Modified On August 6, 2007
It’s a video blog. A “vlog.”
The folks at WhipItOutComedy.com post about comedy, but do so using video clips. (They recently posted about our new short, “Starting Over,” under the ridiculous title, “Shecky gets sexy!”) They also promote their site with the occasional live show, like the one they have scheduled at the Hollywood Improv on August 30. (You can also befriend them, via MySpace.com)
One disturbing video that has recently been linked to is by a group called Black 20. This one, called “The Middle Show,” which starts with an unnamed guy in a tie, who says, “Have you ever gone to a comedy club, paid your two-drink minimum, and then seen a terrible comic? You feel helpless. You can’t do anything. Well, now it’s time for payback.”
What follows is a series of comedians, shot in a graffiti-besmirched alleyway, who are subjected to a gang of nitwits who pelt the comedians with tomatoes after each tells a lame joke.
We’re not quite sure of the message. The jokes are, to be sure, lame and not well-written or well-delivered. But the abusers who throw the vegetables are also depicted dressing down the hapless comedians and saying things like, “Dude, you told a disgusting, filthy offensive joke!” Or, “You told a joke about cancer… My mother had cancer!”
So, while the object of their wrath seems to be “bad comedians,” they also seem to be championing the cause of clueless audience members who offend too easily. Or are they mocking the audience members and bad comics at the same time? Is that even possible? Aren’t we supposed to be opposed to that kind of audience member? Aren’t we supposed to be defending comics against the kind of lunkhead who might be tempted to toss something– anything– at a comedian, no matter how “bad” he or she is? To say that a mixed message is being sent would be an understatement.
Or are we not getting the joke? Is that our shortcoming? Or is the video so poorly executed that a reasonable person can’t tell?