Criticizing Comedy: Don’t?

So I posted this interview with Andy Kindler on Facebook. It’s mostly a list of specific things he doesn’t find funny, and I got a lot of responses from comedians claiming that criticizing comedy is a dick move. I started to write an email to one of the commenters, a fellow comic I respect very much named Will. These are their stories.



I mean, this is that email.

Hey Will,

I really wanted to address some of the things you said in the comments section of the Andy Kindler interview I posted, but I didn’t want to put it in a giant comment only to be hit with a character limit, or to have fifty people respond in the time I was writing it. In the spirit of my argument that there should be more public criticism of comedy, I’ll gladly post this to Facebook or tumblr so everybody can weigh in on the discussion, if you’d like.

Firstly, you asked which comics I thought were funny, as you weren’t sure if you could respect my opinion based just on my dislikes. If you’re implying that my dislikes completely align with Kindler’s, they don’t. Marc Maron seems pretty assholish in every forum I’ve seen him in. Truth be told, I don’t understand why everyone says that Kindler is jealous of others’ success when that description seems a slightly better fit for Maron. He often just seems grumpy at everyone, while Kindler gives reasons for not liking certain material by certain comics. It should be noted that he praises Leno and Gervais in that article for their earlier works, which I think is an important part of the discussion. Kindler usually refers to specific jokes, shows, sets, and broadcasts when he states his opinions, which puts him a step above Trevor Q. Internet claiming, “Johnny Giggles always has and always will suck each and every testicle, forever and ever, amen.” I think it’s much more important to say, “I like this performance,” instead of, “I like this performer.” If I said I like Eddie Murphy, you could say, “Yeah, Raw is the greatest,” or, “Some of his early stuff is homophobic,” or, “Norbit is an underrated classic.” Unfortunately, interviewers publish the article as “Andy Kindler on Why He Hates Adam Carolla,” when really it should be “Andy Kindler Points Out That Adam Carolla Says Some Very Racist Things on His Radio Show and Pretends Like It’s Okay Just Because He’s a Comedian.”

Even my favorite comics have bits that make me think, “Ouch, should have thought that one through,” and I sincerely hope yours do as well. There’s a bit on Patton Oswalt’s most recent CD that bugs the fuck out of me. It’s just one little portion, but every single time I listen to it, I just wish he’d thought it over more and worked a little harder on it, maybe come at it from a different perspective. We can get into the specifics of that bit later if you want, but if I said, “Oh, hey, I really love Patton Oswalt,” I’d just have to add the asterisk of, “Holy fuck, I don’t know what he was thinking here, though.” And for all I know, you might dislike that same bit as well, and throw it back in my face as an example of his lack of talent. Not that I think you’re a face-throw-back-inner.

Still, if you want a list of artists I like, here are three: a journalist, a magician, and a screenwriter. None of them are comedians, though there may be a fourth guy, an author, who was funny sometimes when he was alive, but I haven’t decided if I want to throw him in at the end or not. Ooh, suspense! Let’s hit the journalist first:

“I once wrote a book about George Orwell, who might have been my hero if I had heroes, and was upset by his callousness about the burning of churches in Catalonia in 1936.” - Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007

That quote amazes me because it’s an author that I sometimes agree with and sometimes disagree with, commenting on an author that he sometimes agrees with and sometimes disagrees with, and I have had heated discussions about Hitchens with people that I sometimes agree with and sometimes disagree with. (I think an Inception joke goes here, but I need to run it by Andy Kindler first.) The most important part to me, however, is the phrase “who might have been my hero if I had heroes.” That phrase has stuck with me ever since I read it. I think of it every time I’m asked to name my idols in any field. I even wrote a joke about it: “Christopher Hitchens claimed he didn’t have heroes, which is why he’s my… just some guy.” (Maybe I’ll tell it on his birthday, but only if I’m in a real divey bar with a lot of tough motorcycle-ridin’ motherfuckers that really know their religious criticism.) It’s such an important idea, though, because when you declare someone your hero, it’s like you’re bracketing off that organism and declaring everything it does to be great. People who idolize Woody Allen or John Lennon or Roman Polanski are in a tough spot when confronted with their more despicable actions. And Hitchens himself isn’t off the hook; he wrote an article called “Why Women Aren’t Funny” that reeks of pure sexism, and I reread it often to see if maybe he’s coming at it from a clever “unreliable narrator” standpoint to mock the world’s view of women, but no, the fact always remains: a writer whose works I mostly enjoy still managed to pen something I find pretty shitty. Thus, he is not my hero, and neither is anyone else.

