Peddling the moronic pop psych standup theory

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on March 10th, 2008

In an interview with alt rag The LAist, Matt Belknap (creator of website ASpecialThing.com) perpetuates the trite nonsense that comics have “an above average need for attention,” which “might come from childhood neglect,” and that comics came to their skills by trying to “gain the attention of an otherwise distant parent.”

We grow weary of this.

Can we finally put this moronic, hackneyed set of hypotheses to rest? Who buys this shit but people who are predisposed to dislike comedians in the first place? Who benefits but those who wish to feel superior to standup comics (i.e., reporters, the envious, the utterly humorless, people who depend on clichés to order their world)?

It’s particularly disheartening to hear this psychobabble coming from someone who has set himself up as an expert on standup. (The reporter loves it. The reporter comes to the interview believing it. And even we have been guilty– in the dark, distant past– of saying something merely because we are sure the reporter wants to hear it. This stems not so much from a need to please, but a desire for publicity.)

But Belknap says it more than once:

I would guess that all performers of all stripes have an above-average need for attention, so that’s the first ingredient. This might come from childhood neglect…

And

A lot of people think comics must have had fucked-up childhoods. Some do, but I think that assumption is backwards: I think those comics are people who survived fucked-up childhoods by using their humor as a shield. The comics who didn’t have notably fucked-up childhoods are just people who like the feeling of making people laugh (and the attention that comes with it).

And

…a comic has either spent his whole life feeling like he needs to perform and make people laugh to get the attention he craves, or he’s gotten a taste of the highs of live performance and can’t resist chasing that feeling.

It is quite clear: Proficiency at making folks laugh is a pathology. It is somewhat akin to heroin addiction or chronic masturbation. It’s often rooted in a malformed childhood. Or it’s a palliative for a painful childhood or a failure to connect with a parent.

This fantasy is right up there with the overbearing mother/distant father formula for gayness. Haven’t you heard the news? Freud is sooo last century.

The second quote offers some clue as to why this garbage is peddled. We thoughfully boldified the money quote, and we repeat it here:

The comics who didn’t have notably fucked-up childhoods are just people who like the feeling of making people laugh (and the attention that comes with it).

If your humor doesn’t come from pain (and if your motive is purely to make people laugh), your standup has no hope of achieving the status of art. Conversely, if your humor derives from pain (and you are a tortured soul), congratuations, you are an artiste. And the corollary: If you had a happy childhood and you become a standup comic, you’re an attention whore. If you had a “fucked up childhood” and you become a comic, you deserve all the attention you can get.

Earlier in the article, Belknap flatly states that “all standup comedy is art.” But in the next sentence, he dismisses a good chunk of standup by saying that “a percentage of it is striving to be nothing more than escapist entertainment, a mindless reaffirmation of commonly held beliefs.” Just what percentage of standup is “merely escapist” or mindless Belknap doesn’t say.

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