12 minute read
Making jokes is an exercise of responsibility
Living Art
by Roberto Gentile
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“I went to a restaurant that serves ‘breakfast at any time’. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”
Steven Wright made this joke, and it works well for two reasons: the premise is straightforward and clear: “I went to a restaurant that serves ‘breakfast at any time’; And the punchline - So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance is impressive.
For years I have found stand-up comedy a fascinating art: making people laugh is like being a magician: you speak and tell a story, leading the listener to look for a direction and expect a solution, and suddenly PUNCH! PUNCHLINE!
With a sudden swerve, you abruptly interrupt the beliefs of those who listen to you. Words that sound like a punch. Precisely.
Before going into too much detail, maybe I should answer a few questions:
Steven Wright
What is stand-up comedy?
Stand-up comedy is a comic style in which a comedian performs in front of a live audience, usually speaking directly to them. It is a comedian who tells funny stories through comedic performances.
The comedian usually recites a fast-paced succession of humorous stories, short jokes called “bits”, and one-liners, which constitute what is typically called a monologue, routine or act. Stand-up comedians perform in comedy clubs, bars and theaters.
What does stand up comedy mean to me?
Excellent question, thank you, Roberto.
Writing comedy for me is one of the many valuable ways to explore my sensitivity because doing stand-up does not mean only making people laugh. Or rather, it only means this for people sitting at the table of a pub or in the most comfortable theater chairs, but for the writer, for those who have to stage the jokes, doing stand up means much more.
I will give a concrete example to clarify the concept: there are different ways to write comedy, techniques and rules from which you can start, and with time and experience, each person finds their unique method, often imbued with designs and styles different.
Roberto Gentile
A basic rule, which is often underestimated or ignored by novice performers, is to write, at first, ignoring the fact of wanting to make people laugh—writing in prose.
You want to do a comic piece about the fear you have of being on stage; well, before you try your hand at various jokes and sketches, one of the options available to you is to simply write what you feel, straight away, without censoring any of your thoughts. At this point, the short monologue will probably have a decidedly more dramatic than comic tone because you are analysing your fear.
With the text under your eyes and the sadness in your mind, you can begin to dig into every sentence to imagine possible worlds or extreme situations that the fear of being on stage and your personality can bring. And from this moment, the comic journey begins; from here, you see the glimmers of madness that lead to the uniqueness of your stories.
Steve Martin
Writing stand-ups using such a technique that I use transforms the art of making people laugh into a simpler journaling exercise. Starting here, starting from you, without constraints or rules other than letting the words slip from the ink of the pen, is less worrying than “looking for the joke”.
You will get to the joke, over time, with the right ways and the proper techniques, but first, you have to process your feelings, write, understand what you want to say, discover new aspects, ask questions, and retrieve moments and sensations.
In short, a sort of journey of introspection to get on stage, take the microphone and laugh at yourself with the audience.
That’s why I find the art of comic writing and bringing it to the stage fascinating. Because script allows you to have a personal reflection tool, a diary of memories from which to grab jokes, it enables you to face limits and shyness.
It will enable you not to take yourself seriously without hindering yourself from facing reality because you understand the value of empathy and building a relationship with the public.
It is an artistic work that, however, requires craftsmanship.
What stand-up comedy is not: black humour.
It is customary to think that doing stand up comedy means wearing a mask of cynicism and slapping society and the individuals who live it with words. This label is because some of the most famous stand-up comedians, like Ricky Gervais, Louis Ck, and George Carlin, have pushed the public of specific slices of the world to think of stand-up as a synonym for Black humour because of their borderline jokes. And that’s not the case.
It can be, but it can take other forms as well.
Stand-up comedy and how you write and perform on stage is a highly subjective operation resulting from several variables.
If you want to make stand-up by forcing yourself to write cynical jokes because stand up = black humour, well…then many excellent potential comedians will be lost in the sea.
The techniques for constructing a joke are not very many, readily available on the internet and in some manuals.
However, mixing them by merging them with your personality creates comedy that can be based on criticism of society; a comedy aims to ridicule itself, an observational comedy, based on the small details that, once heard, make you exclaim, “man, I noticed this too!”.
In short, not just black humour.
It is essential to define something starting from what it is not.
And comedy is not necessarily black humour, not only that.
Ricky Gervais
Making jokes is an exercise of responsibility.
Writing comedy confronts you with a question: How much can I push myself on a sensitive topic?
For several years we have been talking about political correctness: a term used to describe language, policies, or measures intended to avoid offence or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society.
Is it true that “we can no longer say anything”? No. this is a generalisation that forgets to read the context. So let’s try to analyse.
It is undoubtedly true that social media has given a virtual microphone to all those who have written and expressed opinions and thoughts on the various platforms. And the audience that listens can go from one to 1,000,000 in just a few shares.
