Dear Elliot,

My congratulations again on the last show; it was really the best one I've seen you guys do. Watching a performance of long-form improv opened me up to your appreciation of the format, its array of possibilities and sustained performance energy. I understand now why you were so eager to experiment with it.

After seeing Schadenfreude's revue over the weekend, I started thinking more generally, about the current state of comedy in the U.S. And, since you're one of the few people I know who thinks about comedy as an art form, I thought it might be a good idea to use the arts page as a forum to vent both our thoughts on the subject and swap notes.

Briefly put, I'm generally disappointed with mainstream humor right now, particularly in light of tensions in world affairs that seem prime for ridicule.

What bothers me most is the overwhelming influence of TV: a lot of mainstream comedy seems to draw on pop culture and media stereotypes for material, rather than considering real people or situations. The first example that comes to mind is the past several years of Saturday Night Live, which parodies the format of MS-NBC instead of the content of the news, mocks Dilbert-like computer nerds instead of business environments they inhabit and makes fun of the phony attitudes of second-tier celebrities instead of the soulless corporate culture that insists we find them important. The program places so much attention on consumer culture that it seems more a validation than a satire of its existence.

The problem seems rooted in an assumption that Americans watch TV more than they do anything else. This is a pretty disturbing idea, if you ask me, especially considering that comedians have barely exploited it in recent years––the late, great Bill Hicks excluded. Thus, a lot of sketch comedy depends on making its targets resemble, as closely as possible, TV personalities. Look at the Schadenfreude's sketch about the retired singers living in Hawaii, for example: for some reason, the sketch was done in the format of a TV talk show, with the washed-up singer interviewing his wife. While watching it, I wondered, why would this man have a television show? I realize that comedy writers are granted, perhaps, more creative license than everyone else, yet I don't think that the talk show format was a particularly funny idea, nor do I think it told me anything about the characters that wouldn't have been conveyed in another format.

I suppose that one can argue that relying on TV personalities is just a 21st century spin on detaching the audience from the content, an idea as old as comedy itself (Charlie Chaplin famously stated that tragedy is life in close-up while comedy is life in long-shot). Yet I think there's something fundamentally different between the Marx brothers doing their own theatrical routines on film and the Austin Powers movies referencing action movie clichés without really giving a clue to why such references are funny.

I'm reminded of Jonathan Rosenbaum's analysis of Forrest Gump. He concluded that the film's barrage of famous media images served mainly to flatter viewers for their familiarity with the images they'd been fed for years by TV. I think that much contemporary humor—Saturday Night Live particularly—is following the same trend in their seeming lack of interest in characterization as much as in their constant allusions to pop culture. In our society of sound bites, patience in pacing and attention to character have been sacrificed to a comedy of instantly recognizable targets (one notable exception: the humanist comedy of The Kids in the Hall).

There seems to be something so bored and desperate lurking beneath this strain of humor: the overriding message is that there's no way of escaping pop life and that the best we can do is rework it in ways that make us giggle. Granted, Mr. Show came to this conclusion, too, but only after giving the issue a good thinking-out and running the culture through as many warped permutations as its vast imagination could envision; most other comedians, however, don't even seem to be putting up a fight. Where is Bill Hicks' "comedy of hate" when we need it most?

I'd like to close this letter by asking you some questions: Do you have any problems with mainstream comedy today? Do you see any alternatives rising up? If so, what do you want them to be? I hope that you, as a performer and as a viewer, can give me some answers.
 

Best wishes,

Ben
 
 

Dear Ben,

I can understand your concern for mainstream comedy, especially with the loss of some of its best shows (Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show), and a decline in the quality of once good shows (Saturday Night Live, MST3K). I hope this letter is of some help.

My theory about comedy is that every joke has already been said and that the basic elements of comedy will always be funny––like, say, irony or satire. These elements are at the heart of humor, and what really matters is the form and context in which they are being used.

When I think of a place where I could begin to assess the current state of mainstream comedy I would turn to the TV. Some shows that instantly come to mind are Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and the various programs on Comedy Central. I feel that if these programs are in any danger of losing their comedic edge now its because they are using the same old format. I have heard many people complain about S.N.L. not being as funny as it was and I feel its because they've developed a formula and stuck to it for too long.

I think that one of S.N.L.'s best features is that it is continually performing political satires; maybe these sketches have become predictable, or maybe the current political climate has made it too easy to poke fun at political figures. Either way, there needs to be something done to reinvent it. Some may say that it is the subject matter that is the problem with S.N.L., but I can't honestly say that there is one subject matter that is more humorous than another. Although, I do feel that poop jokes don't go far if they are presented in a trite way, but here again it is in the a matter of the presentation of the joke. S.N.L. often deals with celebrity gossip and I don't find these to be the problem with the show. I actually appreciate that S.N.L. makes fun of celebrities because it continues a satirical tradition of humbling those that need to be. The problem is that they do it in the most the most routine way that it gives less weight to the satire.

However, all mainstream comedy shows do not fall into this problem. I think Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an inventive show that experiments with many structures. The thing that I admire most about Conan is his ability to tap into the absurd, which is probably the latest trend in comedy. By absurd, I do not mean silly, but absurd as is in the illogical or irrational. Many times I find myself watching a skit on his show and, only when it is finished, find it hilarious. There are no punch lines or relatable characters, just absurdity––yet somehow it works. The success of these skits is partly due to the fact that they are actually being performed, that the humor is that you are actually watching something this weird, but this certainly not the whole joke.

If mainstream comedy is to move away from its stagnant form, I feel it will find salvation in more absurd comedy. Not say that this is new territory for comedy: Monty Python, for instance, performed creative skits in this vein. Also, I'm not saying that this is a better route to take than any other genre. I am personally in favor of approaching comedy in a very wide variety of formats––absurd as well as straightforward. But as far as trends go I feel this is the way that mainstream comedy is heading.

Then again, this is only mainstream comedy. Recently, I have seen the most creative activity in smaller troupes performing in theatres or making independent films, and not on the TV. I personally enjoy watching improv because it contains so many possibilities for experimentation, and when many formats are used I feel it works best.

But sometimes I think analyzing humor too much ruins it, so…who farted?
 

Your Friend,

Elliot