Planet Funny

How Comedy Took Over Our Culture

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Some personal history, sorry: I've been a Jeopardy! fan (roughly) forever. When Ken Jennings made his historic run of wins in 2004, I became a Jennings fan. I read his on-again-off-again blog. (Currently off: last post from 2018.) I bought and read his books Brainiac and Maphead; the latter I even got him to sign when he appeared at the University of Southern Maine up in Gorham. ("To Paul! Who is Ken Jennings?" on the title page.)

And then he revealed himself to be kind of a jerk. (More here.) Well, darn, life's too short. I dumped Ken like a [insert cliché here]. He continued to be rich and famous, while I wallowed in obscurity and merely modest wealth.

And then he showed up on Jeopardy! again, hosting. And managed to be charming and witty, again.

Am I gonna stop watching Jeopardy!? No.

And… Sigh. OK, I won't buy your books any more, Ken. But I'll check this one out of the library, because that won't throw any extra shekels your way. (My current stance on boycotting flawed celebrities is described here, if you care.)

So: This book is a mixed bag. Ken has done his homework on comedy. First, like most of us, as a consumer of cartoons, sitcoms, movies, and print media like Mad magazine. But he's also performed due diligence in tracking down what deep thinkers had to say: Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Herbie Spencer,… Neil Postman's classic/prescient observations in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985!) are cited. Ken notes the increasing meta-ization of comedy, jokesters joking about jokes. And he (usually) manages to sprinkle in humor, both in examples and his own observations. Thank goodness: a book about comedy that can make you laugh.

There's an entire chapter on the thorny concept of "irony". Did you know it's from the Greek eiron? Which refers to… never mind. I count at least 16 times I've used "Is that irony? I can never tell" on this blog. Although Ken taught me more about the concept, I'm pretty sure I'm as weak as ever about identifying it; Ken seems less than sure himself.

The book gets my eyes rolling when it comes to politics, as dreaded, but expected. Ken's worshipful of comedy that advances progressive/left causes. He's (rightly) scornful of "comedy" that relies on nasty racism or misogyny. But (page 256) we get stuff like:

There is abundant precedent for world leaders who, like Trump and Kim Jong-Un, took jokes about their government seriously. The Nazis made joking about the Reich a capital crime…

Yep, Argumentum Ad Hitlerum and Argumentum Ad Commieum within a few dozen words. As far as comedy that pricks left/liberal balloons, it's a big blind spot for this book. And, even though the book is from 2018, I would have expected more on cancel culture. Chris Rock said he stopped performing on college campuses back in 2014. Not worth a mention? Nope, another blind spot.

(I realize this post will almost certainly doom my chances of ever being on Jeopardy!.)


Last Modified 2024-01-16 3:51 PM EDT