Embrace Stupidity
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Transcript:
If you wanna be a stand-up comic, it kinna helps to be an idiot.
You can be good at math and spelling. That’s not really a problem.
But you need to be dumb in some kinda way.
You need deep, tragic, character flaws.
You need to be self-aware enough of those flaws to be able to articulate them in intimate detail to complete strangers but also fully lack the willpower to change any of your tragic character flaws.
It helps if you’ve kinda been an idiot your whole life. That’s good for comedy.
I love the movie Superbad. Great movie. One a’ my favorite comedies. Still holds up. If you disagree I will happily fight you.
Jonah Hill in Superbad, he plays Seth. Seth has trouble controlling his sex drive and/or expressing his masculinity appropriately. This results in him drawing, doodling absurd animated penis cartoons as a young boy and then as a teenager in exploiting his best friend, and then also drinking laundry detergent alcohol so that he can ultimately lose his balance and head-butt the girl he is pining after with all of his misguided antics.
Seth is lacking in all sorts of ways. And he tries to compensate for his lack of popularity and coolness and it results in a bunch of excessive and socially embarrassing behavior. But it’s pretty funny. He’s kind of an adorable idiot. Not everybody can say they headbutted Emma Stone to help launch her career as an actress.
But if you wanna be funny, ya can’t be cool. Ya gotta be dumb. You have to embrace your stupidity. Superbad works because it gives teenage stupidity a big ole’ loving bear hug.
A lotta comics run into trouble when they get into political stuff. They try to be smart. They try to be agents of social change. I’m not saying that’s not good. I’m not saying you can’t do comedy like that, BUT you can’t put yourself up on a pedestal where you’re saying you’re the smart one in the room.
Some people might agree with you, but you’re not gonna get genuine laughs. You gotta stay the idiot on stage. Whether you’re conservative or liberal, you can’t get up on stage and make fun of how dumb the other team is and get genuine laughs. Making points logically isn’t funny. It’s appealing to people who agree with you, but it’s not funny. There’s more to it.
If you wanna be funny, don’t make fun of other people for being dumb; interrogate your own stupidity. That’s relatable. That allows for connection. Hubris is a human universal - your stance on abortion or gun rights isn’t.
There’s a book I like, it’s pretty dense, I haven’t actually finished reading the whole thing yet; it’s called “The Western Canon” by Harold Bloom. It’s an overview of the major works of Western literature. And Bloom, he wrote another entire book specifically about the works of Shakespeare that I also haven’t read yet, but do own and intend to read; but in “The Western Canon” Bloom writes “The peculiar magnificence of Shakespeare is in his power of representation of human character and personality and their mutabilities - I had to look up the definition of mutability - mutability is the ability to change - …Shakespeare is above all writers…the poet of nature, the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life.”
If you are making art and you want staying power - that’s what you should aim to do. Reveal human character. Accurately reflect human nature. Discuss the variations in human personality. And maybe, by doing that, emotional connections will be felt between people and that might lead to some empathy and sympathy for people with different perspectives - and maybe that moves the needle politically in some ways. But people don’t change because you told them they were dumb and a bunch of your friends hoisted you up, told you that you were cool and you all clapped and laughed together at the outsiders you disagree with.
You gotta extend the olive branch by pointing out how dumb you are first.
I’m not very religious, but I’m most familiar with Christianity and I think there is a lot of interesting stuff to be learned there. The Bible is also a major component of the Western literary tradition, so if you grew up in our culture, you can’t really avoid it - it’s part of you whether you like it or not. All the stories you like - novels, film, television - most of it is derivative art from the Bible in some way.
But anyway, Jesus, one a’ his things was that we have to become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven. What the heck does that mean? How high was Jesus? How many mustard seeds did he smoke? What was he talking about?
Well, for one, children are dumb. They’re kinna stupid, an’ it’s funny.
Children encounter the world pre-categories. We have some instincts, but we haven’t built up categories. We haven’t labeled everything. We haven’t sorted it. Everything is new and surprising and different.
As we go through life, we put things in categories because if things are in a category, it means we can act in the same way toward those things. It’s efficient to do that. “Oh, I’ve seen this before. I know how to act. This belongs to this category that means I should do this.”
But that also can be an oversimplification. As we age, we get more and more stuck seeing things as we’ve already categorized them.
This happens literally in our brains. The way our brain makes sense of the world is we get input from our 5 senses; that information goes up into our brain and mixes with memories of previous experiences - we try to sort everything out based on the interaction of the new sensory information with our past experience of the same or similar things.
But as we age we apply more top-down pre-existing information to the incoming sensory observations - the info coming in gets more distorted and categorized automatically by our existing memories, by our previous experiences.
The key to being like a child is being able to see things fresh again - as if for the first time. That’s what artists do. They observe with a view that isn’t locked into as many preconceived ideas. They explore with more open eyes. They let input wash over them and they reprocess it. Artists aren’t as strongly influenced in their thinking by the accepted traditions and cultural norms. They try to see things like children before the current categories of culture took hold in their minds.
That’s what comedians do. We make our brains dumber in order to notice the stuff that’s silly about the prevailing culture. We play dumb so that we can pick apart the habits and traditions of normal adult life from a different perspective.
