From Real Detroit
Stella's Michael Ian Black + Michael Showalter
The State Of Comedy
Comedy
is no longer comedy. Comedy is now the art of the anti-delivery, the
telling of the pseudo-joke tangled within an awkward silence as we wait
for the punch line. But the punch line no longer arrives with an
off-tempo comedic styling, rather it doesn't arrive at all. Humor is
not delivered as straightforward as it used to be, but twice as
observational as ever, leaving the audience to examine themselves
instead of laughing at the distant yet relative blunders of others.
Half the time, we probably “just won’t get it,” but this whole
phenomenon of letting the awkward realities of life speak for
themselves instead of packaging them inside a meat-and-potatoes joke is
so mainstream and common that comedians who still play within the
envelope are considered a bit boring and left to wallow under the
radar. While Dane Cook’s superhuman stage presence coupled with point A
to point B in-depth inspections of blue humor, clumsy romance and
sexual encounters has put him at the top of his craft, comedians like
Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black are so deadpan and heavily
rooted in uncomfortable pragmatism that we’re left to wonder where and
when the joke started and if it ever ended. It’s Andy Kaufman rising
from the grave. And while the average observer might not be able to
catch it, there is still an ounce of practical performance left within
Stella’s stage show (and ill-fated Comedy Central series of the same
name that starred Black, Showalter and third member, David Wain) that
occasionally helps the ill at ease become embarrassingly relatable and
comically memorable.
“One of the things about Stella that was
hard for an audience to get was the layer of reality hanging over that
show that people didn’t understand,” explains Showalter, as he gets
ready to treat his friends and family to a massive Thanksgiving dinner
before heading out on tour with Wain and Black. "A lot of the time, the
joke in Stella was that we were doing the joke at all. Mainly because
of the Internet, comedy is now somewhat parallel to the music industry
in that you have your mainstream artists, or comedians, who have a mass
appeal, and then you have a million shades in between it. Those
millions of shades used to not be as accessible to everybody, but now
they are. There is always going to be a huge appetite for Sinbad, but
there is a parallel that they want the same thing in comedy as they do
in indie music … something a bit harder to figure out. Newer comedians
are experimenting with the idea that there are other ways to be funny
than just telling jokes and hitting the punch lines.”
“Any sort
of artistic movement in any genre is largely fueled by a reaction,”
explains Black who, after conducting what would ultimately serve as a
preliminary interview, finally ditched his shtick to talk about the
changing of the guard in the comedy world. “When I started performing
comedy, the primary comedic style — sometimes exclusive comedic style —
was the Jerry Seinfeld school, where you were making cool observational
humor about the stupidity of every day life … sports jacket, sleeves
rolled up, basic cable comedy. [Anti-comedy] was a reaction to all of
that.”
This was ’88, and all three members of soon-to-be
comedy trio Stella were freshmen at New York University, hungry to
pursue improv and sketch comedy. While Black only recalls being
“17-years-old and not knowing anything,” Showalter remembers the three
of them being extremely “interested in live performance” and exploring
new parameters of comedy. But Showalter and Black do agree on one thing
— Wain was kind of a prick. “He was a cock to everybody,” says Black,
“because he believed himself to be in a superior sketch group. Plus, he
was a sophomore while we were freshmen so he lorded his own greatness
over us. But, of course, he ended up begging to be in our sketch group.”
Both
before and after Stella came to fruition, the trio would collectively
and separately pursue the entertainment industry with astonishing
success. Showalter’s biggest claim to fame remains the cult classic
Wet, Hot American Summer while Black is best known as a talking head on
various VH1 series (as well as writer of Run, Fat Boy, Run and most
recently a children’s book). Wain has yet to stop bragging about the
success of Role Models, a movie that he both directed and co-wrote.
While
their pursuits outside of Stella remain commercially viable, the comedy
troupe stands as a testament to the sort of comedy that wins the
popular vote today — crossing humor with awkward reality to a point
where no one is quite sure when the joke begins and ends. This leaves
the audience to wonder — where does the reality for Showalter and Black
begin and end? How much of themselves are they presenting on stage, and
how much of their public persona is an illusion?
“I’ve always
been interested in … the separation between a performer as they
presented themselves in public and how they are in private, and the
mythology they created around those personas," says Black. "There’s
fact and there’s fiction, and I don’t generally reveal what’s what.”
While Stella’s performance is a prime example of artistic fluidity,
Showalter has a wildly different perspective on the matter. “I just
like to be myself,” explains Showalter who, throughout the interview,
has expressed excitement for how full circle his career has become — he
currently teaches screenwriting at New York University’s Graduate Film
School. “I find that I’m more interested in what’s true. In my sense of
humor and the work that I do, I’m trying to establish a thin line
between my character and who I really am.”
“I’ve never watched a
performance,” adds Black, “and thought to myself that I was seeing the
totality of a human being. I don’t know what obligation a stand-up
comic has to show the entirety of their personality with the audience.
Certainly someone like Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t. He’s essentially a blank
slate and, consequentially, I don’t find him that interesting.” RDW
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