Civilisation, and the coordinated cooperation that comes with it, has certainly made it possible for us to develop survival strategies at a much faster pace than biological evolution. However like many things such as cyanide, which becomes toxic with refinement, certain aspects of our culture have become toxic with their refinement: things including media marketing, corporate values, and the concentration of power.

The core values that are consciously and subconsciously driving our culture are: status, dominance, and control at all costs.

For a bit of fun I regularly read the Neatorama Website. Recently they republished an article that was based on a campaign begun by Commercial Alert in the 90s. This campaign had to do with the way companies were attempting to control the minds of our children in order to extract more money from the parents. Here is a portion of the open letter sent by Ralph Nader, Gary Ruskin, and a group of others in 1998 to the International Advertising Association in order to encourage the establishment of ethical guidelines.

Advertising firms use techniques that harm children and families, including:

• Convincing children that purchasing products will solve their problems and make them happy.
• Exploiting a child’s emotional weaknesses, such as his or her sense of insecurity, inferiority, need to be loved, powerlessness, and need to fit in.  Nancy Shalek, then-president of Shalek Advertising Agency, explained: “Advertising at its best is making people feel that without their product, you’re a loser.  Kids are very sensitive to that.  If you tell them to buy something, they are resistant.  But if you tell them that they’ll be a dork if they don’t, you’ve got their attention.  You open up emotional vulnerabilities and it’s very easy to do with kids because they’re the most emotionally vulnerable.”
• Fueling anger and rebelliousness among youth.  According to Rick Litman, a partner at Kid 2 Kid Research, “marketing is a unique process in which corporations learn to use youth rebellion to more effectively target a product and sell a product.”
• Manipulating children to nag their parents to buy products.  In other words, pitting children against their own parents, and causing strife within families.  As Cheryl Idell, director of strategic planning and research at Western International Media, explains “It’s not just getting kids to whine, it’s giving them a specific reason to ask for the product.”

Children are unable to defend themselves against this commercial manipulation.  They cannot understand the manipulation that your industry subjects them to.  They are not mature enough to see through what advertisers direct towards them.

What IAA and Advertising Firms Can Do for Children

Think about when that was written. It would mean that people had been observing and creating the effects of child targeted advertising for at least a decade. So the generation of comedians we are now seeing would have been influenced by a culture saturated with this child marketing. I remember in my own childhood how angry some parent groups were with Sesame Street because it deliberately used advertising formats as a way to capture the attention of children and teach them literacy and numeracy.

This generation has been taught to be insecure and that insecurity is resolved through materialism (life is short, eat dessert first). They have been taught that it’s cool to be rebellious like the kids in the sixties had been, but it’s taken out of context and equated with freedom without responsibility (silence is golden, but shouting is fun). They have been taught the need for uniforms of solidarity in a generational us against them culture (all black couture and all the latest technology). And they completely get the golden rule: those who have the gold make the rules. And how do you get that gold: status, dominance, and control.

It’s no wonder we have so many angry comedians at the moment. Anger has been portrayed as sexy. And yet mostly I’m seeing purely anti-social anger. During the Vietnam war when George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, and the Smothers Brothers were angry, they had a reason to be angry. Ongoing racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc means that when Dick Gregory, Margaret Cho, and Lily Tomlin are angry, they have reason to be angry. This generation has reason to be angry as well, but marketing has made it hard for them to properly see and take aim at their target.

The skinny-fat debate has women tearing one another to shreds. This plays right into the hands of corporations who will use the anger and insecurity to sell more products. The solution is for women to turn around and demand to be valued for the quality of their character, rather than their appearance. Men are given cool detached icons to emulate—so cool and detached that men are no longer involved with families, friends, or their community, then have severe problems with loneliness, depression, and suicide.

In fact we are seeing a massive divide and conquer campaign through marketing. So long as people distrust and wish to out-do one another, you can convince them to keep on buying your “weapons” such as makeups or 4WDs. The arms race we are holding against ourselves is bringing about the dissolution of our civilisation.

Think about how many close friends you really have. Facebook has encouraged a generation who are satisfied with “Tupperware friends”. These are friends close enough to invite to the party, distant enough to not mind selling them things. What everyone needs is at least three “lasagne friends”. These are friends who when you have no money after the rent is paid are happy to pop by with a lasagne.

In my pursuit to get laughs I’m disturbed about the times when I have been complicit in this culture. When I make self-deprecating jokes about the (small) size of my breasts: on the one hand I am revealing to other women that I have insecurities as well, on the other I am perpetuating the idea that breast size is an issue of real concern.

I’m also aware of the times when certain comedies started out as satire, but ended up being perceived as celebrations of the very things they stood against. The character of Archie Bunker in All In The Family was meant to be an unreconstructed man and a person worthy of derision. Every week he was given one-liners to characterise his narrow view of the world, such as, “I’m not racist! I’ll be the first to say it, it’s not their fault they’re colored!” People would then quote these the following week in a positive manner. The creators cancelled the show when they discovered the hero Archie had become to their audience. The Simpsons followed a similar trajectory, their lead characters originally were meant to be unsympathetic. I once worked with a child whose developmentally delayed brother was forbidden to watch The Simpsons because he would emulate Bart. He was incapable of seeing the satire. What he saw was a self-directed, empowered boy.