Okay, to the magician!

“Have heroes outside of magic. Mine are Hitchcock, Poe, Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Bach. You’re welcome to borrow them, but you must learn to love them yourself for your own reasons. Then they’ll push you in the right direction.

[There’s lots more stuff between these two paragraphs. This magician is very chatty.]

“Love something besides magic, in the arts. Get inspired by a particular poet, film-maker, sculptor, composer. You will never be the first Brian Allen Brushwood of magic if you want to be Penn & Teller. But if you want to be, say, the Salvador Dali of magic, we’ll (sic)THERE’S an opening.” - Teller, in an email to magician Brian Brushwood on October 18th, 1995

Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with that advice when I don’t have heroes, Teller? You cheeky bastard, go vanish something. I read that email when I first got to Portland (back when I was just performing improv and hadn’t yet done an open mic). I found it inspiring, as anyone should, dammit. And I think it’s great advice for comedians. When I first started out, I was just aping the styles of comedians I liked. I was trying to shove George Carlin, Patton Oswalt, Lewis Black, and Jerry Seinfeld into a blender. But then I remembered that quote, and I try to think of it constantly when I feel little remnants of comics I admire slipping out while I’m onstage. And while I’ve tried to avoid the heroes thing, when I find myself enjoying the work of non-comedians, I ask myself how I can turn it into comedy. So while I can give you a list of comedians that I like… excuse me, certain works that I like by certain comedians… it isn’t necessarily a window into my influences. I could list several of my non-comedian comedic inspirations, but I’m already answering your request for names of comedians with a journalist, a magician, a screenwriter, and possibly a funny dead author, so I could forgive you if you’ve been miming a penis-rubbing motion this whole time.

Alright, who’s on deck? The screenwriter? Sure, let’s kick it.

“Knowing too much about movies can be hazardous to your creativity. Put that energy into learning about real life and the loves, hopes, aspirations, guilts, failures, and dreams of the human beings around you.” - Joe Eszterhas, The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood: The Screenwriter as God, 2006

You know that guy knows his shit, because he wrote Showgirls, which is more than Robert “Snort Screenplays All Fucking Day” McKee can say. Eszterhas isn’t my hero, and he’s not a comedian, so I’m following Hitchens’ and Teller’s advice already. That quote applies so well to comedians. It’s why I’m opposed to the term “comedy nerd.” Being obsessed with comedy all day every day can ruin your ability to create your own. It is for this reason that I don’t listen to comedy albums 24/7 and consider it “part of the job.” I pick them up when I’m curious or just haven’t bought any comedy in a while. And I laugh at them and enjoy them and then try really hard not to steal from them, be it the style or specific quotes. Oh, yeah, by the way, I have a very good memory for quotes and a very poor memory for where those quotes came from. Listening to too much comedy scares the shit out of me because of this. But my shitty brain thievery aside (which happened exactly once and can only be remedied by apologizing profusely, never ever doing the bit again, and hoping people genuinely understand that I’m truly mortified), I really do try not to treat comedy like something to be studied all damn day. I would hope my love of stand-up is the same as any other fan perusing the comedy aisle at the record store. I think I just dated myself. I meant on the iTunes.

There’s a scene in an episode of Freaks and Geeks where Jason Segel’s character claims he’s practicing his drumming because he’s listening to Rush, but Joe Flaherty’s character tells him if that were true, he’d actually be playing drums, and if he doesn’t have drums (he doesn’t), he’d be pounding on a rock with sticks. I couldn’t fit that into the previous paragraph, but it was too good not to mention.

