Several years ago on WTF, Marc Maron interviewed a couple of researchers who’d published a paper about how comedy “works.” (A better newsletter writer than me would have hunted down the episode number and names of the researchers, but I confess I lost the will after about 10 minutes of searching. Maybe 5.) Maron was a three-decade-plus veteran of stand-up comedy at that time, and his incredulousness and contempt for their whole thesis was palpable. That was just about the only element of the interview that was compelling or entertaining, which in the end, is remarkable in itself. You’d think someone who’d figured out how comedy “worked” would have been more funny.
One of the few things I do remember was their definition of comedy as something like an “acceptable transgression.” It’s not an entirely new idea, though; it goes all the way back to the days of The Court Jester. The Jester could mock the King in ways no one else could due to a combination of his disarming and foolish appearance and the humor of the King himself. To this day, comics can “transgress” the norms of propriety and get away with it by leaning in to the self-deprecating spirit of The Jester.
Groucho Marx is a good case study. Born Julius Henry Marx, the son of German and French Jews living in Manhattan, he and his brothers first found success on the Vaudeville circuit. In that scene, many acts were first- and second-generation Jewish, Irish, Italian, or Chinese immigrants, and they often leaned into ethnic stereotypes in their acts. These performances would scandalize modern audiences, but they accomplished what a lot of comedy continues to do. Leaning into the stereotype allowed them to control why and when people laughed at them and created a bond of solidarity.
While the Marx Brothers never really wore their Jewish identity on their sleeves, their stories nonetheless leaned into ethnic tropes. Antisemitic conspiracy theories then (and now) depicted Jews as evil actors in the back hallways of power. In their films, The Marx Brothers find themselves in places of cultural and political influence, scheming and swindling for their own material ends. But their schemes don’t succeed because of their brilliance as puppet masters or liars; in fact, everything they try is half-baked and poorly conceived. Rather, they succeeded only because the rich and powerful were too busy being condescending to notice that Groucho was outsmarting them, Chico was emptying their pockets, and Harpo was burning their house down. All with grins and songs.
I found myself thinking about all of this last weekend, after Adam McKay posted a tweet featuring a parody of a Chevron commercial. The gist of the video is “Chevron is murdering you,” (an actual quote) because of oil and gas’s contributions to climate change.
Let me say up front that I’m not a climate change denier, but (to borrow a phrase from Jerry Seinfeld) the commercial doesn’t offend me for its politics; it offends me because it’s bad comedy.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Adam McKay is a brilliant comedian. The writer/director gave us some of the greatest comedies of the 2000’s, and certainly gave us Will Ferrell’s greatest performance in Anchorman. He turned towards drama with The Big Short, which I liked both for the way it weaved seamlessly between a comic and dramatic tone and for the clever devices it used to explain the financial instruments that shipwrecked our economy in 2008. But it strikes me that the departure McKay made with The Big Short created an unfortunate momentum, leading first to Vice (which had some merits, but lost me in the two-dimensional portrayal of its characters as pure evil), and Don’t Look Up (which was didactic and left me bored enough to turn it off). The commercial is a continuation of an evolution of his work into preachy, self-righteous scolding.
Comedians often refer to their role in society as “speaking truth to power,” and I’m sure there are at least a few articles out there already talking about how brave and courageous McKay is for doing so. But the whole point of the Jester isn’t simply that he can mock the King; it’s that he can do it in front of his face. The essential ingredient for “speaking truth to power” is the element of risk, and it’s the risk of the Jester that makes his comedy so funny. To put it differently, if comedy is an acceptable transgression, where is McKay’s transgression?
One could point to similarly unfunny comedy from entertainers on the left and the right. Rather than create characters or tell stories that engage a broad audience and surprise them with the folly and humor of the human condition, they produce preachy, self-righteous, and condescending material that only serves a rabidly polarized mob. Any “prophetic edge” is purely performative, because you can’t speak truth to power if the “powers” aren’t listening.
In contrast, Richard Pryor told stories about growing up poor, surrounded by pimps and prostitutes, and even his own childhood abuse. His audiences howled with laughter, but as Joe and David Henry describe in their marvelous biography, Furious Cool, Richard was telling the truth. He revealed poverty, sexual exploitation, and racial inequality to an American conscience that was otherwise numb to it. His self-deprecating manner and comedic mastery drew them into his truth-telling, just as the Marx Brothers did by setting their hats on fire and honking horns in their pants.
The greatest example must be Mel Brooks. The Producers featured “Springtime for Hitler,” with dancers forming swastikas and performing kick-steps in SS uniforms and jackboots. The film came out in 1967 — just twenty-two years after the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed to the world. Imagine a similar film releasing today featuring dancing jihadists, odes to Osama Bin Laden, and the symbolism of 9/11.
