Let Me Try Again

I feel that I probably wasn't articulating myself very well in class when I took issue with the Paul Grawe piece.

There are several things that I think Grawe gets right (or at least as right as anyone can get in a theory of humor, which seems to be an elusive thing). I think that it's an intelligent observation to say that comedy is representative of life; we can usually see more of ourselves and other real people in a comedic protagonist than those of other genres. Likewise, comedy often doesn't require an outlandish plot to be successful.

Secondly, patterning is certainly seen in many art forms. I think that the way Grawe describes patterning and the themes it can reveal is very accurate.

Though I'm not entirely convinced, I'll even entertain the fact that comedy's main goal is to show that humanity will survive. It is when Grawe starts exploring this more closely that he loses me.

Grawe tells us that there are three types of comedy with a positive protagonist (heroic, everyman, and buffoon) and three with a negative one (villian, butt, and fool). He also says that these progressively blur into one another. To connect these categories to his earlier assertion that comedy is a statement of the faith that humanity will survive, he makes some generalizations. Heroic comedy "asserts that mankind's survival is based on exceptional individuals and their values or abilities" (35). Everyman comedy's assertion "is that the human race survives and must survive not because of any one particular and extraordinary talent . . . but because people are social creatures who can use the special talents of every individual" (37). Buffoon comedy asserts "both the good news and the bad news" (42) and shows us "people surviving in spite of themselves" (17). The negative protagonists show us overcoming the self-destructive individuals in society in similar progression. These distinctions work very well for the examples that Grawe gives, but most of his examples are television/movies and all of his examples involve multiple characters who interact with one another. Also, the comedy that Grawe discusses creates a microchosm of society; the actors in The Waltons are not supposed to be the actors when we watch them--they are the Waltons.

While I completely agree that all stand-up comedians create a persona in order to do their acts, I still don't think this is the same as the actors in a movie or television show. We know that this person is up there telling jokes. We are not watching a "fake" world that is supposed to be real (characters instead of actors) and drawing comparisons to the real one. For this reason, it doesn't seem to me that stand-up comedy can fit in this. If Chris Rock or Ralphie May represent one of these characters, how does that show us human survival. Let's say, as we started to in class, that Chris Rock is an everyman. He is a single person standing up on the stage telling jokes; in what way does that illustrate that we are social creatures who will survive because we have the ability to use other's talents? Perhaps he's a hero, but then what way does that act illustrate that we will all survive because of his extraordinary abilities? Is he going to tell jokes to chase away the meteor or alien attack? It just doesn't fit to me.

I think that comedy, like all art forms, cannot be categorized this specifically. Grawe tries to keep it broad, but his prejudices come through. When he thinks of comedy, he thinks of situational comedy in which people pretending to be fictional characters (or books with other characters created in them) interact with other fictional characters to provide a window into the real world. He leaves out satire. He leaves out stand-up. He probably leaves out several other kinds of comedy. In the end, he has done nothing more than the critics he so harshly chastizes in his first chapter: created a theory that accounts for a small piece of comedy.