My first thought-best thought after reading Comedy Book following Doppelganger and The Perfection Trap: it was not as good as either, but offered the most enjoyable reading experience of the three. Should Fox consider that statement, query whether le plaisir du texte is greater than sturm und drang. I am likely using these pretentious-sounding phrases incorrectly. The world may be broken, but comedy is flourishing.
What can we take from a book? A different way of seeing and understanding the world, maybe. All three of these books made me think, but this one felt most familiar. All of these books are non-fiction, and all of the authors have a very urgent point they are trying to make.
Actually, I read Sure, I'll Join Your Cult more recently than The Perfection Trap, but yeah they are all non-fiction. However, Maria Bamford did not have a thesis supported by evidence marshalled from primary and secondary sources, like these other three (other than her own experience, examining the nature of cults and cult-like behavior). Doppelganger and The Perfection Trap also discussed cults of various guises, as does Comedy Book. All four of these books are connected. This was more amusing and entertaining and enjoyable than Perfection or Doppelganger, but in the Fox v. Bamford match-up, I am sure both would concede to the other. The primary connecting tissue between all four is one word: compassion.
A year ago, I was taking a stand-up comedy class on Zoom. There was no required text. Sometimes our instructor would send us clips from YouTube, and hold up certain comedians as masters of the craft of joke-writing and joke-telling. Fox has written a book that could function as a class on stand-up, or serve as a key text in such a creatively-centered course. Bird by Bird is to creative writing classes as Comedy Book should be to stand-up comedy classes. Of course, there are far more of the former than the latter, but if this book is any indication, we can expect the latter to grow (and perhaps expect the former to fade accordingly with attention spans).
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The very urgent point that Fox wants to make here is that comedy, like Rodney Dangerfield, doesn't get any respect [as an art form]. The first place my mind jumps is to Annie Hall. This is still the only Comedy to win Best Picture (Birdman and Everything Everywhere All at Once both have their share of comedic elements, but neither fit snugly into the genre.) Many people say comedic acting is much harder than dramatic acting. Fox makes the point that Annie Hall (along with M*A*S*H, Tootsie, and The Graduate) are "great, well-made comedic films, but they aren't laugh riots." (56) They aren't "hard comedies."
From there the discussion shifts to the filmography of Adam Sandler, and it's not exactly Fox's point that Sandler's "lowbrow" or "gross-out" comedies deserve more critical acclaim--rather, intent matters, and Sandler knows audiences connect with this type of humor that has become his calling card. Even as he does more serious roles for other auteurs, he cannot be considered an auteur himself, because he is not P.T. Anderson, the Safdie Brothers or Noah Baumbach. I believe that Fox means to push against this notion--that we can and should consider Adam Sandler an auteur in his own right, even if the films are admittedly execrable.
He drives this point home by discussing what some consider Sandler's worst movie, Jack and Jill. I had heard enough about this movie that I wanted to watch it, and I got about halfway or two-thirds through it before growing bored and disinterested. That said it is really absurd and I did laugh a fair amount earlier on. (This may have been after the Grown-Ups 3 script was circulated, and I still believe this would make an incredible movie.) Fox and I are probably pretty close in age and so I think Billy Madison holds a special place in both of our hearts (to my mind, actually a good film and borderline-classic "hard comedy"), but it feels like this bothers him a little too much, that critics feel bad about movies that rely on poop jokes.
But later, he mentions how Blended provided him with "a profound personal realization about the sacrifices my own parents made blending my family," "not in spite of some of the dumbest jokes of Sandler's career, but, in my opinion, because of them, as they told the overthinking part of my brain to take ninety minutes off, so I could feel something." (66) He then quotes Ernest Becker from The Denial of Death for the second time (first time: "[Man is] a god who shits.") to reference Otto Rank, a colleague of Freud's that worked with Henry Miller and Anais Nin who believed that the only cure for neurosis was the "need for legitimate foolishness." (66)
The point is fairly made. Even the films appealing to lowest-common-denominator "lowbrow" audiences present a value proposition beyond their bankability. Sandler has a deal with Netflix that gave him a ton of money and creative control and he chooses to make these rather silly movies, and some people seem to have a problem with that, and Fox thinks such critics are missing the point. Sandler is living the dream, and Fox gets it, and he deserves it after paying his dues, and there's nothing wrong with watching movies that don't necessarily make us think (though not all of us think they're really that funny, either).