Addressing these issues is tricky, but it still needs to be done. Fear has brought us to this place. Fear about survival, fear of one another, fear of loneliness. Carpe diem (seize the day) has been too long interpreted as “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” Instead let us savour experience out of a respect for life. This draws out the fear and grounds us in a healthy and balanced approach to the present. You can also “seize the day” by performing one act of kindness right here and right now.

The awesome thing about live comedy is that it brings people into a social experience. The next step is activate these people into forming communities. These could simply be communities of friendship, but that’s a big step toward eliminating the fears. The following step would be to help these communities begin a dialogue, which is a thoughtful and compasionate examination of all things social, political, commercial, etc, followed by life-affirming action. Now is the time for people to learn how to think for themselves. Now is the time for people to assert for themselves that they are valuable, not because they look a certain way or own certain things, but because they care and are doing something about it.

Can you tell a joke that makes someone feel better about themselves? Start doing it. It will be the most authentically edgy thing you could do today.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

Those who have been bullied in their childhood do not always recognise that in their efforts to gain “justice”, they are merely putting the shoe on the other foot and become bullies themselves. Anyone in any sort of power who abuses that position by stripping another intellectually, emotionally, culturally, or physically of their humanity is a bully.

Someone bigger and stronger who pins someone smaller and weaker against a wall, putting them in physical distress, is a bully. Someone who holds high position within cultural mainstream, who then emotionally belittles someone who is vulnerable and not part of the mainstream, is a bully. Someone who has had benefit of an expensive education, who then mocks the sincere beliefs of those with less access to an education, is a bully. It is all right to disagree with another. Anytime someone invalidates another, we are entering into abuse.

For some reason of late comedy has been lauded when it is “dark and edgy” and “politically incorrect”. This quote from an article about the downward slide of Saturday Night Live reflects some of my concern about this material.

Disdain for “political correctness” is often positioned as a concern that some important truth is not being spoken for fear of offending someone. But that concern is nothing but smoke and mirrors. To invoke “political correctness” is really to be concerned about loss of power and privilege. It is about disappointment that some “ism” that was ingrained in our society, so much that citizens of privilege could express the bias through word and deed without fear of reprisal, has been shaken loose. Charging “political correctness” generally means this: “I am comfortable with my privilege. I don’t want to have to question it. I don’t want to have to think before I speak or act. I certainly don’t wish to inconvenience myself for the comfort of lesser people (whoever those people may be–women, people of color, people with disabilities, etc.)”
—What Tami Said: Conservatives, “political correctness” and the incredibly offensive unfunniness of “Saturday Night Live”

I highly recommend reading the entire article. I believe at least a few comedians are good-hearted enough that with a little self-awareness, they may move away from their less savoury material.

Here is another quote worth considering by art historian Kenneth Clark.

We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs
—Kenneth Clark

Our culture is currently falling to bits. We are seeing more and more world financial crises. We are also facing more and greater natural disasters brought on by our own production of carbon emissions. These situations may seem to justify a position of cynicism and disillusion, but that creates apathy and self-fulfilling prophecies.

What we need is not a natural optimism, but a hard-won optimism. An optimism that says, “I know things are hard, but I WILL make things better. I WILL do what it takes to ensure the future is bright. And I have faith that I can.” Comedy is good at this sort of message. We aren’t looking for sugar-coated aphorisms that are clearly hollow. We want a genuine realism which accepts that with a public will and responsibility, we can make things better. Mohandas Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr lived that sort of realism.

Use your power for good, people.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

One of the most important skills you can develop, if you are committed to your work, is humility.

Personal humility is not the same as a willingness to be bullied or humiliated. It’s about emotional maturity and a supple ego. Someone with an immature and bloated ego will be unable to listen to advice that might help move their work to a professional level.

As comedians humility is an absolute necessity when facing an unappreciative audience. If your routine dies and/or people are heckling you, it is much more prudent for your career to maintain a level of graciousness. The instant you get angry with your audience and tell them so, you lose your audience, and are unlikely to ever win them back.

Here are some of the characteristics of humility.

* You are willing to accept your limitations.

If you are still unsure of your microphone technique, be willing to admit this so you can receive some help. If your spelling isn’t all it should be, don’t sweat it when someone points this out on your press release, and be open to finding a friend who can do some copyediting for you.

* You are willing to accept you may be mistaken or wrong.

You turn up at a gig thirty minutes late, because you are sure the venue owner told you your set started at 9pm not 8:30pm. The owner is furious with you. Instead of defending yourself, you apologise and admit that you must have misheard the time, then make an offer of appeasement such as helping with the clean-up at the end of the night. Now, you may have heard rightly, but memory, particularly short-term memory, is a tricky thing. Better to err on the side of humility and graciousness. It improves your reputation.

