Episode 51 — Too Soon

[choochoo_the_wonder_slut 740]

On the topic of getting I4H to the ears of a broader audience, Matt should do an episode of WTF perhaps. I'd kind of like to hear that anyway.

[ben mcd 127]

"So the first song is written by Willie Nelson... it's called...name a Willie Nelson song!"

[GregoryDodds 1]

Hey Guys...

 

This is the first one of your podcasts I've heard, and I really enjoyed it, but you hit a nerve in the first five minutes....

 

I actually talked about this subject with Rachael Mason this summer (one of my favorite improvisers) and she wanted no piece of this, which I understand, but since the subject is broached, here we go. For some reason, improvisers in NY, LA and Chicago frequently use the words RETARD and RETARDED, or play developmentally disabled characters - almost always for laughs.

 

When I bring it up as something that might be offensive, improvisers like to invoke the "everything's on the table" clause. Which is crap, of course. Nobody says N*GGER or F*GGOT. Somehow, the improvisers know these words are off the table. Feel free to tell another improviser onstage that they're "acting like a n*gger, and let me how it goes.

 

There's a line between the personal taste of an audience member who may get offended at edgy material, and targeting a disenfranchised minority group and doing it because you know there will be no repercussions, and it'll get a laugh. And if anyone questions your choices, you can use the buzz words like slippery slope, and politically correct, and bemoan how difficult it is to try to entertain people and not insult entire portions of the population. Rush Limbaugh uses that tortured reasoning.

 

We don't say those words anymore because we're artists, and we know those words are hurtful. We're being intolerant only of intolerance. We keep using the word RETARD because the developmentally disabled have no political power, and it's a shortcut to appear edgy. It's easier to say an edgy word than have an edgy idea. The power of these words, like Holocaust or 9-11 jokes, steal their potency from the event.

 

Thank you for talking about it, and letting me talk about it.

 

G.

[GarbageCan 143]

@GM DODDS

 

I'm in agreement with you when it comes to the use of the word itself retard. However, to not allow improvisers to play mentally handicapped people is silly.

Just because improvisers don't use the N word, doesn't mean they don't play black people. During these improvs, it is very tempting to resort to stereotypes. This is natural based on the fact that nobody knows whats going to happen beforehand, and so there only way of conveying themselves is to put forth something that everyone can quickly recognize, especially in this audio form. Recognition takes precedent over accuracy for the sake of comedy, and so I don't hold it against the performers for doing that stock handicapped voice.

 

And I think "play[ing] developmentally disabled characters - almost always for laughs" is simplifying it too much. Yes they are aiming to get laughs, but that's what they always going for. In any circumstance when I have watched improv, the decision to take on a character that is truly beyond their personality (White person playing a black person, mentally handicapped person or Edgar Allen Poe), its because its demanded from the scene. How often have you ever seen a professional improv show just have someone initiate the scene as a 'retard' without provocation (ie. in this show, the story before hand did not feature such a person)? And while it depends on every spectator, I feel like I can laugh at the use of a stereotype in a scene without feeling like I am laughing in the face of the people they represent.

 

Also I should probably relisten to the part you're talking about before defending improvisers since I've kind of forgotten what happened. It was an evolution of the too soon discussion and encroaching upon the audience's sensitivity, right?

[mattbesser 605]

I agree with you pretty much. I believe when I used it in this podcast I was using it sarcastically since we had had the discussion about it at the top of the episode about crossing the line. I know I have crossed the line on this word in my twenty years of improvising. But I think I've matured enough in the last 5-10 years to not say "retard" unless I am making a point about the semantics of it like we are doing now.

[JacobCrites 4977]

The "retard" thing is sensitive, but like all sketches you do, it all depends on context. For example, you've done quite a few sketches making fun of religious extremists, but even though I'm a religious person, I'm not offended by it, because you're not making fun of people who believe in a God as much as you're making fun of religious hypocrisy. In this episode, I feel like the word "retard" was used, as Matt said, in a sarcastic sense, sort of in a way that was a criticism of people who throw the word around liberally.

[robinsbruce 4985]

The whole point of the question at the top was to have the discussion right? Matt certainly wasn't calling anyone retarded. Besides this show never offends me, I feel like Matt and all the guests he brings on try to be as sensitive as they can be given what the show is.

 

Side note... I thought what Matt said about suicide was really interesting. Someone in my family also shot themselves in the head and it was fairly traumatic. It's crazy to think about how often people make the "gun to head" motion or say things like, "god, someone shoot me in the face."

[saddlebags 581]

I love how active Matt is in the forums. Only other hosts I've seen respond to stuff are Scott and Gelman.

[GregoryDodds 1]

This has been a completely civilized convo. Big ups for that. As for improvisors playing minorities, I've seen Susan Messing play a developmentally disabled girl in a scene at the Annoyance this summer, and her affectations were those typical to someone with Down's Syndrome, and they were hilarious, but she also took pains to imbue the character with a humanity. Messing wasn't satisfied with the caricature.

