Friday, January 30, 2009
Journal Entry 4
After these first couple weeks of Rhetoric and humor I came to realize an ongoing similarity between all comics, whether fictional or not. All humorous figures seem to take on a persona or character that makes them stand out from the norm of other human beings. Whether it be Ben Franklin's codename Silence Doogood, or the transvestite character of Eddy Izzard, they tend to create another person entirely, in their acts of readings, to distance themselves personally from the audience. Because comics are considered entertainers, they have to find a way to separate themselves form the biased views of society that may judge who they are by what they say or think is funny. I guess my puzzle is how or when do they know to turn their created character off. I feel like its not fair to some of these comics because outside of their job they are like everyone else, but since everyone wants to only see the funny witty created character, they must, for fear of the cricket-noise audience. And I'm not sure if this is correct , but I have heard that many comics are in face manic depressive and have personality complexes. Although this is not credible evidence in the least, it is important to note how challenging the life of a comic to stay edgy and funny can really be
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Personae always seem threatening to me; when do you know where the line ends and how do you determine the "real" you? At the same time, and perhaps even more frightening, I think we all use them everyday. We put on different versions of ourselves for the different roles in our lives. I can see how this could be particularly draining for comics. I wonder if Dave Chappelle's alleged "breakdown" has any connection to this? I certainly think he created an extreme persona that would be hard to maintain.
ReplyDeleteTo have to be funny for a living is probably one of the hardest jobs anyone could ever undertake. A well developed persona is probably the only way to cope with such pressure, because if your act bombs, then it was the persona, not you as a person, who failed.
ReplyDeleteYour writing pointed out something that I think is the main reason for an alter-ego: that all-important distance between the entertainer and audience. It's all about protecting the author, and probably why pen-names were created. There needs to be space between the real person and the material, because honestly, the general public sees it all as one-in-the-same.
In an 1871 letter, Mark Twain--who had just had a dear friend of his wife's die in his home, whose wife had suffered a grave illness, and borne a son who died at age 18 months--wrote that he was hard pressed to provide the humorous sketches that people expected of him. Comics are always "on" for better or worse. Perhaps that's why the older they get the more biting their satire becomes...
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