies unconscious, or opinions that may not be represented in the mainstream. Elaborating on this statement I would describe stand-up comedy as a space where a dialogue can take place on the margins of the mainstream media. It provides an outlet, and discussion, of events and social moods that would perhaps be marginalised in other public spheres. Obviously, this does not measure in all stand-up comedy but the confessional, discursive style that Lenny Bruce and his ilk birthed, brought about a sophisticated anthropological form of stand-up comedy that could not be put back in its box. This becomes a vital point in my case, especially when one is to consider racial history in America.

Stand-up comedy allows for a discussion for minorities where there may be few other outlets to document and evaluate the present. The stages that Bruce performed on while developing his style were venues like strip-joints, or bars, places that were side-lined by mainstream America (2); but because of their illicitness allowed for freer discussion, especially considering the paranoia that had crept through the country during the McCarthy trials. The same is true for African-American comedians who had many struggles in gaining acceptance (12). The fact that the venues many of the comedians of this ilk could be considered ‘low-class’ allowed for freer communication- they were free from the shackles of societies expectations and allowed to speak, literally and figuratively, behind closed doors. It was here that discussions of race and other issues could be discussed in practical and truthful manner, and it is how stand-up comedy is able to investigate concepts, such as race, in way that reveals truths not available in other media.

It could be said that one of the great downfalls of comedy is the fact that it is a live act; though it may be scripted, ordered and thought-out, until recently acts were relatively seldom recorded. This makes it difficult to make a precise long-term study of stand-up comedy, much like the problems suffered by the anthropologists of Middletown who had to start their study from the year 1890 for a ‘measuring stick’. However, using the recorded material available, documents, we can provide a study of an aspect of race that many people would find distasteful to consider- the recent evolution of the term ‘nigger’. It is arguably the most loaded word in the English language. With it comes with associated images of an ugly, terrible history, of intolerance and ignorance and struggles that continue to this day. It would be fair say that the term would lay heavily in the unconscious of society, sometimes at the forefront, but almost always unspoken; that is within certain groups. It is a term thrown around in some places in a completely different way, as a friendly greeting, as a compliment. It is a single word that has changed dramatically over the years in terms of usage and stand-up comedians have been there to document, criticise and talk about its change. It is dangerous subject for comedians. However, for the means of this study I choose to look at an offensive subject for the following reason- ‘An egalitarily offensive humour analysis can reveal the dynamic forces that produce our societies funniest jokes, whereas an inoffensive one can reveal motivations of its blandest jokes.’ (Walker, 1998, xii)

The following is a transcript from a Lenny Bruce performance-

‘Are there any niggers here tonight? Could you turn on the house lights, please, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving, just for a second? And turn off this spot. Now what did he say? “Are there any niggers here tonight?” I know there’s one nigger, because I see him back there working. Let’s see, there’s two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kyke. And there’s another kyke— that’s two kykes and three niggers. And there’s a spic. Right? Hmm? There’s another spic. Ooh, there’s a wop; there’s a polack; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And there’s three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there’s one, hip, thick, hunky, funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm. I got three kykes here, do I hear five kykes? I got five kykes, do I hear six spics, I got six spics, do I hear seven niggers? I got seven niggers. Sold American. I pass with seven niggers, six spics, five micks, four kykes, three guineas, and one wop. Well, I was just trying to make a point, and that is that it’s the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, “I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet,” and if he’d just say “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” to every nigger he saw, “boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie,” “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” ’til nigger didn’t mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.'(14) (Emphasis my own).

It is important to notice that the joke is not a ‘one-liner’, and in fact reads more like a study, because in effect that is what it is. This form of joke is knowns as a ‘bit’, which is a collection of observations about a particular subject. The explanation at the root of the centre of Bruce’s ‘bit’ allows for a release from the unconscious thoughts that may be unable to be socially announced or understood; it exhibits how the word ‘nigger’ is as signifier and not a fixed demonifier. He shows how it is the emotional make-up of that word is central to understanding it, and the thoughts that make that word racist are more dangerous than the word on its own. By taking that word and understanding how it operates, it is taking power away from the racists and shows how a racial slur can in fact be turned in to a sign of belonging, by using ‘kike’ and ‘spic’ as well, he documents how transient words can be, how powerful they are and that it is racists that are the problem, not the word. This documented piece of material I suggest has the immediate real-life impact of photography, but is also able to contextualise itself, like a newspaper or journal. However, better than both it exhibits and investigates what is working through subconscious material on behalf of the audience, and thereby can be a signifier to the public at large. Like the photographer, journalist or anthropologist, a stand-up comedian is there to communicate and document the truth, and informs the audience using the stand-up comedians given tools.