* You are willing to change your mind, if something else seems more right or true.

Don’t change your mind on those things you feel are good and true. However, don’t be so attached to them that with new information, you aren’t prepared to accept something else as better reflecting reality.

When I was a child I was fully into Creationism, because that’s what my family said was real. They said scientists were out to trick us into falling from the one-true path. One of the first required university courses I took was evolutionary biology. The lecturer was a kind man who was fascinated by plants. He was genuinely respectful of my religious stance, even though he was an admitted atheist. I could have listened to my ego and not seen the beauties of nature he was revealing, because that would mean I had been wrong for many years. Alternatively, I could shift my outlook to what seemed more true, even if it felt uncomfortable for awhile. I learned to not mind uncomfortable transitions. This was made possble due to that lecturer’s respect.

* You are willing to accept that someone else, regardless of status, could be more right than you.

I have to admit that I get annoyed with the advice of know-nothing know-it-alls who seem to think they are imparting the greatest of wisdom on my art when they have spent no time whatsoever in learning and/or practising that art. Watching television sitcoms evidently gives them a license to lecture. However, if the majority of your audience is not responding to certain aspects of your routine and they are all saying the same thing, such as you need to slow down your pacing…then you should probably slow down your pacing.

* You are comfortable with allowing varying views on the truth.

This takes us back to accepting limitations. I don’t know all there is to know about life, the universe, and everything…I could be wrong. I am also aware of the times I thought I knew the truth, then changed my mind, then changed my mind again (not that I’m always changing my mind). As such, who am I to judge someone else’s view on truth? They may be more right than I am. With a little time and experience they may even change their minds as well. Life is a process, and we and our understanding are also processes.

Living with uncertainty is a frightening thing for many people. They want to know that there’s a place for everything with everything in its place. That will never happen. Laughter is one of the best ways to help people find the resilience to allow for an ambiguous universe. Comedians play with the absurdity of life all the time. Sometimes two apparently opposing views are both true: light is both a wave and a particle. Tolerance makes dialogue possible. Dialogue makes greater understanding possible.

* You are willing to accept that you are not necessarily better or worse than anyone or everyone else.

We ARE all unique, but often we want to be absolutely and incontrovertibly unique. I am THE funniest person in Australia. I am THE most miserable person on Earth. No one else even comes near to my joy or sorrow. Yes, it’s ego, but I think we all slip into “three-year-old centre of the universe” mode upon occasion and feel those ways.

Humility makes it possible for us to say, “I may not be the biggest, smallest, goodest, baddest at anything, but that’s okay. I’m all I need to be and I’m happy.” All we ever need do is our best and leave it at that without comparison. Beginning comedians can kill their own careers with self-doubt, if they don’t learn this form of humility straight-away.

* You think neither more nor less of yourself based on other people’s assessments of you.

Styles change, public opinion changes, different people like different things. You will never be able to please everyone all the time. Relying on external validation for your self-esteem is a fool’s game. When someone compliments you, you accept that compliment with good grace and say “thank you.” It is a gift that deserves respect. When someone offers you their criticism say, “thank you.” It may have been offered in good faith, and deserves respect even if you don’t agree. If it wasn’t offered in a helpful fashion, say thank you anyway. Everyone is allowed an opinion. Sometimes it will be an opinion of you. You cannot stop that from happening. Like facing a stony audience, your graciousness in deflecting a negative comment will simply improve your reputation.

Now none of these aspects of humility are easy to enact in our daily lives. This is why I call humility a skill. They are well worth cultivating as a way to lubricate our social interactions, grow, and become better comedians.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

When my brother spoke those words, I was taken aback. My first thought was, “What about green?” I’m not certain where he picked up the aphorism. Sadly, that sort of thinking is all too common in our culture and can serve to make black seem attractive. After all, it’s easier to attain than some people’s definition of white.

However, a world of kindergarten absolutes pares reality down to an apparently manageable size. We can easily point to the good guys. We can easily point to the bad guys. We know where we belong and what is expected of us. Piece of cake, right?

This poor piece of cake is only to be had if you can enforce these ideas onto the populace at large. And even then life will be messy. Holes will readily appear in the outlook. We are complex thinking, feeling, living beings and no one will find they can uphold an unrealistic and broken ideal. Life will always be a long string of exceptions. The exceptions and the holes are where we build much of our comedy.

Groups who demonise sexuality and preach abstinence are working against natural biological urges. They cannot stop people from procreating. They cannot even keep people from copulating outside their narrow realm of acceptable exceptions. All they can really do is create a system of endless guilt. Then they provide a parallel system of temporary relief through confession and/or penance, setting up a co-dependent relationship with their members.

I do not believe these groups necessarily had a Snidely Whiplash twirling his moustache and consciously devising this system. Physicality brings death. Sexuality is the origins of physicality. Denying physicality can seem logical to some, particulaly when you are in touch with the fragility of life.

Comedians, like everyone, have a hard time staring at death (not that we don’t upon occasion). But we are more than happy to find every single hole in the repressed sexuality debate. And so we should. We also have a few bigger fish to fry as well.

