Humor

Is it snobbery to want people smarter?

This was the first ad I saw when I walked into the subway this morning. I had such a strongly negative reaction to this ad that I’ve been contemplating the ideas of responsibility to comedy and the audience.

On the one hand, fuck Adam Sandler for making another Adam Sandler film. You were in Punch Drunk Love, motherfucker! Be an actor. A good actor, and make smart comedies. Stop pandering to the public’s propensity for inane and pointless noise. Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s good. You wouldn’t let your children eat only the things they really, really liked would you? No, you’d try (if you’re a halfway decent parent) to cultivate some taste and appreciation for good, wholesome food.

On the other hand, who am I to say what the public should get? To take the parenting analogy further, it’s really easy to sit here, a person who doesn’t have kids, and suggest what a “good parent” would do. How the fuck do I know? Maybe giving your kids what they want is the best way to go. In this analogy, kids represent the film-viewing public, which I think is pretty appropriate.

And maybe this rant also says just as much (if not more) about me as it does about the Adam Sandlerization of comedy. Maybe the problem isn’t that the public is stupid and shouldn’t be indulged but instead lead gently to a higher appreciation of comedy. Maybe the problem is that I think the public is stupid and should be lead to a higher appreciation of comedy.

I mean, shit, I wrote and performed a sketch about an app that lets you track what you’ve put in your ass. I’d like to say that I was making a comment on the overabundance of smartphones, apps, and our digital naval gazing. But maybe I just wanted to go for the cheap and easy laugh by making butt jokes. Who doesn’t love a butt joke? The butt (specifically the anus) is so taboo and rooted in infantile fascination that we giggle like children at anything that makes us contemplate it. Especially putting stuff in it. Eddie Murphy made bank with this on his early-’80s album Delirious. I wore out my Delirious tape listening to Boogie in Your Butt. I even danced to it. There was nothing funnier to me as a preadolescent budding comedy aficionado than a song about putting stuff in your butt. “Put a tree in your butt. Don’t put me in your butt.” Gold.

I was talking to a friend the other night about doing standup in comedy clubs versus standup in, I don’t know, places where there’s a refined appreciation for comedy. He had just finished a set at Caroline’s and he hadn’t gotten the laughs he wanted, which is tough. You want to entertain people. You want to make them laugh. But you really want to feel rewarded for what you’re doing. He talked about the necessity to play to the lowest common denominator at comedy clubs because you’ve got such a wide swath of the public present and you have to hit the universal notes, which apparently are racism, sex and dating, if the themes of that particular night are any guide. It would seem, in short, that you have to highlight the differences between people and groups of people because we instantly spot those differences and can home in on those jokes. Otherwise, what?, you gotta spend a lot of time getting people to think like you do about something if you want them to get the joke. Oy, what a pain in the ass. People are stupid and lazy and who wants to be a teacher for 10 minutes just to get a laugh…if you’re lucky. 

I think this is why I like comics who talk about themselves. Make fun of yourself and I’m on board. I understand my own shortcomings and insecurities and my own inability to come to peace with them, so the minute you start kvetching about how ill-equipped you are to be a human, I’m with you. Love it.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Adam Sandler. He’s an insider. He can make whatever kind of film he wants. He proves this repeatedly. So why doesn’t he do the public a favor and make a smart comedy that requires people to think about something? I don’t expect him to make Cold Souls anytime soon, but he could at least make a House Bunny or Observe and Report. Great films? No. Smarter than anything Sandler’s done? Yes.

Now, excuse me. I have to go put a whoopie cushion in my coworker’s chair.