The link between the stand-up comedian and the audience is essential. The stand-up acts as a conduit for a reflection of the familiar, and is able to tap in to the unconscious or social psychosphere, a term I use to describe the mental workings of a group or society. Instead of the documentarian who intends to offer a subject that we might not usually be privy to, such as the war in Vietnam, the stand-up comedian relies on the audience’s common knowledge of current events and everyday life for much of their material. To this end we can say that other forms of documentary investigate and documents the outer world, but stand-up comedy allows for an investigation of the inner. It serves to make the familiar and expected become unfamiliar, similar to Middletown. However, unlike Middletown, stand-up comedydocuments the interaction of a group’s ego and superego instead of the quantifiable routine of a shopkeeper, and gives access to information that may not otherwise be noted in any other medium. It may be best explained thusly- ‘The comic can chisel away at a topic from various directions, like a sculptor who begins with formless matter and gradually clarifies its edges, the comedian begins with what his audience believed to be a clear cut subject matter and has blurred its edges, making ambiguous what his audience thought they clearly understood.’ (Walker, 1998, 23)

Having seen how Lenny Bruce had developed stand-up comedy in to a new form, and how that form can compliment, and even at some points overtake the findings of more formal documentary stylings, we can continue to investigate how the word nigger has been documented in stand-up comedy. We will achieve this by looking at someone who has been described as Lenny Bruce’s ‘heir-apparent'(12), Richard Pryor.

Richard Pryor was infamous for using the word nigger in his act. He did not use it in the same way that Lenny Bruce had used it. He used it matter-of-factly during his act, apparently without much thought, treating it like many of his peers did. The word had taken on a new established context for some people and had, like Lenny Bruce philosophised and spoke about in the above excerpt, been used as form of greeting for many young African-Americans. The word was not used by all; it still had terrible associations and some people did not like the word being used whatever the context, no matter what their ethnic heritage (12).

Pryor grew up poor and starved in a depraved neighbourhood. His grandmother ran a few local brothels which occasionally employed his mother (12). His unusual background and difficult upbringing brought him in to contact with many aspects of society that were not well documented or represented, but were familiar to many. To much of Pryor’s African-American audience he revealed characters that they were ashamed of, that played in to the hands of racist expectations but to others ‘his humour afforded a cathartic experience, a public purging of embarrassments and frustrations built up over decades of concealing real attributes and cultured preferences.’ (Watkins, 1994, 560) By looking at his act one can see how his observations and performances work as a documentary form. The people that he spoke about candidly were not fictitious, and Pryor frequently went out in disguise to listen to his subject, like an anthropologist or a documentarian researching his subject (12). Through his character ‘Mudbone’, a wino philosopher who seems to be ageless (On The Real Side), he is able to channel through anxieties that function in the African-American community. Bill Cosby has said of him ‘Richard is the only comedian that I know of today who has captured the total character of the ghetto.'(Watkins, 1994, 553) Investigating this idea more, we can see how Richard Pryor, through his stand-up comedy, presents pictures almost from their source; this is a core component I feel in the nature of documentary, to depict a line of observation with as little filter as possible between viewer and subject. The use of his language was deliberate, provocative and precisely chosen- he was influenced in his act by such bright young black writers and intellectuals as Ishmael Reed Cecil Brown, Al Young, Claude Brown, and David Henderson, some of whom were experimenting with black folklore, street humour, and gallows humour in their own literary works. (12)

His constant use of the word nigger echoed the use of it in the ghetto, it was not polite to say publicly, but to many ghetto residents it was common parlance. It is worth considering for a moment the observations made previously by Lenny Bruce about the racial epithet, to consider his observations about how it is the thought, not the word, that is racist. As postulated by Lenny Bruce over ten years previously, repeated refrain of the word had changed its meaning to many. I do not make a claim that Lenny Bruce caused this reaction, but I would posit he was possibly documenting and recreating dialogue as well as thought that was occurring at the period. I feel there are fewer places where you can get a better document of the racial temperament of America and the dialogue that was taking place.

Richard Pryor’s constant use of the racial epithet I would argue gives one of the best documentary examples of how that word was now part of mainstream dialogue in certain places. There are few other disciplines that lend themselves to documentary as quickly, or perceptively, as stand-up comedy which I argue would be one of the first places to examine and document the recontextualising of a word or phrase. We can see the change and association that has happened in African-American society, and the associations of the term, in the following excerpt from a Chris Rock routine-

‘There’s like a civil war going on with black people, And there’s two sides-black people and niggas. And niggas have got to go… Hey, I love black people, but I hate niggas. Boy, I wish they’d let me join the Ku-Klux Klan.