 

If I implied that improvisers should never play minorities, mea culpa. But using the word "retard" as an insult is across the board offensive, and I flatly refuse to accept the idea that not using the word is somehow stifling the ability of an improviser to employ his full creative power. It implies we have no agency as improvisers; we are mere conduits for the subconscious.

 

These are subjects near and dear to my heart. I am in a PhD program studying the therapeutic and political roots of improvisation from its inception with Spolin and Neva Boyd at Hull House in Chicago. (My wife is also in a PhD program studying early childhood Special Education.) Improv was born from Spolin and Boyd's work with the poor children of immigrants, some of whom spoke no English or had been completely isolated from their peers. Playground games, Boyd noted, proved enormously effective methods of re-socializing young children into a society which had rejected them because of race, language or class. These games were a method of bringing children from "self-gratification to self-determination". As Spolin helped conduct these scenes, she realized the minute difference between ourselves as people and ourselves as improvisers. All of my strengths and weaknesses as a person are the exact same ones I bear as an improviser - a fact that gives us a responsibility beyond that of artists and actors and writers and musicians who can filter out the rough edges of their personality through paint, written words, fictional characters and musical notes. Not recognizing the power we bear in this most naked of all media makes it that much easier for the world to consider improvisation as the less profitable cousin of stand-up comedy.

 

Let the hack stand-up comics use the word "retard" for laughs. Let them tell dick jokes, mock minorities, complain about their nagging wives, and shitty airplanes food. We can do better than that. Our best improvised work never goes there, and it didn't start there.

[choochoo_the_wonder_slut 740]

Certainly no room for dick jokes on this podcast...

 

[robinsbruce 4985]

Best gif ever?

[Kickpuncher 5012]

Side note... I thought what Matt said about suicide was really interesting. Someone in my family also shot themselves in the head and it was fairly traumatic. It's crazy to think about how often people make the "gun to head" motion or say things like, "god, someone shoot me in the face."

 

Yeah, I think this is one of those things where you really need to have it explicitly pointed out for it to sink in. I had a former boss whose father had committed suicide, and hearing that sort of turned a light on in my head that this could be almost anyone you come across and you wouldn't know it unless you knew that person pretty well, so you're better off just never making light of it.

 

As far as the developmentally disabled characters discussion, there was an episode of I4H just a few months ago where one of the guests (a woman who has appeared semi-regularly on the show, can't remember specifically who) played a girl who kept popping up throughout the show. I thought she (and the other performers) did a great job of mining humor from that character/situation without actually making fun of her/it.

[Hot - Slunch 772]

Let the hack stand-up comics use the word "retard" for laughs. Let them tell dick jokes, mock minorities, complain about their nagging wives, and shitty airplanes food. We can do better than that. Our best improvised work never goes there, and it didn't start there.

 

This doesn't reek of pretentiousness at all... Holy shit. You sound like you have some deep seeded issues with stand up. Did you go to a show and some club comic made fun of you? There are hack improvisers, hack stand ups, hack sketch performers, etc. If there's a type of art, there are hacks doing it. Improv is not above stand up in some moral way, they are cousins with both good and bad attributes, and good and bad performers.

 

----

 

I'm with Gemberling on this subject. In my opinion there is technically a 'too soon' moment, but it is up to the performer to choose to go there. If the performer justifies it with themselves, they can do it. Some people will get offended by anything, no matter how long ago it was. Even a joke about Caesar being murdered could ruffle some feathers.

 

David Cross and Louis CK use the n-word on stage occasionally. Gilbert Gottfried's tsunami jokes were funny to me, and what he's done lately is great too. He puts up dumb one liners and immediately apologizes in the same tweet. From a few days ago: "Why did the banker and his wife get divorced? They lost interest. I'm deeply sorry to anyone who has a low interest bank account." He's mocking the sensitivity backlash that any statement or joke can get (at least that's how I take it).

 

Anything can be funny if done right.

 

---

 

There's a fine line between people being genuinely offended by a bit and the posers. Nothing irks me more than the flood of self-righteous assholes that act hurt after every disaster. There's nothing wrong with showing support, but acting personally hurt for something that didn't actually harm you in any way is just rude. They co-opt pain so they can feel like better people because 'they care'. After the Virginia Tech shootings many people weren't giving condolences, they were saying how much they were hurt, even though they live in Idaho. I called some of them out, and got death threats for it. Just shows how much some of these people really value the lives that were lost, when you know, they threaten to kill me.

 

So even if someone is offended by some bit, their opinion may not matter.

 

 

---

 

That was a little ranty huh?

 

Good episode though! It's definitely a top 3 in my book, along with Lennon/Jessica/Jason and Walsh/Ian/Huskey.

[KajusX 1807]

Language fight. Cool.

 

Say you call someone dumb. You're inadvertently discriminating against mute people. That's lame. Oh. Now I'm discriminating against physically disabled people. I'm such a dick. Whoops. Shoot. Now I'm a misandrist.

