Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Comedy
The comedy sketch that we watched got me thinking about how identity is a performance. I think a lot of classes have hinted at this idea, but I've never thought so concretely about it. Each aspect of his life was played out in a way that was heartbreakingly funny. Some things were questionable on whether or not it was appropriate to laugh at his jokes. At the same time, his jokes were about himself. He made it okay for him to laugh...but was it also making it okay for the audience to laugh at him? Obviously the crack pipe is not funny, but the portrayal of the pipe was amusing to the audience members. He was poking fun at serious matters, wheninstead, he could have been somber and real. I know that a lot of people do this in real life situations as less obvious performances. We pretend that everything is funny, that our mood is light, when sometimes all we want to do is run away.
3 comments:
I mean, isn't it just like the canned response of "I'm fine" whenever someone asks about your well-being? Some choose to stay silent and others choose to present their problems, but everyone has to be sure that their audience isn't made uncomfortable. It was like we were discussing in class... Our audiences, the people interacting with us, take our actions and make it part of their lives, part of their performances. So when we take an action or make a statement, we have to consider how it may be received by our audience. As a comedian, Pryor's profession is doing just that, but doesn't everyone do that to some degree in their day-to-day interactions?
Deep. Sam, I think that the last sentence pretty much explains it all. It's all a part of how people handle things. People handle things in different ways, all performance like. Another example is the song by Green Day called, "Wake Me Up When September Ends". The song is about the lead singer's father passing away. He could have handled it many different ways, but he (and his band) made a rather enjoyable song.
I have not seen the comedy sketch that you are talking about since I just enrolled in this class over the weekend, but, Heather, I think it is interesting that you mention the idea of verbal stroking. It is something that I have always been fascinated with, especially who we are willing to truly answer the question of "How are you?" to, and who we are not, but I never thought of something that simple through a performance lens.
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