5 Responses

1. myq says:

   September 19, 2007 at 5:05 pm

   In response to this: “Can anyone explain the difference between this statement and, maybe, ‘All those Def Comedy Jam comics are the same to me.” or ‘You know, I can’t tell them Asian comics apart!'”…In my experience, white males seem to be the majority of standup comics.White male twenty-somethings in particular (college kids, guys right out college, etc.) seem to make up a huge proportion of aspiring comics.Often, people in their first few years of comedy DON’T necessarily have their own distinctive voice yet, no? Isn’t that something that comes more with years of experience? A lot of newer, younger comics often specifically sound like some of their influences more than they will later as they develop, no?Which is why their AGE is more notable than their race, perhaps.That’s what I think the difference between those statements is.And as for Def Jam comics all seeming the same, I’ve seen a lot of a similar type of comedy on that show, and not just from people of the same race, so I don’t think that’s the best parallel for this question.

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2. myq says:

   September 19, 2007 at 7:22 pm

   PS One thought I didn’t quite finish was this, as regards the quantity of white males in the business:The sheer volume of young white males doing standup comedy logically makes it more likely that any one young white male will end up being similar to some other young white male, as opposed to a demographic that is not as largely represented in comedy.That’s not taking into account things like people emulating the styles of other comedians as well, which certainly happens a lot from what I’ve seen in Boston at least–guys acting like Dane Cook, Mitch Hedberg, Regan, Attell, Gaffigan to some extent…Which isn’t to say that ONLY white guys are doing this, but that because there are so many more white guys than other demographics, it’s much more visible and noticeable that they’re doing it.

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3. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   September 19, 2007 at 7:33 pm

   Myq writes:<>Often, people in their first few years of comedy DON’T necessarily have their own distinctive voice yet, no? Isn’t that something that comes more with years of experience? A lot of newer, younger comics often specifically sound like some of their influences more than they will later as they develop, no?Which is why their AGE is more notable than their race, perhaps.<>Perhaps, but we hear similar statements about middle-aged white male comics all the time.As for your addendum about white comics emulating Dane Cook, Mitch Hedberg, Dave Attell and Jim Gaffigan– you’ve just said that a good chunk of white, male comics are emulating four comics who couldn’t be more different from each other in terms of style, delivery, subject matter, etc. So, instead of having a homogenized gang of white, male comics all sounding alike, you have a gang of white, male comics at the very least falling into four (or maybe more!) categories, but at the very least not ALL sounding alike.

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4. Brian McKim & Traci Skene says:

   September 19, 2007 at 7:46 pm

   PS At the very least, should we not expect someone writing for a publication such as The Stranger, of all the people on the planet, writing for all the publications, to make such basic distinctions?Or to be free of such biases?

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5. myq says:

   September 19, 2007 at 8:13 pm

   When I said “their age is more notable than their race,” that was mostly intended to be a direct answer to the question you asked, which was (paraphrasing) “Can anyone explain the difference between saying ‘White guys in their 20s sound the same’ and ‘Asian/Def Jam comics sound the same’?”The answer was simply, “Yes, the difference is the inclusion of age as a factor.”And as to the question of whether someone writing for the Stranger should be free of biases (if thinking that a lot of comics sound the same IS indeed a bias)…The fact of the matter is that a lot of newer comics DON’T sound distinctive.Some do, of course.And some do emulate different types (though when I mentioned those four types, I neglected to mention that the two I see most are Cook and Hedberg, and even then mostly it’s Cook, which makes sense that he would be the most emulated, as he is the most popular, especially among the young white male demographic in question).But even newer comics that aren’t specifically directly or indirectly emulating another comic, there’s often a generic “comic”-like persona that people often take on before discovering and coming into their own.And I don’t think it’s a bias to be aware of that at all.I think it’s reality.And I think the author saying how GOOD it is that such young people have such distinct styles (especially in a situation where they’re friends, and putting on shows together, a scenario that might make for the likelihood of at least one of them being similar to one of the others, sharing senses of humor, etc.), is a GOOD thing.While it’s certainly not unheard of for 4 young white guys to have 4 distinct styles, there are certainly numerous shows happening across the country where any journalist wouldn’t be inaccurate to say something like “A lot of the guys on the show weren’t unique, and a lot of them were white.”Here’s the quote in question, again:“On his own, each of the dudes is funny; together, they’re hilarious, managing the remarkable trick of being four twentysomething white guys with identifiably different comedic styles.”Maybe it’s not really “managing a REMARKABLE TRICK,” but it certainly seems to be overall making a positive statement about a positive thing, that, yes, happens to have within it some less positive (yet not necessarily inaccurate) presuppositions about other comedians or aspiring comedians.I certainly don’t think it’s “stunningly dumb” or “boorish.”I would use those words more to describe the acts of a lot of twenty-something white guy comics.(And I AM a twenty-something white guy comic. It doesn’t mean I’m anti-comedy, or that I’m biased against my demographic, it just means I’m expressing my observations, the same way the author of that mostly innocuous statement in the Stranger did.)Comedy is hard.Not everyone is good at it.Some people sound like other people.Recognizing that fact isn’t stupid, is it?

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