The people who do twirl their metaphorical moustaches are companies whose marketing and sales people are willing to use less than ethical means to ensure they turn a profit.

For instance: demonise normal to heavy body weights. Glorify a largely unattainable body shape in the media. Promote the values of indulgence and impulse buying through advertising. Sabotage people’s ability to make a considered choice about buying unhealthy foods by always placing those foods in their way. Make them feel guilty about their “lack of will-power” and sell them bogus weightloss programs. The results are people being manipulated into an unhealthy and unhappy lifestyle in order to line other people’s pockets.

Yes, we have to take responsibility for ourselves. But monied interests will do everything within their power to make that step a difficult one. Parents are not taught how to instill a strong character into their children. Many institutions teach obedience as the highest value, since thoughtfulness could lead to conscientious objection.

Doesn’t this just make you want to go to town finding sharp witty jokes that expose the system for what it is? Isn’t that better than a cheap fat joke?

I would say our highest cultural value right now is status. That status can be achieved through political power, monetary power, emotional or intellectual influence, brute force, or celebrity. Mind you, most institutions play with all forms of power.

Yes, we have a certain amount of biological and evolutionary urge to play the status game. The most fit members of a species have better access to other fit members and can thereby propagate their genes. Nature uses many methods to demonstrate fitness, from ability to build a sound nest to sporting the largest and most attractive tail.

However, we are so clever that our ability to demonstrate status goes beyond anything this planet can adequately support. Our media plays on fear and ego, both as a kind of rush and a motivational tactic. Status is seen as a place of safety: “If I have enough power and/or influence, I will be unassailable. No one will dare hurt me physically or emotionally.” This is an irrational dream, but it still sits inside us all.

So to gain status we have people playing with our black and white structures and exploiting our most basic drives, so that we are responding out of balance with reality. We need food, it’s an easy button to press over and over again. We are programmed for sex, it can be used to push our need for status and stimulation: buy the expensive red car, it’s like having sex, it will make you more important than your neighbour, and more attractive to potential partners. A need for the safety of belonging is twisted into co-dependency, so people turn themselves into products to sell to the right social groups. On and on.

All of this needs to be exposed. Ways must be found to make status less of an urgent drive. Alternatives need to be offered. John Clarke and Brian Dawe on ABC’s 7:30 Report do a fabulous job at portraying our cultural and political absurdities. The hugely popular The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report also do a great job. We are still a little shaky about offering alternatives. At least in comedy a more realistic range of human beings is represented: all body shapes, ages, genders, ethnicities, etc. The message is that it’s okay to accept yourself as you are.

I believe that our higher urges are also natural. They are what made our civilisation and many of our finest achievements possible. A certain amount of responsiblity, forward-thinking, and altruism are needed to build a school. And we have done this over and over again. Our ideas of good have made us see only black. We need just enough faith in ourselves to push past cynicism and discover that realistic step after step, we can make positive changes.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

In the arts many people want to distinguish themselves as mavericks and heroes of originality. It’s an extension of “the chosen one” mythology. Often when they hear of someone doing something similar to their own creative thoughts, they become angry or upset. They don’t understand that skill and artisty in execution are more than three quarters of any creative product. Several people could be working on precisely the same idea. The one who best communicates that idea to their audience wins. However, if they all do a superb job, usually people are thrilled at being able to extend their enjoyment. The Twilight book series didn’t suffer as a vampire story because of Buffy The Vampire Slayer‘s pre-existence, quite the reverse.

When you are just starting out in comedy you have to make some compromises on the behalf of your audience. I am not talking about compromises to artistic integrity, just being flexible enough to include your audience in a show’s creation. Absolute originality is not going to serve you. You need points of recognition to hook your audience.

You

If you are already an A-list comedian, then you are the point of recognition for your audience. Your show can be outrageously original and because people trust you to be entertaining, they will purchase tickets. Of course then you have to deliver. Reputations have been lost when in the name of originality performers forget their audience.

Associating with the Great

Associating with the great is an easy call for gaining attention. Almost too easy. I used to judge for a literary award and if a book was based on Shakespeare, it made no difference what the quality of storytelling was like, it went into the finalist list. I have to admit, this made me mad. The judges were not relying on their own considered opinion, but upon a cultural determination of greatness, which was then transferred to the authors whether or not they had earned it.

However, if a comedian puts in the work and gives us a fresh perspective on well-loved stories and personalities, I’m as keen as the next person to give their show a looksy. I have seen shows humorously covering The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Thunderbirds. I have seen hilarious impersonations of Abba, the Goons, and The Queen of England.

This material works best for both the beginner comedian and the seasoned veteran. The beginner gets a leg up using the well-worn. A seasoned veteran brings love and insight to their portrayals of creative heroes.

Subject Matter

Subject matter is a regularly used point of recognition. Make a show about football and you will have many footy fans turn up, whether or not they know anything about you. A show about dogs will certainly draw in the dog-lovers, it also will provide a commonality of experience that makes it very easy to tell certain sorts of jokes. You simply have to say the words, “stepping in poo”, with a pained look and people will burst into laughter…they’ve all done it.

