Hello everyone.
My two favorite art forms are music and comedy. I was thinking yesterday which one I’d rather go without and I mean totally without. A magic wand is waved and I’d never be allowed to even think of one of them again. My brain immediately went to music; no concerts, no listening to music in the car, no whistling, you can’t even rhythmically tap your foot. It would be bad. You can imagine the feeling of lacking. Then I try to do the same for comedy. You take away stand up, improv, sitcoms, that’s bad, but imagine totally losing humor. No dumb jokes at work, no laughing with your friends, if something bad happens you won’t be able to put an absurd spin on it to make yourself chuckle. It’s unimaginable. More than any other art form it’s tied to something fundamental about me, the way I view the world, how I process my experiences, my relationship with others. All of it is cut with a bit of comedy.
There’s a lot of talk recently about what comedy is. In many ways it’s is coming into its own as an art form. Music, drama, poetry, painting etc. have long been considered not only legitimate art forms but also legitimate artistic lenses to examine the world. Comedy was always a lower form of art, maybe just entertainment. But now in 2019 we’re finally taking comedy seriously and a lot of serious people are having serious conversations about this newly respected art form. Many of these conversations are sociopolitical in nature. Which groups are doing comedy, who are they doing it about. For these people comedy is about speaking truth to power. It’s is a political tool that the disenfranchised can used to strike back at their oppressors. This has taken comedy to great heights. The level of respect we give to comedians at a societal level is totally different then when I started paying attention. Comedy has power, it can do things, it’s not just a distraction. On the other side of the important comedy table is dark/emotionally reflective comedy. Comedy used as a means of self-examination, taking a step outside the shadows in our souls and laughing at them. This style gives credence to comedy as a capital A – Art form. Much like the other traditional art forms it isn’t just “entertainment”, it’s a lens you can use to examine experiences. Through this comedic lens we can learn something about the human condition and conquer our demons. Now, to be clear I love both of these types of comedy. And regardless how I feel about any individual type of comedy, the art form gets stronger as different genres emerge. That said, I feel both of these styles/theories not only leave out a very important aspect of the art of comedy but miss something very fundamental about what humor is.