But you can’t point this stuff out directly. That’s why cultures kill prophets. Prophets come out and say “Hey, y’all are doin’ this stuff wrong.” An’ then, they get stoned to death or crucified.
As a comedian, you come out and say, “Hey, y’all, look at all the dumb stuff I’m doing.” And then people laugh and go, “Yea, he is pretty dumb.” And if they reflect on what’s being said a little bit, they might actually come to some realizations about themselves. But that’s not up to you. That’s up to them. Your job is to make them laugh for reasons maybe even they don’t quite understand.
Another of my favorite books I can’t stop mentioning on this podcast, “Wonderworks” by Angus Fletcher. Chapter 14 of “Wonderworks” is called “Become your better self: The Invention of the Life Evolver.”
In that chapter, Fletcher talks about regular irony and self-irony.
Irony is a device used quite frequently in comedy.
If you want the Dictionary.com definition of irony, here it is:
Irony is “the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. A literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.”
Fletcher highlights how with regular irony, we are made conscious that there is a truth that someone else doesn’t know.
With self-irony - a literary device Fletcher attributes to Plato inventing in Meno, one of the Socratic dialogues Plato wrote - self-irony makes us conscious that there’s a truth we ourselves as individuals don’t know.
With regular irony, everyone who “gets it” is in on the joke that we are smarter than the dumb dumbs who don’t get it.
With self-irony, everyone who “gets it” is in on the joke that we’re all stupid and that that is an inescapable part of the human condition.
Self-irony is humbling.
If you’re into neuroscience, like me and Angus Fletcher, he explains how self-irony involves using our frontal cortex - that’s the part of our brain that is capable of conscious thought - we use our frontal cortex to get a God’s eye view of how dumb the rest of our brain is. But if you study psychology and neuroscience you quickly realize that ultimately, the frontal cortex is not in charge of the rest of our brain. If it was, humans would behave like rational philosopher kings instead of like raging goofy monkeys who can’t master their tragic flaws.
And as a comedian, your job is to use your frontal cortex to come up with a bunch of jokes about the more monkey-like underlying portions of your silly little brain.
If you combine self-irony with intimate self-disclosure - what are the particular thoughts bouncing around out of your subconscious - people are gonna like you. They’re gonna appreciate that you’re willing to talk about the weird dumb stuff they’re scared to talk about. The stuff that goes bump in the night deep in their brain. People want somebody who can laugh at all that illogical stuff that we all have to deal with.
People want an honest discussion of our common humanity, but they want it presented in a lovable, harmless way. That’s how you get a laugh. You poke and tickle a little bit. You don’t slap ‘em in the face and tell ‘em they’re an idiot for having feelings about stuff they can’t control; at least not until you’ve slapped yourself in the face sufficiently first.
Being a comedian is about embracing human nature, warts an’ all.
And let’s say that’s not good enough for you. Let’s say you think comedy should be about more than pointing out our flaws as humans.
Well, admitting your limitations is the first step toward any personal growth anyway. Welcome to my seminar.
Angus Fletcher picked a pretty sick Frederick Douglas quote to illustrate that point:
“There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become.”
So if we listen to each other’s unique goofy flawed stories - and we’re honest with each other - maybe that can lead to becoming something more.
Here’s a quote from Nietzsche that goes along well with Freddie Doug’s thoughts above:
“The strength of a person’s spirit would then be measured by how much ‘truth’ he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.”
I think comedy sweetens and disguises the truth. Because of the need for economy of words - only being able to say so much, it can also dilute the truth. But, good comedy, really good comedy doesn’t mute the truth, and it doesn’t falsify it.
If you want to be an authentic stand-up comic, you gotta embrace the truth of your limitations. Your limitations are what make you unique. They give you your voice. Creativity comes from wrestling within the particular constraints that define you.
I’ve never been cool, popular, or especially likable - which is the origin story of many people seeking approval through the medium of stand-up comedy. But, the irony is if you wanna be funny, you gotta stop trying to be any of those things. You’re not cool. You’re not popular. But, if you’re honest, you might end up being reasonably likable because of your flaws.
Stay the dumb guy. That’s the only way to be likable on stage. Be yourself, but eliminate the ego. Stay stupid.
Comedians are idiots; we’re buffoons. That’s the whole point.
To try to go up there and be above anything or be impressive or be smart - that’s completely backward - it’s contradictory to the art form. You’re not a hero up there on stage saving the world. You’re a ding dong with a microphone. You have to embrace your own stupidity. Trample your ego. That’s the project inherent in stand-up.
I’m not saying comedians shouldn’t try to make the world a better place. We can become better people. You can improve in life. Who you are on stage is NOT who you are in everyday life. The art form of stand-up, that’s not a full expression of you as a human being. I hope not anyway. That would be even more tragic.
But, when you’re on stage, tryin’ to make people laugh, you gotta play the fool. People don’t wanna hear about how saintly and intelligent you are. You’re not a political or religious leader. You’re a court jester tickling the weird parts of people’s brains. You’re the tragic hero armed with fart jokes.
An’ if you do that, if you play that role, people might appreciate that authentic expression. You won’t be cool, but you’ll give people permission to be themselves out in the world. And that might make things better. People might be more willing to embrace who they really are as they struggle through life. And they might be able to accept others for more of their goofy little differences. And that might be its own form of positive social change.
End seminar.