Some subjects sit on the edge. Tripod could successfully perform a show about Dungeons & Dragons, because people already know them. Others using similar material will attract a small dedicated audience, but the geek appeal may only go so far.

Completely original subjects done by unknown artists probably shouldn’t open at a big comedy festival. The Melbourne Comedy Festival last year had over 300 shows. People will scan through the festival guide and bypass the unfamiliar: too much competition to even bother spending the time and money. The people who go to fringe festivals are willing to do more experimenting. If you start there and develop good word of mouth, by the end of the festival you could be enjoying a full-house. This freshly minted reputation can then be carried with you to the comedy festival. Claudia O’Doherty did this with her show Monster of the Deep: 3D and Telia Neville in While I’m Away.

Word of mouth is your most potent point of recognition. Though you can achieve it virally, you will only sustain that point if you nurture and build your reputation through regular contact with people. This can be achieved using YouTube, FaceBook, street performance, open mic nights, fringe festivals, etc.

Certainly, marketing and publicity can go a fair way in making you a recognisable commodity. Even then, it will give your posters extra mnemonic energy if your face is then associated with the well-liked and familiar. In the meantime learn to be at peace sharing in your culture’s passions, while mixing it up with your creative genius. Your time of utter originality will come.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

When scientists (and comedians) decide to stick the boot in religion, I frequently think to myself, “Amateurs!” You guys haven’t grown up with it, nor have you done any real study in this field. Their arguments are often shallow and miss their target. But I find the inverse is true as well. People of a spiritual bent will want to put the boot into the excesses of science and I will also think, “Amateurs!” Science, very broadly speaking, is not lily white.

So what to do?

My solution was to try to understand the people in dichotomies such as this, try to recognise what is worthwhile about both science and religion, and to cast a discerning eye upon those things that are less than life-affirming. I believed this could only be done fairly from a strong ethical position that embraced human values such as compassion.

Certainly, as a child I would not have put it in those terms. But I did ask myself regularly, what do I believe is true? Why do I believe it is true? And did my best to clear away all the emotional entanglement, which is a big ask at any age. It’s harder still when you are subject to the people with whom you may find yourself disagreeing, and could lose their physical and emotional support. This sounds a little over-wrought to people in Australia. In the US it is sadly all too common.

I can’t say I was perfect at it. I remember the fights. More than twenty years later I’m still living with the consequences of one such fight that brought about an estrangement between myself and my family. I do what I can to build bridges, but some bridges will never be made.

The important question that highlights why these fights occur is, how does a person value themselves? Do you value yourself because you are part of a particular group such as a country, political party, or football team? Do you value yourself because you have so much education or wealth? Do you value yourself because you are attractive or popular? Do you value yourself because you feel you are right, certainly more right than anyone else? Do you value yourself because you do your best to be a kind, respectful, and caring person?

I threw my lot in with the last one. And yes, I sometimes think I’m better than other people because of it. Then I think, I can’t do that! How respectful is that? Then I think, how bad can one-upmanship in kindness be. I don’t think we can ever get completely away from our egos, but we can at least point them in healthier directions.

Somehow in the discourse amongst institutions scientific, academic, political, religious, etc the discussion of positive values has either been dropped due to cynicism or hijacked in order to push an agenda (hence the cynicism). The problem is: they are important, hugely important in an over-populated world where we have to start talking and listening for our very survival. It’s positively suicidal that people in the scientific community are unable to speak with the vast majority of people because they participate in a religion.

Here are a list of some of my favourite values:

Even as a child I wanted to make a difference in the world. I thought long and hard about it and decided I could do the most to help improve the world by going into the arts. That was a place where I could freely express these values and potentially inspire people to take them up as their own.

The more people take up the value of peace, the more likely they are to do the things that will create peace. The more people embrace the value of caring for our environment, the more likely politicians will take up that value as a way to get into power. I’ve seen this happen in Seattle, where both left and right espouse environmental positions as the only way to gain votes.

Comedians have a larger audience than most artists and are listened to more carefully (Literally not metaphorically, how else are you going to catch the punchline? Musicians have the problem of people being unable to hear their lyrics). We have a fair amount of untainted power. We excel at pointing out absurdities in people’s logic. We are also in a fabulous position to tell stories that illustrate positive values in an accessible manner. One of my favourites is a story told by Bart Freebairn about his grandfather saving his grandmother from embarassment by claiming her farts. It’s funny and it illustrates the true nature of kindness and love.

I felt it important to write this article, because I thought I needed to shed light on where I’m coming from. I also hope it will inspire other comedians to go ahead and talk a little more about those things that might feel “twee” like joy, but hey isn’t the world more fun to live in with it?

Peace and kindess,

Katherine

Not long ago I was out flying my kite. It’s a delta wing that flies well even in low wind. I find kite-flying a great way to get outside and enjoy the weather. More than that, the simple enjoyment of playing with the wind helps me to clear my mind and relax. I did a lot of kite-flying when I was at university.