Alright, I’m not quite sure what this letter started as (muffin recipe?), but I think we can agree that I haven’t answered your question in the slightest and am being quite the verbose pussy fart about it. So be it. *queef*

I don’t like when any artist throws around names as a badge of how learned they are, and whenever I see comics doing it, I cringe. (It’s usually comics who call stand-up “the game” because it makes them sound “street.”) It gets especially bad when I intuitively know the names of artists I’m supposed to be throwing around without having experienced any of their work, but that’s not the case in the story I’m about to tell. I was once asked by a guy in a bar who my comedy heroes were, and (you should be able to guess by now) I listed a few comics I liked and tried to give examples of what I enjoyed about certain bits of theirs. The guy pretty much wasn’t fucking listening the entire time, then said, “Yeah, how about Louis CK?” And I said, “Yeah. He’s got some good stuff.” And before I could say which stuff I thought was good, he said, “Yeah, I knew you knew your comedy!” and walked the fuck away.

(Ask Jim. He saw it happen.)

In that situation, CK was reduced to a name. That guy at the bar just wanted a name. Shut the fuck up. Don’t have an opinion. Say the name I wanted you to say. Say it. Say it.

The comedy scene is at its worst when people judge you on the names you say rather than, you know, your comedy. So when you ask me to tell you the names of comedians I enjoy, I feel like you’re being Say The Name I Want to Hear Guy. I’d rather give you specific bits, jokes, scenes, shows, and films, and I’d like to discuss them in detail, so it feels like real, honest criticism. I don’t want to label any comedian as pure shit or pure gold. I’ve already talked about having nitpicks over my beloved Patton Oswalt, and I sometime have the occasional compliment for Jeff Foxworthy or Gallagher.

The part that really makes me She-Hulk out, though (it’s like Hulking out, but I also feel really confident and sexy), is when you say you need my list of likes to decide if you respect my opinion. I kinda thought being a human being was enough? I get where you’re coming from; when Bill O’Reilly says something, we tune him out at the first syllable. He has a reputation for saying ridiculous shit that ridiculous dads like, and we generally think that we won’t agree with his opinion because we aren’t ridiculous dads. But that doesn’t mean that we should ignore everything he says just because Fuck That Guy. Even Jon Stewart throws the old bastard a bone when they agree on something. Do you like Jon Stewart? Don’t think! Answer! Not fast enough, hotshot, you can’t be my hero any more.

Alright, has this been sufficiently long enough? Have all of you been pretend-masturbating long enough to pretend-come into a pretend-sock? I say “all of you” because I’m definitely going to post this publicly, as it’s something I’ve needed to get out for a long time. I went through a phase where I just didn’t want to handle all of the bullshit of comedy. The name naming, the comics I didn’t think were funny, the high school drama of it all. Then one night, not too long ago, I was in a room full of people (not comics, civilians) making racist jokes. No, nothing you could remotely argue, “oh, these jokes are mocking racism itself, that’s all.” Just full-on reduction of human beings down to their skin color for fucking hours. I didn’t say shit. I just sat there, hoping they’d stop. And they didn’t. I went home silently and that was that. But then it hit me; they don’t know it’s a problem until somebody says something. So I said something. I’m still not done saying something. And if I didn’t say anything, I was part of the problem myself.

That moment is what sparked my idea to change my thinking about comedy. It absolutely shouldn’t be taken as a coded suggestion that I think any local comics are huge racists, but if you boil it down, the idea is that people don’t always know something isn’t perceived as good until they’re told. This is why I wish there was more criticism of comedy, at the local and national levels. There’s a lot of “you were great, you were great” when shows end, and I don’t like it. I want to sit down with comics, with audience members, and I want to be told when I sucked. And I will do the same back. I’m already thinking which jokes I liked and which ones I didn’t when I look at each comic after a show. Why shouldn’t I just tell them? To me, this is respect. Staying quiet is never letting them know that you think they could be working harder, and even if your suggestion is wrong, fuck it, let it out. It’s theirs to deal with.

