COMEDY TODAY
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| COMEDY TODAY - The writer explains where his is coming from in this RADIO INTERVIEW of the column - turn on the volume if you're angry or just want to listen to some good entertainment! |
COMEDY TODAY
By Daren Foster
Comedy, as a topic of discussion, should be as verboten as religion or politics. If you’re lucky, half of those within earshot will agree with you and the other half who don’t, will disagree vehemently, defensively and on rare occasions, violently. (The punch-ups I have witnessed over who’s the funniest Three Stooge, I cannot begin to count. That’s the kind of circles I run in, I’m afraid.)
Comedy is very, very subjective and very, very personal. There are few insults more hurtful than someone telling you that something you found to be hysterically funny isn’t. "That’s not funny." "What’s so funny about that?" Are there statements more demeaning or ego-bruising? To be accused of missing the mark, humour wise, calls into question your very existence. Unless you don’t consider being funny an important aspect of your personality and if that’s the case, well, you aren’t someone worthy of much thought and I think you should stop reading this right now. Seriously. I’ll wait until you’ve logged out of here.
Good, they’re gone. Can you believe those people? They’re such a drag.
While many a cultural scholar will comb through works of high drama to tap into society’s zeitgeist, that fails to fully grasp the undercurrents at play at any particular time. A read through of Shakespeare’s great tragedies reveals the Elizabethans to be obsessed with matters concerning their place within the cosmic firmament, royal succession, religious schisms and political intrigue. Stop the presses!! Any history book can tell you that. It’s determining what made them laugh that peels back the layers, showing what truly made the Elizabethans tick. Twelfth Night. A Comedy of Errors. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It doesn’t take a genius to see these were folks who couldn’t get enough dick jokes and really had a lot of trouble telling other people apart.
If you want to get to know the true character of the Athenians of Ancient Greece, don’t waste time reading Socrates, Plato or Aristotle. Take a pass on Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. Eggheads, all of them, more in love with the sound of their own voices or scooping theatre prizes than truly exploring their countrymen’s point of view. Aristophanes is where you want to start. His extant works show a vast suspicion of authority including the above mentioned eggheads and a love of, you guessed it, dick jokes.
(Comedy rule #1: Sexual humour never goes out of style even some 2500 years on.)
In order to get a sense of what’s going on around us nowadays, in these times of endless war, economic turbulence and deeply divided political factionalism, I am setting out on a magical comedy tour to compile a series of reports on what makes us laugh and, through that, what makes us who we are. A modern day Tom Wolfe, traveling with the Merry Pranksters I will be, and what I uncover will say much more about you than it will me. So don’t even bother trying to parse these ongoing posts to make an ill-formed guess about my state of mind.
The journey begins with Tropic Thunder, a 100 million dollar grosser at the box office this summer. A high concept project, the movie had lots of big names, some of whom are working at the top of their game while others simply tread water. More than laughing uproariously, my main impressions were that Robert Downey Jr. is a fearless actor, Tom Cruise should stop doing mindless blockbuster sequels and spend the rest of his career taking risky chances, Nick Nolte is rarely disappointing and Ben Stiller should never direct another film.
The movie starts with a series of hilarious spoof trailers featuring the films of the various Tropic Thunder ‘actors’ after which, the laughs come intermittently at best and rarely ventured outside of Downey, Cruise or Nolte. It dawned on me about a quarter of the way through that comedy wasn’t the movie’s main thrust. By trying in typical Hollywood fashion to be all things to all people, Tropic Thunder seemed as intent on blowing stuff up as it was in making an audience laugh. While appearing to spoof war movies, it indulged in all the mindless explosions and gunfire that make many recent films depicting war so insufferable.
Ultimately, Tropic Thunder’s main target was the workings of Hollywood itself. How easy is that? Actors are vain. Studio heads are monsters. Agents are mercenary. Wow. Who knew?
Like a number of recent big-budget American comedies, it felt as if there had once been a really interesting script at the heart 
of the movie that just melted away as more and more people got their fingers in the pie. It was a set-up with no punch line. A sketch trapped in a movie’s body.
Tropic Thunder was a modest hit and if we call it a comedy, what does that say about this particular time? Firstly, we don’t need to laugh that much if we get a lot of high-end pyrotechnics thrown into the mix. Secondly, Hollywood is willing to make fun of itself, but it’s not all that funny. Thirdly, Ben Stiller knows how to make money but he’s forgotten how to make us laugh. Mostly, however, I came away from Tropic Thunder thinking that the best comedy occurs when you’re as unconcerned about offending audiences as you are in making them laugh.
Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Kirk Lazarus clearly ruffled more than a few feathers. As a white actor portraying a black character, he summoned up the ghost of Al Jolson without the singing. The initial outcry quickly faded as it became obvious Downey’s mockery wasn’t race based. Vainglorious actors were his target; those devoid of their own personalities and only made whole by accolades and awards.Tropic Thunder could’ve used a whole lot more of that satirical precision. Unfortunately, it had too much in common with Kirk Lazarus. Desperately needy, it clinically sought to be loved and respected by the masses without stepping on too many toes. Enduring comedies don’t seek to be loved. They aim to be funny no matter how many sensibilities they offend in the process.
May 1 2008 - AN ARRESTING DEVELOPMENT
April 24 2008 - Just TWEEN you and me
April 17 2008 - A Day at the Movies
April 10 2008 - Stop the (March) Madness!
April 3 2008 - Heaven's Gate Revisited
March 27 2008 - ACTING OUT - A great actor working with sub-par material
March 20 2008 - TECHNO ROBBER BARONS - When daylight savings time ruins my taping of The Wire
March 13 2008 - DAMN AGES - Growing up is hard to do
March 6 2008 - CULT OF SADNESS PART 2 - How tearjerkers still baffle me!
February 28 2008 - CULT OF SADNESS - How tearjerkers baffle me!