 

That's gay, that's retarded, that's dumb, that's dickish, that's lame, midget, I just got gypped, don't be a pussy, Jerry-rigging (different than jury-rigging), etc, etc, all connote that the subject is different/less/than, therefore negative. It all stems from things that are not 'normal.' That's just how language develops, and it varies depending on where you are. 'Spaz' (from spastic) is a HUGE no-no in England. It will not make it past the Office of Communication's regulations. American television uses it all the time.

 

But just like the Paul F. Tompkins monologue re: the Chick-Fil-A controversy and people not knowing what to do about a company donating money to things they don't agree with (played in an episode of his Tompkast), the answer to the issue was "Now that you know this thing, stop eating that fucking sandwich! It's that simple!" Applied to the subject of language we are discussing, it is "Once you know a word's origin and current connotation/s, you get to decide whether you wish to use it or not and in what context, and you probably shouldn't use it if it makes others feel less than!"

 

I took issue with a friend because he re-purposed the Patton Oswalt line, "Gayer than eight guys blowing nine guys." Patton was using it in reference to 80s hair metal music videos being extremely homosexual/homoerotic. My friend used it in the way of saying something was bad, "That shit was gayer than eight guys blowing nine guys." Nope. not ok. Funny expression, but now we're saying gay is bad.

 

We have the responsibility to express ourselves however we see fit (fit, connoting good, the opposite being unfit, connoting bad, offensive to obese people's feelings about themselves [Also, however we SEE fit? SEE? Some people can't see]). Words are chock-full of power, for sure. But there is no extreme solution. 'Bad words' are entirely subjective. It's how they've been used that make them offensive, and they're not offensive to everybody, because everybody is not everything.

 

I don't really know where I'm going with this, so I'll just say people need to simultaneously relax and be more sensitive.

[GregoryDodds 1]

I'll ignore the personal stuff, because that's just silly, but I will try to present what I see as a difference between stand up and improv.

 

Improvisation is political. And by that, I mean the audience's approval is secondary, unlike stand-up, which exists solely to please an audience. Stand-up, like other forms of theatre, are meant to be recreated over and over again, and thereby turned into a commodity to be consumed by an audience. When a stand-up is purposefully racist, sexist or generally offensive, it's almost hard to blame him. He's the producer of a service, the joke is that service, and the audience is the demand. The audience affects demand. If the audience wants dick jokes, dick jokes it gets. Improv is political also as there's no text at the beginning and no product at the end, which means there's no pantheon of elite improv performers or albums or YouTube clips to watch again and again. Watching improv on TV sucks. The only way to do it is in the enormously hackneyed "Whose Line" format - three minutes scenes filled with dick jokes, impressions and hoop games. So when the point is raised that there are hack improvisers, I wouldn't disagree. They just do this kind of work. There are plenty of successful comedian who have turned dick jokes into a career. Conversely, the number of improvisers who have made a living out of their work is practically ZERO. There is absolutely no reason to be intentionally offensive. There is no reason to tell jokes, only to recreate human relationships. Every improv teacher I had, both at Second City and iO, has insisted "don't go for the joke." The primary concern is the connection between yourself and your partner. And because improv has this political nature, a nature that looks to equalize performers, to knowingly use a word which pokes fun at a weaker group can be far more devastating. I can certainly understand how someone could think that when I say "let the stand-up comics make dick jokes", it's dismissive of stand-up as a form. It's just different. I'm long-winded, sorry.

[choochoo_the_wonder_slut 740]

U DONE BRO?

[GregoryDodds 1]

Now THAT'S funny.

 

I part my hair on the side, though.

 

[MountAquaFresca 1]

Great stuff! Good work all around but Tim Meadows is batting 1000 in my book. Big ups.

[JacobCrites 4977]

I don't even know what this argument is about anymore.

[Zack21 3]

Changing the subject back to MS, I can vouch for Matt's saying that everyone kicked out of Arkansas ends up in Mississippi. I'm still living here, and it's truly terrible, but most of my family is from AR. And to Tim Meadows comments, it really is unfortunate that the audience was that terrible. It's impossible to find anyone here who's not incredibly Christian and Conservative, but good on you for trying a show here, in the asshole of America.

[GregJ.Hansen 316]

...good on you for trying a show here, in the asshole of America.

 

So if Mississippi is the asshole of America and Florida the undeniable dick, that must make Alabama the taint.

[pilotricardo 0]

I was born in the Delta and now live in Tupelo and can honestly say that I did nothing but grin when Matt berated Mississippi this episode. I know my state is fucked but I still love it.

 

Its not a heathly relationship.

[rootin_dubin 2]

Revisiting some old eps......is this GOAT or I am wrong???? SOOOOOO GOOOOD!!!!

[stupidtrumpy 0]

Making my way through the backlog of episodes, and thought I'd point out that part of the KKK mythology is that the hooded riders represent dead CSA soldiers coming back to terrify the present. So Galloping Ghosts, if it wasn't at some point an intentional reference to the KKK, is still way too strong a reference.

[MultipleReferee 176]

Gave this one a re-listen the other day. Definitely an all-timer.