Which places each person in front of the actual aspect: the responsibility for their own behaviour. There is a big difference between the past and the present in comic writing: the need to be aware of what you are saying and think about the social meaning. Social networks act as a megaphone, and we need to be mindful of this.
It is not true that “we can no longer say anything”. However, when writing a joke about religions or some cultures, you have to be ready to take responsibility for it. Much more than in the past.
Personally, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. On the contrary, I believe that reflecting on what you can say puts you in front of questions and reflections that can allow you to understand your style, your arguments, and what you want to base your comic voice on.
Making a borderline joke on Twitter can be a risky choice because the people who read it don’t know your personality or story.
A borderline joke made to your friends over a beer can trigger immense laughter because they know your “language code”.
The same joke made on a stage or on Twitter, in front of people who have no idea who you are, can trigger an irresistible desire to get hit by a fist or label you as a “monster”.
Understanding that some jokes can be made in front of your friends and not at other stages does not mean that “you can no longer say anything”, but rather indicates an intelligence capable of reading the context and surfing its wave.
The value of tragedy in comic writing
One of the reasons I find it more fascinating to write comedy is that you can start from your own dramas to build a joke.
Let’s make an easy example: Slip on a banana peel. A comedy called “slapstick”.
For those in front of a screen, this scene can be hilarious. But if we put ourselves in the shoes of someone who slips on the banana, the feelings could be anything but laughable.
Richard Pryor
The victim could feel embarrassment, shame, pain, and be laughed at. The victim could, in fact, feel like a victim.
Put like this, it is no longer funny.
This is the most immediate example of understanding that hidden truths are hidden under every joke, as well as pain and trauma and situations that were anything but funny when they were experienced.
It is essential to make an aside: It’s good to delve into your grief to write comedy, but that doesn’t mean that being depressed automatically gives you the quality of a comedian: sometimes, to talk about your own dramas, you have to have had the right time to have passed over them. Otherwise, it becomes a dig in the skin that only causes pain.
Apart from this, an example of how pain can be turned into comedy is provided by one of the most beautiful and intense stand-up comedy shows: live on the sunset trip by Richard Pryor.
In the late evening of June 9, 1980, during the making of the film Unsupervised Freedom, following days spent taking cocaine, Pryor doused his body with rum and set himself on fire. Naked and on fire, he ran down Parthenia Street out of his Los Angeles mansion until he was pinned down and arrested by the police. He was transported to the hospital with second and third-degree burns on about half of his body.
Pryor spent 6 weeks hospitalised in the severe burns ward of Sherman Oaks Hospital. His daughter, Rain, claimed that the accident occurred due to drug-induced psychosis.
Pryor incorporated an ironic description of the incident into his comedy show. He told every detail, mimicking the flames that enveloped his body, the pain it caused, and the drug-induced sensations that night.
A few years later, in an interview, Pryor said, “I tried to commit suicide. Next question? “.
The courage to submit his own personal drama made Richard Pryor and his eternal comedy unique.
Laughing is serious business
Making stand-up is a highly subjective process. Each one has its own techniques, comic voice, goals, ambitions and values to deliver to this art.
Laughing at one’s pain can be a way of exorcising fears, traumas, dramas, broken dreams, consumed conflicts, contradictions felt, the inconsistency of our minds, and the awkwardness to which life subjects us from time to time.
Writing comedies pushes you to get involved, get out of your comfort zone, and collect experiences with the hope that your stories will make an audience laugh one day.
I see art as a way to explore sensibility, and writing comedy matches exactly this definition. Several times I noticed my attitude to analyse what I’m surrounded by, looking at people’s behaviour.
I love to get on the bus observing the behaviour of those who have not stamped the ticket and are anxiously experiencing the journey; Or of two people who notice the only free seat left and wait for the right moment to take possession of the throne.
I love to walk to dig through the crowd, searching for small and trivial situations.
I fear, at times, the idea of compulsive jokes: the search for a joke in contexts that need everything but your jokes;
For me, the idea of making stand-up is continuous navigation between an exercise in style and an exasperation of one’s own comic mask. And this search puts you in front of the certainty - not the probability, but the certainty - of failure, of jokes that perhaps will receive applause or turn people’s faces upside down.
Comedy writing makes you vulnerable to the banality of your observations and arguments; it causes you to desperately seek a semblance of originality.
Who knows, maybe someday I’ll have a special on Netflix and be so rich that I can afford to walk smiling randomly at people to proudly show off my 24-karat gold teeth - teeth that I will have implanted because I am too busy having a beautiful life to find the time to brush them -.
Maybe someday I’ll wear one of those presumed intellectual coats that I bought after months of doubts resolved only after exhuming and asking on Yahoo Answers, “hey, length and colour for a coat that wants to provoke envy and disgust at the same time? 10 points to the best answer!!!! “; But despite everything, I will not forget who was close to me in my time of need, and that is why I will hire a butler for my butler.
And if this possibility makes you laugh, well, I’m on the right path.