A few years later, just a decade after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Brooks released Blazing Saddles (co-written, interestingly, by Richard Pryor), which remains one of the most important satirical depictions of racism in American film. Brooks’ comic absurdity had universal appeal, and it set the table for confronting American audiences with uncomfortable truths.
In every case, though, the comedy relies on characters who are part of the joke. You don’t just laugh at the King, you laugh at the Jester too. As David Zucker, creator of The Naked Gun and Airplane, recently put it:
“Today, we’re faced with social and political pressures that are tearing our country and our families apart. Not that I couldn’t do without some family members anyway, but the point is, we live in the most outrageous period in our recent history, when the need for humor is greatest, and yet we seem to be losing our ability to laugh at ourselves and our world.”
The ability to laugh at yourself is critical if you’re going to have any kind of universal appeal. If Bart arrived in Rock Ridge and didn’t make a clown of himself, Blazing Saddles would be far less funny. The Jester’s goal in taking the King down a step isn’t so he can be trampled underfoot. Rather, it reminds him that he belongs close to the earth with the rest of us.
McKay’s parody fails for this exact reason. It forgets to laugh at itself.
This is the other side of the war on comedy. While progressive critics are calling for the heads of Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan, their ideological sympathizers are creating a brand of comedy that is no longer about making people laugh, but “speaking truth.” They mock “the King” but never put on the clothes of the Jester. As a result, they’re inherently incapable of speaking to anyone who doesn’t agree with them in the first place. Certainly they garner cheers, accolades, and LOL’s, but only of the already-convinced. Their condescension and lack of, well, good humor repel anyone who doesn’t agree with them in the first place. It has its parallel in the unfunny and often racist comics of the far right, too, but they enjoy far less acclaim than McKay and the like.
These comics are nonetheless rewarded for their work, no matter their ideological principles. Leaning into polarization and demonizing your ideological opponents can generate a lot of money; just ask the creators of the God’s Not Dead franchise. I’m not kidding; the two operate on the same principles. They’re didactic and preachy, and the audience responds not because the art “works,” but because the creators are scratching their backs, telling them how right they are. Oil workers and atheists get villainized and run out of polite company (or run over with a car). But the spotlight never turns on the folly and humanity of the storyteller, and thus the door never opens to the unconvinced.
Groucho spent much of his life wanting to belong to the very society he spent decades taking down a peg. And in many ways, he succeeded. He published stories in The New Yorker and corresponded with journalists and literary figures. Among them was no less than T.S. Eliot. As Lee Siegel describes, Groucho and Eliot were looking over a cultural fence at one another, envious of various aspects of each other’s lives. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect snapshot of the success of the Marx Brothers’ subversion than the greatest poet of his generation having a fondness and (perhaps) even envy for a comic who dropped out of school in the 7th grade and spent most of his formative years literally singing for his supper.
Groucho Marx, Richard Pryor, and Mel Brooks could be witheringly critical in their comedy and satire, fitting perfectly the definition of “speaking truth to power.” But they never lost sight of their own humanity along the way. They laughed at themselves while they laughed at those who possessed more power and influence. It’s a gesture of humility, not condescension, and not self-righteousness, that invites the mighty to humble themselves in return. Their work made the world a little more lighthearted, a little less serious, and a lot more humane as a result.
VARIA
I had a great couple of days in Colorado last week. CT’s Leadership Team spent a few days on a ranch in a valley of the Rocky Mountains, listening to elk and talking about the season ahead. I left excited and encouraged, and jumped on a plane at 12:55 in the morning for a red-eye home. I had a speaking engagement that night with a handful of pastors and church planters.
I got to meet Steve Cuss there, and have been devouring his work on leadership anxiety ever since. This interview on Carey Neiuwhof’s podcast is a great introduction, and the follow-up is well worth hearing too.
COLTS RANT
There’s a very good chance this is my last Colts Rant for this newsletter. While it’s been a feature going back to the Mailchimp days of The Roadstead, I’ve realized this year that I really don’t have much good to say, and I’m not sure why I’d give oxygen to the kind of bile-filled rage I feel over what is certainly a more complex situation than it appears. If it were up to me, I’d clean house over what seems like an obvious collection of bungled personnel calls, but that’s why I write a newsletter on Monday mornings and why others own and manage NFL teams.
The Other Side of the War on Comedy
Ah this is really a great take. As a comedy fan, it seems the search is always for the newest jester who hasn’t leaned into the ideological preaching you referenced. Maybe the opportunity to gain such a large platform so quickly compels the individual to “make a difference” with their influence. Thanks Mike I enjoyed this
Well dang, McKay didn't make his parody on climate change lighthearted and less serious enough for you!