Modified On April 18, 2007
The Discovery Channel website recently ran an item on some scientists who analyzed the science behind the magic that is standup comedy (“Standup comedy formula decoded”).
Stephen Straight is a professor of anthropology and linguistics, as well as a vice provost, at Binghamton. He agreed the analysis helps show how humor works, but he points out it can also go awry, as during the recent Don Imus and Michael Richards events.
“The humor of comics typically depends upon constant and deliberate ambiguity of voice,” Straight told Discovery News. “That is, in order to get the joke, a receiver must understand that the humor-maker is speaking in more than one voice at the same time.”
But there does seem to be a point where comics can cross a line from humor into hurt.
“Yes, Imus was speaking in the voice of an imaginary rapper, as proven by a choice of words completely alien to his usual on-air persona,” Straight said, “but to accept these words as humorous, the listener has to be able to accept them simultaneously as an expression of Imus’ ‘real’ voice.”
Say wha?!? Why don’t they ever just ask comics? We analyze the formula constantly. We maintain that the conversation between two comics as they drive the two hours to a hell gig sheds more light on the “complex formula strengthened by multiple linguistic techniques” that these two labcoats cooked up.
We prefer the analysis of Joe Rogan, interviewed recently in the Rocky Mountain Spotted News:
“Michael Richards is a very bad comedian and I think Michael Richards is also a guy who’s used to getting a lot of love– he’s used to that Seinfeld love. But I think just being onstage in the real trenches, you have to go through pain. If you’re not a bright person, and Michael Richards doesn’t strike me as a bright person, then your ability to think on your feet is going to be hampered. When someone is yelling out, ‘You’re not funny,’ and you’re a beginning comic, that’s the worst thing you can hear, because you don’t have an answer for it. He’s bombing and these guys are yelling at him and he just wants to hurt them and the only way he can think of hurting them is using a racial slur. That was his split-second decision. Is he a racist? No. He’s a fool and he’s not very funny.”