Modified On October 24, 2007
We were on our way to Columbus when we stopped briefly in Washington, PA. The Female Half ventured into a Famous Footwear to peruse the shoes while the Male Half searched the nearby Walmart for tech deals.
While the Female Half is among the racks of shoes, she happens to hear the last sentence-and-a-half of a conversation between two male employees– we paraphrase slightly:
…he usta be funny but now he’s just a cranky old man like me… There’s no good standup comedy any more.
We’ll repeat that: “There’s no good standup comedy any more.”
Over the past eight years, we’ve developed a reputation for being a bit sensitive– perhaps overly so– when it comes to popular attitudes toward standup comedy and standup comics. Some folks come dangerously close to calling us paranoid.
But here we were, in a town of 15,000 people, 25 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, PA, and we hear the aforementioned snippet of conversation. “What are the odds?!” asks the Female Half, her voice simultaneously wondrous and weary.
Indeed! What are the odds? Or… is standup comedy the topic of conversation a lot more frequently than even we realize? Does it mean a lot more to regular people than we can even know?
To be sure, it’s disturbing that one of the few discussions about comedy we’ve stumbled across was a negative one. We have a friend who, when she mentions to friends that she has two friends (us!) who are standup comics, will get this response every time: “Standup comics aren’t funny.” We’re told that it’s delivered in a dismissive tone and with a certainty that’s startling.
Of course, being good amateur social scientists, the first question we must ask is, “Is it true?” Of course, it’s not.
But, then we must ask: Just where are people getting this notion? We contend that there not getting it through personal observation, through firsthand experience. They’re inheriting this attitude, this myth, via the media.
And this has been going on for approximately 20 years. Up until the late 80’s/early 90’s or so, comedians were considered seriously. Their performances and their art and craft were analyzed and appreciated with some thought, some nuance. Then, when comedy exploded, the default opinion was that comedy sucked– all of it– and that comedians, as a rule, were to be regarded with suspicion or outright hostility.
And yesterday we have the result of that two-decade drumbeat.
What to do? Well, starting an online magazine about standup comedy and building up the “circulation” to 65,000 monthly readers is a start. But, if you’re going to fight the big fight, you might as well fight the small ones, too. The Male Half dug out a business card from the valise and sprinted, in the rain, to the Famous Footwear. He handed it over (with a smile!) and told the F.F. guy that there’s plenty of good standup out there! (And we also told him that he should check us out at the Pittsburgh Funny Bone the first weekend in December.)
We’re not upset about this on a personal level. We long ago stopped taking this kind of thing personally. Our outrage is very practical. This kind of prevailing attitude affects our livelihood and the overall health of the business.