Nothing makes a nigga happier than not knowing… Ask a nigga a question, “Hey I don’t know that shit- keeping it real.” Niggas love to keep it real, real dumb. Niggas hate knowledge, shit. Niggers break in to your house- you want, to save your money, put it in a book.’ (15)

Chris Rock here documents, as he puts it, the ‘civil war going on with black people.’ The use of the word here has changed its meaning yet again. Chris Rock shows how to some parts of the African-American community the word has changed to denote those whom he would seem to announce as those who would hold back the progress of African-Americans, he uses to it to denote the kinds of characters that Pryor would describe in his routines. Chris Rock was both praised and criticised for this material (12). He inherited some of the same criticism that Pryor had during his career, that he was portraying negative stereotypes that promoted racial inequality. Others congratulated him, commenting how important it was to African-American dialogue. That a routine can generate discussion on racial politics that may have trouble being discussed in other more mainstream outlets, I feel demonstrates that stand-up comedy can give a voice to a society that may otherwise be marginalised. Chris Rock here has shown the change in meaning, and association in part, to meaning an ignorant, lower-class, crass African-American. The term here has been shown to use it not just as a casual epithet, as Pryor had used it, but as a way to discuss racial politics in a way that might not be afforded in other avenues.

One of the most successful stand-up comedians in America is Louis CK, a Hungarian/Mexican/American who has written for Chris Rock. This is a transcript of a Louis CK performance-

‘I thought of the word ‘nigger’ the other day and I’m going to tell you a story… and it wasn’t a racist… it wasn’t even a race connotation. Let me tell you what happened. I went to a coffee place and it was like a cool, indie coffee place. I don’t like Starbucks. I don’t go there, because they don’t care any more. They just push a button and old ladies diarrhoea comes out and they just give it to you. So I go to a young persons, cool coffee place with ‘my bands playing’ notices on the walls, it’s called ‘The Howling Doo’ or whatever. The dude behind the counter has a tight t-shirt on and a pony-tail, and he’s like ‘Dude, what’s up man?’. And I’m like ‘Hey, can I just get a cappuccino?’ and he says ‘Yeah, right on, totally!’ like he’s amazed that he can help me. “Oh yeah! I got all the stuff right here, that’s awesome!” And so he starts making my coffee, just so… he works so hard. He grounds the beans just for that one cup and put them in the thing and tamped it with the old thing and there’s like click-clackity-clik. Then he took the milk and frothed it for like an hour, and then he banged it on the counter. I don’t know why. It was awesome. And he scooped it in, put a little cocoa on it and then he’s like ‘here you go, man.’ And I was just blown away and for some reason as I left there, as I left there the thought in my head was ‘That nigger made the shit out of my coffee!’ I don’t know why. He wasn’t black. That was what was just in my heart for some reason was ‘that nigger made the shit out of my coffee.’ (16)

This is a text that though has one meaning inferred, could in fact be an argument for the other. Though Louis CK’s description and performance is full of praise the barista and uses ‘nigger’ as a complimentary term, he uses it for someone in a submissive position to himself, both socially as well as economically, this could be proof that he was using the word in a racist manner, in a negative context unconsciously, reinforcing the negative stereotypes of the word. I offer no explanation here or conclusion on this observation but do offer commentary. The fact that this text can be discussed in a sophisticated manner, and deals with a subject at the core of American identity, I feel proves that stand-up comedy can provide valuable insights that most probably would not be found elsewhere.

Humour has been treated oddly in documenting subjects and ideas. While it has been described as a one of the most important traits in understanding a society (17), it would be oxymoronic to ignore stand-up comedy as a legitimate documentary format. Such is the ability for humour to transform itself in to a legitimate forum of debate that Wittgenstein has said that he could imagine an entire book of philosophy written in jokes (17). As Simons Critchley says ‘The comedian sees the world under what philosophers call an epoche, a certain bracketing or suspension of belief.’ (Critchley, 2002, 88) With this we can see how the stand-up comic is able to separate themselves from a course of logic that is assumed to be correct and investigates it. This model of using stand-up comedy is not just applicable to the United States. The stand-up comic, the satirist, is able to exist in a sphere where culture can be questioned and criticised. This would explain why Russians during Communism had respect for comedians and satire, as it allowed for a dialogue that would counter Communist propaganda (11). Hadi Khorsandi, a satirist and poet was forced to flee Iran after publishing a satirical poem that questioned the wisdom of the regime (11). If we are to discuss aspects of fiction and non-fiction, and how stand-up comedy bridges that gap, then I find a quote from Renov helpful- ‘Truth, it has been supposed, depends on fiction finding its shape and substance through agency of human interaction.’ (Renov, 1991, 10) If we are to take this as true, then this describes full well what the stand-up comedian is able to accomplish. He is able to take truths shape, and reconfigure it so what might at one part be familiar, becomes subject for reassessment, and seen anew. I feel that this points to aspects of a cultural character that would not be revealed, as stated earlier on in the essay by ‘knocking on the front door’ (11), which is why I posit stand-up comedians can act as both a source, and form, of documentary.

References