On this particular day a friendly gentleman wandered up and mentioned he remembered kite-flying as a kid, and complimented me on having a healthy “inner child”. I tossed back my usual joke, “Inner? My child is all outer.” However, inside I felt annoyed.

Why. Why did he see flying a kite as a preoccupation of childhood?

Kites were used in China around 2800 years ago for measuring distances, testing the wind, lifting men, signalling, and communication for military operations. The understanding of aerodynamics that came with kite-flying made the first functioning airplanes possible. When I was a child men were still messing about with kites in the same way that some men still go fishing.

Our culture has been creating a larger and larger divide between what is considered appropriate for adults and what for children. And I could say, isn’t it a shame what we are losing as adults, but children are losing too.

Marketers know that it is easy to sell to people’s egos. A child’s ego is directed toward wanting to be more like adults or at least the older kids. At a certain age, if something is seen as for “little kids”, children will want to disassociate themselves from it and are unlikely to ever return to that something as they get older. Our culture over-values status, dominance, and power: and youth is seen as a stage of powerlessness.

This divide has a strong impact on comedy. Humour is all about play, and play is too often seen as the domain of children.

Adult Humour
blue language, sex, drugs, politics, satire, cynicism, violence

To be taken “seriously” some comedians will go straight for the material that would give them an “M” to “R” rating on TV. This sort of comedy appeals to crowds who might feel uncomfortable and vulnerable enjoying the childlike.

I’m a great fan of good political humour. Good satire is always fun. I have no problem with blue language used for emphasis or reality, or played with intelligently. Sex jokes can be told to emphasise our humanity, and not just to demean certain portions of the population. And I do not feel insulted or threatened by a cheerful pun. The range of my enjoyment goes beyond only that which is dark.

However, I have sat in venues where if you came on stage with a happy smile and a light quip, you would be met with stony silence. Sadly, many of these are the pubs where open mic nights are available.

It’s not a problem that such humour and such venues exist. This may be how some people need to blow off steam. It is a problem when other venues do not exist to promote and develop lighter humour and encourage people to see it as part of the spectrum of adult comedy.

Childish Humour
farts, burps, gurgling tummy, poop, piddle, vomiting, gorging, petty vengence

I enjoy characters such as Mr Bean or Frank Woodley. Certainly Frank and Mr Bean can have their childlike moments, but much of their humour derives from childishness.

In one performance Colin Lane, Frank’s comic partner, bellows, “Don’t you touch me!” and aggressively points his finger at Frank. Frank decides to mock Colin’s pronouncement by putting his mouth over Colin’s finger. The absurdity and humour comes from the fact that this is an adult behaving in a manner we would expect from a twelve year old, not a man in his thirties.

Mr Bean has an adventure at the swimming pool, which starts with his attraction to elephant shaped water slides. He climbs onto the slide and before he can launch into the pool, the pool supervisor blows his whistle and warns Mr Bean off. Because Mr Bean sat on the slide while his trunks were still dry, when he climbs off we see a round wet patch on his bottom that looks like he piddled.

Both of these characters use the tropes of childhood to develop their comedy. Nevertheless, their material is aimed at both young and old, and their television shows first aired to a mixed audience. In re-runs their shows were then marketed to children. Yet, if you go back over the jokes, many of them were squarely directed at the adults. Shows such as The Muppet Show, The Simpsons, and Southpark have met the same fate.

Interestingly, childish humour becomes adult humour when taken to the extreme. A large man able to fart so loudly and offensively he is able to clear the room proves that, though he is unable to control his bodily functions, he can do so in a way no child could achieve.

Childlike Humour
whimsical, imaginative, colourful, optimistic, clever, nonsensical

This is humour that gets classified as belonging to children. I would say it belongs to all of us and deserves respect. Some of the most popular television shows and television personalities dip heavily into this well.

I suspect neoteny has something to do with this humour.

Neoteny is the retention of childlike traits by adults. We see this in dogs who no longer seem to look or behave like their wolf ancestors, except if you examine the characteristics of wolf cubs. The neoteny of dogs was crucial to forming an evolutionarily successful relationship with human beings. They needed to have reduced aggression and a greater capacity to bond with non-wolf creatures.

Neoteny was also crucial to our own evolution. The child stage of most mammals is a time of playful practise of skills, intense learning, and an ability to peacefully co-habit with brothers and sisters. Once a mammal has learned all it needs to survive, it may lose these characteristics to focus solely on feeding, reproduction, and survival. In adulthood no longer can a mammal rely on a parent to protect them and give them the space to retain these characteristics. Yet, since our species selected for intelligence and community as its means of survival, we needed to retain the childlike abilities to learn and peacefully interact with one another.

When we laugh and play, when we cheerfully plug away at problems until we have solved them, we are celebrating what made us successful as humans…neoteny.

It is only now with the sheer volume of humanity that people have been able to rely on the technical, medical, artistic, etc creativity of a few and shut down important childlike abilities. People seeking power may indulge in this atavism, not realising that they are also reducing our ability to survive.

Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock was aimed at children. It also focussed on teaching children how to use play as a means to finding solutions to conflict and endangerment. These were meant to be skills they could carry with them into adulthood. Adults used a computer game called Foldit to solve a molecular puzzle that could lead to a cure for AIDS. One of Albert Einstein’s most famous quotes is, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world.”

We need to create a world where it is safe to be ourselves without having to prove our importance. That’s from where the child/adult divide begins. When we can laugh long and loud with anyone of any age, when we can laugh with a sense of freedom and joy, we will have achieved a world of peace. Comedians you have a very important role in all of this. Go cuddle a teddy bear on stage with pride.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

The problem with the above quote is that comedians are leaving the defining of comedy to academics. Academics often have a narrow sense of humour. It’s kind of like having someone who has never been near a child, but has a PhD in education, tell a teacher how to manage a room full of seven year olds. From secondhand knowledge they might have one or two useful ideas, but really they are more likely to stir up kidageddon.

What we want are people within our own field defining and redefining comedy. And not leaving it to others alone. We need people who take the time to be self-reflective and have something useful to offer to our next generation of comedians. Their answers may be different, they may even conflict, but they should be grist for the mill.

My Definition

What is comedy and what makes something funny are in fact two different things. The one is about the material, the other is about the delivery. You could be reading from a book of jokes, but if you don’t know how to communicate those jokes in a funny way…no laughs. So understand that a good definition of comedy will help you to create the seed of humour, but you will have to develop an extra set of skills for performance.

So here’s my definition:

Comedy is a humorous deviation from the normal and ordinary in human affairs into the abnormal and extraordinary, provided the consequences of this deviation are ultimately minor.

To understand how this works I have a graph in pretty colours.

Normal

We mostly live within the range of normal and ordinary. This is the baseline for everything else in comedy.

In fact many normal experiences pass without conscious note. So upon occasion when someone notices certain normal experiences, those experiences may feel abnormal. In fact it’s our awareness of them and willingness to speak of them that’s extraordinary and becomes a point of comedy. People don’t commonly speak about poop, it’s mundane and socially taboo, so doing so in detail can be funny.

Normal also becomes funny when someone’s perception of it is abnormal. Accidentally spilling spaghetti sauce on a new shirt is rather every day. Someone seeing it as a major disaster, because it might ruin their chances with a potential partner, is comedy.

Social Norms

I probably should have illustrated social norms as a much finer line, but then I would have no room for the words “social norms”.

This is aspirational normality: everyone is thin, young, has pects, owns two cars, has a two storey house, 2.5 children, is straight, goes to church, and votes “more for me, less for them”. If they could achieve the social norm, people feel they could achieve social safety, acceptance, and happiness. The fact of the matter is, hardly anyone ever feels like they have achieved or can achieve this norm. This is from where the marketing bonanza blossoms. Marketers love creating unattainable social norms in order to play on your insecurity and sell you bogus solutions. The only way out of this commercial nightmare is to learn how to accept yourself and accept the diversity of others.

Comedy plays a lot with the divergence between actual normality and social norms. The two main types of comedy found here deal either with extraordinary attempts to reconcile normal with social norms or the deliberate transgression of social norms.

The TV show Miranda deals with an extraordinary woman who is unusually tall, owns a shop, and sells joke paraphernalia. None of these are bad things, but they put the character of Miranda squarely outside social norms. Her best friend Stevie, who manages the shop, represents the things Miranda feels she would like to be: pretty, petite, competent, and attractive to men. Her attempts at correcting her perceived flaws fuels much of the comedy.

George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” routine makes explicit the absurdity of fearing and legislating against certain language. His actual use of those words transgresses against the social norm of using only “polite” expressions. Carlin is transgressing in order to change this social norm toward one more respectful of genuine free speech. Others have used blue material in order to express rage and to assert belonging to a particular class or group of people. The social norm as represented by the media is staunchly upper middle class. Liberally using the Anglo Saxon instead of Norman words such as “defecation” and “copulation” can mark someone as part of the conquered and working classes.

Material playing with social norms exaggerates those norms in order to make clear what’s problematic.

The Abnormal & Extraordinary

Most comedy grounds itself in the normal and social norms as a sort of trampoline from which it leaps into the extraordinary. But this is not entirely necessary. The Young Ones, Mighty Boosh, and most animated features start within an absurd and surreal world that looks back at mundanity as the unusual state. We find it funny when an abnormal creature such as a dragon sits up and takes a spot of tea with milk and sugar. Being a dragon isn’t funny, drinking tea is.

The abnormal and extraordinary goes from something as simple as misspelling words on a cake to popping popcorn using the laser from a military aircraft. The extremity of the abnormality does not in fact make the comedy funnier, just different. Levels of exaggeration simply indicate varying types of comedy. Mrs Doubtfire has only one point of absurdity, and that’s Robin Williams dressing up as an older woman. In Shrek the whole world is absurd. One of the endearing things about the original Star Wars film was its subtle sense of humour. Though, Hollywood “experts” on comedy will push you to go for the big yucks.

