Comedian, Bash Thyself

A while ago, we talked about how to be funny, a comedian must first be able to laugh at himself. To write effective satires, a satirist must be able to admit he’s wrong. That is the difficult task he expects of his audience, he must be able to deliver it himself. To be an effective and honest pundit, a pundit must be able to admit a mistake, to claim he’s changed his mind and to admit someone else might know better. That is, after all, what he expects of us.

Here are a couple of examples, inspired by last week’s events:

The Post-Oscar Jon-Slam

This excerpt is is taken from one from last Wednesday’s The Daily Show. In it Jon Stewart welcomes John Oliver, The Daily Show’s ‘Senior Hollywood Correspondent’, to talk about the Oscars that had taken place two days earlier. Soon the fact that Stewart was the host is mentioned by Oliver.

John Oliver: “And may I say, your performance was terrific.”

Jon Stewart: “Very kind of you. Thank you so much, John, for saying so.”

Oliver: “Absolutely. And far, far superior to the crapfest of two years ago.”

Stewart stares at the camera. Presently, he says, “John, that was me, as well.”

Oliver: “Indeed it was. But this was quite a turnaround for you. And it’s not just me saying so, Jon. That’s the consensus of the millions and millions of people all around the world,” Oliver continues, “who read about it.”

Stewart corrects him: “And saw it.”

“No, just read about it. Nobody saw it.”

Stewart begins to apologize, “Well, obviously, it wasn’t the highest rated Oscar ever...”

“No,” Oliver agrees. “It wasn’t. Unless by highest you mean lowest. It was the lowest. Or the least high. Is that what you meant, Jon? The lowest? Because it was that,” Oliver continues and continues to Stewart’s face. “The lowest rated Oscar. Ever. Of all times.”

“To be perfectly fair, though...”

“It’s almost funny, if you think about it,” Oliver interrupts Stewart. “When you did it before you were horrible and millions and millions of people watched it. Yet when you deliver a good performance, it disappears into the atmosphere to exist only as a brief moment in future Oscar montages.”

“That is somehow ironic.”

“I mean, two years ago,” Oliver continues, “with the whole world as your audience, you delivered a basic cable performance. Yet on Sunday night, with a world-class performance, you delivered a basic cable audience. It must be truly upsetting.”

“Well,” Jon says. “You can’t control an audience.”

“You certainly can’t, Jon.” Oliver produces a piece of paper and reads off it, “Adults 18 to 24 down 15%. Women 35 to 54 down 28%. People who know you, aged 18 to 49, down 72%. People who gave birth to you, down 100%.”

And so it goes.

The entire bit, which takes place on Stewart’s show, ends with Jon laughing at the camera and telling the audience “I think we have more fun writing the post-Oscars Jon-slam than we do anything else we do on the show.”

On the Other Side of the Scale...

The fact that Stewart is able to bash himself so powerfully, that he is able to admit (whether it’s true or not) that he is wrong or that he has failed, is a trait that allows him to come with a clean conscience to encounters like the following, from a couple of years ago. Here he tells the two hosts of Crossfire exactly what he thinks they’re doing wrong, to their faces. Note how he does come with a clean conscience because he has this trait, and note how the two hosts react. The high-browed “You don’t don’t do it, either” never fails to convince.

Do you see the connection between being able to admit you’re wrong and Stewart’s behavior? Do you see the connection between not being able to admit you’re wrong and the two hosts’ behavior?

It’s connected, man. To be a comedian, you need to be able to laugh at yourself. To be a satirist you need to be able to change your mind. To be a pundit you have to be able to admit you’re wrong.

The Problem with Pundits

Comedy, satire and punditry all require a common denominator that is usually overlooked: the willingness to look stupid.

Comedy

When Tim Allen was at the Actors’ Studio, he was asked by a student the basic secret to being funny. That, of course, is a loaded question that can take years to answer by experts. Allen said (and I’m paraphrasing): ‘You have to commit. You have to be willing to commit and go all the way. Even if your joke tanks, even if you don’t get a laugh, even if you look stupid, you have to go all the way with it.’

That’s great advice. And if you take the time to imagine the comedians you like best and the moments of comedy you like best, you’ll see that in almost all those moments the comedian went with his joke/bit all the way. You’ll see that the joke didn’t have to succeed and that if it didn’t, the comedian would probably have looked very stupid. In fact, most comedy that does succeed comes first of all at the expense of the comedian. Comedy, by its nature, punctures bloated egos. It punctures stupidity, it punctures the unwillingness to bend (in behavior or logic or opinion). And if you have a bloated ego or an inability to look stupid or an unwillingness to bend, you can’t make comedy.

In puncturing other people’s egos you have to first of all be able to puncture your own. If you want to get people to laugh at their own stupidity, you have to be able to laugh at your own first.

Which brings us to satire.

Satire

In a talk a show a couple of weeks ago there was an interview with a playwright who’s famous where I live (which means you’ve probably never heard of him). He has a new satire out and he came to talk about it.

When he was asked about his last satire and about the fact that what he had said there had turned out to be not true, rather than admit it, he began to shift around in his seat and talk his way out of it, explaining, in a very roundabout way, why he wasn’t wrong even though the facts no longer back him up.

Now, satire asks of the audience something that’s very hard to do. Satire asks us to change our minds, to admit we’re wrong, to open our minds to new thoughts and new ideas. If you can’t change your mind, admit you’re wrong, and open your mind to new thoughts and new, how can you have the gall to ask that of your audience? How good can your satire be if you have an inability to open your mind?

Which brings us to punditry.

Punditry

Punditry is like satire in this respect: the pundits are asking people to change their minds, to consider a new idea or a new concept or a new opinion.

Too many pundits in all forms of the media are unable to admit mistakes. Not only are they not asked about their previous erroneous statements by their interviewers, they do not usually admit to such things on their own. Not all pundits are like this – and the best certainly aren’t – but certainly too many. (One good example jumps immediately to mind: Jeff Greenfield is a very smart ‘analyst’ who has no problem saying he was wrong or that he’d changed his mind. That’s one of the reasons he’s become hot property.)

When it’s your job to be right, it’s hard to say “I was wrong”. When it’s your job to be right, it all becomes about your ego and you feel you must maintain your status and the opinion of others. But it isn’t your job to be right, it’s your job to be intelligent.

Changing your mind isn’t evidence of flip-flopping (an accusation politicians are victims of); changing your mind is, at times, an ability to adapt to new information and new circumstances, an ability we usually refer to as ‘intelligence’.

But let’s change “I was wrong” to “Oh, that’s right”. The two statements mean the same thing, after all. If it’s your job to get the audience to say “Oh, that’s right”, you should be able to go through that process yourself. Lead by example. It’s not about your opinion, it’s about having the ability to think. And “Oh, that’s right” symbolizes that pretty well.

So here’s a proposition to pundits out there: Start saying, “Oh, that’s right.” People’s opinions of you will go up.