uk comedy is in a nadir

[wild greens]

Chappelle is a prime example of woke being subverted from its original meaning to become a targeted culture war word in the hands of dull bastards from both "sides" of the argument

 

[shakahislop]

that comedian - prophet thing

i guess that's a broader quirk of US culture, the reification of individual people. it happens bizarrely in the US public health world, where one individual guy working in one of the bureaucracies will be hailed as some kind of hero. it happens in universities as well, where people will go to a particular university to because some specific academic or other works there. i once attended a seminar thing at a hotel in new jersey where this data visualization hero guy managed to fill a room with his admiring followers. it's a peculiarly american affective thing i thing, or at least, it feels to me that europe doesn't venerate individuals quite as much

 

[version]

We did have Captain Tom recently.

 

[shakahislop]

We did have Captain Tom recently.

yeah you're right but its not quite the same thing. coz no-one is looking at him as someone otherworldly or exceptionally incredible. people liked that he was a sweet old man i think. rather than a guru to follow

 

[version]

Lenny Bruce is another venerated American comic, although he was put on trial for obscenity so there's a bit more weight behind viewing him as a political figure and someone challenging power.

 

[shakahislop]

this kind of thing. this is on a wall in NYC. james grant is an american geezer who is kind of venerated in that public health world (though of course there are other people who aren't on board). but look at that text.

 

[shakahislop]

this is a whole book about the guy. check that title, that image, the focus on the man (james grant) rather than the institution he worked for

 

[shakahislop]

you see the same kind of thing in respectable books about the CIA and US military. longwinded descriptions of american guys and how their personalities shaped things. and a lot of myth-making. all these mad and psychotic and probably made up things about so-and-so general only ate one meal and day and slept four hours a night, and that's why the americans were so good at counter-insurgency etc

 

[version]

 

[Corpsey]

I wonder if there's something to do with religion in the nature of American counter cultural comedians vs the British ones? Was the British equivalent of Lenny Bruce someone like Peter Cook? Was Ben Elton our Bill Hicks?

Not to say either Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks were religious (quite the opposite I'd suppose, at least in Hicks' case) but there's something evangelical about that quintessentially American stand up preacher act. Sam Kinnison who I've never seen anything by but who apparently was pretty influential was a preacher before he became a comic.

Whereas that kind of thing, that earnestness and open self importance would be quite embarrassing for an English person, far better to veil your beliefs in irony and surrealism/nonsense.

 

[Corpsey]

I see by the end of that post I'd drifted from my own half baked point re religion.

 

[Corpsey]

But could that be one of the distinguishing things about America - it's evangelical bent?

 

[Corpsey]

(needless to say, Americans have created a lot of the cleverest, richly ironic comedy shows ever and I'm not trying to say "they don't get irony like us oh so clever Brits")

 

[Corpsey]

I wonder if there's something to do with religion in the nature of American counter cultural comedians vs the British ones? Was the British equivalent of Lenny Bruce someone like Peter Cook? Was Ben Elton our Bill Hicks?

You see similar sort of preachy, zealous tone in e.g. Lester bangs and Hunter s Thompson

 

[forclosure]

Is there a more extreme case of this than Russel Brand?

easy, the entire conversation surrounding Joe Rogan

 

[forclosure]

(needless to say, Americans have created a lot of the cleverest, richly ironic comedy shows ever and I'm not trying to say "they don't get irony like us oh so clever Brits")

examples?

 

[Corpsey]

The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Community, Frasier...

 

[Corpsey]

I saw a bit of Parks and Recreation the other day and thought it was pretty weak.

There's definitely a grating aspect to American comedy - a smart alecky, zany bent. But the same is true for British comedy ofc

 

[forclosure]

I dunno that the Cum Town guys specifically fall into that, they just seem to mess around from what I've heard, but I agree in general. Can't stand that "comedians are the new philosophers" thing and the veneration of people like George Carlin.

i mean them and the Chapo guys are all sons of Howard Stern which i feel like the only person who would understand Howard Stern here is @shakahislop we don't have anything resembling an equivalent to him

 

[forclosure]

Yeah, I heard about that bit. Crappy joke for Chapelle to make though.

i mean its along the same lines as bill cosby making a joke about how she should be careful about what gets put in her drink the first comedy show he did in a billion years when all the assault shit came out


also Bill Cosby making a date rape joke the same bill cosby who prided himself on being a clean comedian