Phew, opinions, let’s do that bit next.

Anyone who dismisses something as “just” an opinion sounds exactly like someone saying evolution is “just” a theory. Here’s a direct quote from you, Will: “It is important to be critical but it’s also important to note that comedy is subjective and the validity of your opinion stops at the inner wall of your own skull.” That sounds like a really nice thing an uncle told you, and I hope for all the world that your uncle is played by Sam Elliott, but I’m sorry, nobody trots this quote out unless they disagree with something. It’s just like how creationists don’t mention that gravity is a theory, because they agree with that one. If I posted something about how Carrot Top sucks, you absolutely would not have written, “I agree, but keep in mind, Bill…” I’m not going to speculate on what you or anybody else disagreed with, but the comments suggest that everyone was out to disprove something. I did not post an article of Andy Kindler’s opinions as some sort of scientific fact. I posted it so people could read it and discuss it. And they have! And that’s exactly what I want. But stating the very true fact that these are all opinions as though you’ve just shattered the entire discussion is your way of negating a negative. What you’re really saying is, “I read a thing that claimed X is true, but since I pointed out that it’s an opinion, X is now decidedly not true! Everybody go home now!” But that’s child’s logic, victory disguised as a call for fairness. You want X to not be true, which is ALSO an opinion, but you’re hoping everybody forgot that whole “opinions don’t mean anything” bit by the time they left. Which is why you don’t post Uncle Mustache’s quote under opinions about Carrot Top sucking. You already agree with X. There’s probably a big philosophy word for this fallacy, but I’ve opened enough books tonight. The fact remains that you tried to make a sweeping claim that criticism doesn’t actually count for anything, and last time I checked, those crowds of people repeatedly saying “ha” at your jokes are making their criticisms known, and you can’t possibly say that you don’t value them.

Here’s a bonus paragraph on things some other people said! There were a lot of comments on how Andy Kindler isn’t a very good stand-up. First, I find this claim strange because his criticisms were of 1) a Twitter account, 2) a television show, 3) a television show, 4) a television special, 5) a radio personality, 6) a television show, 7) a television show, 8) a television show, 9) a movie, 10) a news network, 11) a late-night talk show host, and 12) a roast. While many of these things have comedic elements, a good number of them do not feature stand-up performed in front of a live audience, and yet a bunch of comics got mad at a comic’s ability to comic. It sounds like a bunch of TV producers getting mad at something a TV producer said about a book; your opinions are valid, but not because of what you do or what you’re criticizing. Which brings me to the second point, that Andy Kindler could be a janitor and his opinions would still be valid. “No, Bill, he’s a comic, his opinion is more important.” You would not be arguing that if a janitor wrote a blog post that you completely agreed with. You’d say, “This guy’s really smart!” You would not include, “Oh, shit, never mind, dude’s a janitor! Forget I said anything.” Third, I’ve only seen Andy Kindler do stand-up once, a while ago. Like, eight years ago. Wow. I remember liking it. I also liked him on some weird panel show where Lewis Black played a judge. And I like his Twitter account very much, and I find it very funny. The medium he works in and the medium he’s criticizing don’t matter. I like it when magicians talk about Hitchcock, I like it when atheists talk about George Orwell, and I like it when anyone talks about comedy.

I was going to throw in that funny dead author I’ve been frequently mentioning, but I’ve decided to keep that quote in the ol’ mystery box. I learned that trick from J.J. Abrams, who I sometimes agree with and sometimes disagree with. And he isn’t a comedian.

I apologize that I couldn’t fit all of this into a Facebook comment. A completely different hilariously dead writer named Shakespeare wrote that brevity is the soul of wit, but have you seen how long that guy’s plays were?

Fart,

Bill Gray

PS - Have you heard Dave Attell’s joke about eggnog? Gets me every time.