Conclusion

I have seen such definitions as “comedy is truth and pain” floating about. This makes comedy sound profound and macho, which is appealing to some people’s egos, but it doesn’t help when you are sitting in front of your computer trying to write material. Comedy is not truth. Sadly, it has been used too often to reinforce toxic social norms and humiliate the vulnerable in our society. However, comedy can effectively be used to communicate truth and get people to listen. Comedy is not pain, it only feels that way when you’re struggling with writer’s block. However, comedy can alleviate pain by lighting up an otherwise dark day.

I hope you find my definition a good functional basis for understanding and developing your own comedy. Perhaps in a later post I will find a funny way to put it. In the meantime live, learn, and laugh.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

I taught storytelling for computer game design at two different universities for nearly a decade. In that time I watched one university in particular go from being interested in intellectual inquiry, to promoting any class for which students would be willing to part with their money.

You may ask, what does this have to do with comedy? Well everything, if you start parting with money in order to learn how to better write and perform comedy.

Comedians and writers are not in a widely lucrative industry. Years can fly by while you are struggling to become successful. You want to learn from people with real knowledge. You want people who can help establish you in your chosen industry. Anything less and they are unjustly running off with your limited resources.

Right now the media industry is rife with “how to get rich quick” motivational speakers, who will teach you how to break into film, television, and computer games for a fee. So how do you tell the snake oil salespeople from people with real information?

What experience do they have?

Find out what they have done in the past. Have they succeeded in the field into which you wish to enter? Have they performed to rave reviews in Edinburgh, have they had a television show produced, did their movie garner awards at film festivals? People with experience at least have anecdotal insights. Now what worked for them may or may not work for you, but it’s a step up from people speaking with no experience.

I will offer you a couple of caveats. Just because someone has found a way to succeed, does not mean they know how to effectively communicate that knowledge. They may be a terrible teacher with no self-reflective understanding of their own process. If you are feeling worshipful of their artistic achievements, you may be tempted to take all they say as given. Beware of any instructor in the arts who makes absolute statements. Such statements shore up their position as “the expert”, but are not respectful of artistic experimentation and growth. Creative advice should be descriptive not proscriptive.

How successful are their students?

You could be in a class taught by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, and Michel Gondry. However, if not a single one of them produces a student who is capable of succeeding through genuine merit, then it is a waste of time for anything more than getting an autograph. Upon occasion you get instructors who may not have a stellar resume of their own creative success. Yet, a number of their students have gone on to be published, produced, and/or win awards. Don’t be blinded by the light, find the people who get results.

Who recommends them?

Are they being recommended by former students who have not yet made a name for themselves? This shows they are great at motivational speaking, but not necessarily great at getting you a job. Are they being recommended by people famous in their industries who have never taken their class? This shows they have friends in high places, but not that they are able to impart knowledge.

Are they teaching through a respected institution or are they a touring show renting out facilities for their course? This is a little tougher because many institutions are less deserving of our respect than they used to be. Also, a good snake oil seller may equally fool a festival, university, or special event. I have seen this far too many times when it comes to new media. Someone starts selling how to make money as a film producer using smartphones, and since the festival organisers want to learn more, but know nothing of the field, they are bamboozled into paying someone to pass on useless information.

So they pass all the tests.

Remember that no one teacher will have all your answers. They can’t. Each artist’s journey is their own. Each artist’s process is their own. It is important that you go into your class knowing this.

Hopefully, your teacher WILL say things you don’t agree with. This means you are thinking for yourself. You are developing your personal process. Nevertheless, it’s worthwhile asking questions rather than arguing with your instructor. Some of the stuff you will disagree with, but some of the stuff could be priceless in helping you to become the best creator you can be. This is why it’s worthwhile learning from a variety of teachers. Pick and choose what they have to offer that’s useful to you and don’t worry too much about the rest. Well, I say that, then get extremely annoyed when someone trots out archetypes. But generally I have found this to be true.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

I have spoken about this before, but I wanted to say this again in quotable form in order to update people’s ideas about comedy.

Pain is a fertile subject for comedy because we all experience pain. Vengeance is a fertile subject for comedy because we all experience anger and frustration with some people and situations. However…

When a child falls down, looks startled for a moment, then runs off laughing—that’s comedy.

When a child falls down, breaks its spine, and must live in a wheelchair for the rest of its life—that’s tragedy.

It’s only comedy when the consequences are trivial and/or temporary.

These are important distinctions. One helps people to release a little steam, the other encourages a meanness of spirit that is wholly unnecessary. Think Wile E. Coyote who can be standing there, fur in tatters, dark burn marks, and swaying in pain, then only moments later he’s recovered and making his next plan of attack on the Road Runner.

Yes, the line between acceptable and unacceptable portrayals of pain does change as we grow and become more thoughtful and respectful people, but that’s as it should be. I am more than happy to live in a world where, as Dr Seuss puts it, we all “eat rainbows and poop butterflies.”

Peace and kindness,

Katherine