*
Early on in the book, Fox makes his point, and the rest of it reads something like a very long rant about comedy, with some occasional flourishes bordering on profundity. The book references many comedians while examining particular facets of comedy. To perhaps better structure this review:
Jerry Seinfeld
Chris Rock (on "bombing")
Bernie Mac
Janeane Garafalo
Adam Sandler
The Simpsons
Gilbert Gottfried (on jokes that are "too soon")
SNL (post 9/11, and generally)
Jon Stewart (and other outgrowths of The Daily Show)
Bert Kreischer
Louis C.K.
Maria Bamford
Margaret Cho
Tig Notaro
John Early
Kate Berlant
Jo Firestone
Bo Burnham
Kristen Schaal
Hannah Gadsby
Jerrod Carmichael
Drew Michael
Anthony Jeselnik
Lisa Lampanelli
Dave Chappelle
Ricky Gervais
Bill Burr
The Office (on memes)
I Think You Should Leave (on memes)
Ali Wong
Lil Rel Howery
Bowen Yang
Matt Rogers
Mike Birbiglia
John Mulaney
Marc Maron
If you like any of these comics, you are likely to find something of value in Comedy Book. If it is not already clear, however, Fox works by topics associated with stand-up, and some of the chapter titles include "Funny," "The Line," "Truth," "Laughter," (not required for comedy!) and "Community." Some of these chapters are better than others, and Fox is at his best when he is dissecting the brilliance of someone he admires.
A quick note on the writing style: it is conversational, and humorous (though more than a few times, lands in "dad-joke" territory, pseudo-intentionally) and a bit long-winded. This is probably better than the opposite. The book feels a little longer than it needs to be, but I appreciated the thoroughness and attention to detail. I am not a comedy fanatic by any stretch, but I knew most of the people referenced above, and some of them quite well. There were some surprising tidbits (like how Maria Bamford did an overnight Zoom stand-up show, sleeping with the camera on), and the occasional petit madeleine truc (like the SNL cold open after Trump was elected, or the Pete Buttigieg "High Hopes" viral video thing--to make up a sophisticated-sounding phrase that may not exist) and we can be reasonably certain that Fox has left no stone unturned, so to speak. You cannot sum up the entire history and trajectory of comedy in a book, but this comes close. I can take "long-winded" when the material feels comprehensive.
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As I said though, even when I felt the topics had been analyzed to death already, I still enjoyed reading Fox's rants, because his passion is so strong that it drove me to care more. I can't help but include one quote for very odd, personal reasons.
"It was like I was Sandra Bullock in Gravity, doing routine repairs on the outside of my spaceship, when metal shards from a blown-up satellite came flying through, cutting up the craft, detaching my tether, leaving me flipping and flipping through space, floating away from my ship and Earth." (20-21)
Fox used the metaphor to describe his emotional state following the death of his mother, to highlight how comedy helped him cope with that tragedy (he was only 7), and it was rather moving. Recently Joey Votto used it to describe his emotional state after changing his mind on retirement, after his team declined the option to sign him to a 1 year contract. He called out to George Clooney to save him.
A lot of people in the arts don't care about sports or consider them irrelevant, but George Carlin made one of his most famous bits about football and baseball, and athletes are entertainers and often rather funny--so Joey Votto matters, too, because he gets that. And maybe he didn't do too well last year (he owns that, and knows he can do better, knows he is not done), maybe the Reds don't want to do him the honor of a final farewell (it would be a redux of 2023), but I really hope the Cubs will step up and be his George Clooney. It is, in fact, one of my 12 wishes for 2024. Votto is a national treasure and will always be one of the most famous Reds in history. He loves hitting at Wrigley Field and it would be a beautiful way to end his career, with a World Series ring, beating the team that didn't want to stick with him for a deja vu trip around the sun. He wouldn't be asking for a lot, just a small contract for a year and the opportunity to play. This is an unfortunate pipe dream, but for the moment, we can fantasize about the beauty that could be. (This tangent wouldn't be allowed in a book, but I have to do what I can for the sake of the enterprise.)
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So you probably have a good idea of what this book is like by now, but before we wrap, it is best to consider the nexus between this book and Doppelganger, and to include a short note about the material on Dave Chappelle, because it articulated a point that many have made, but few so distinctly.
I may have written about this before, but here are my top 3 most notable experiences at comedy clubs:
(1) The Comedy Cellar - August/September 2001 - Outside the club, I saw Carson Daly (Chris Rock was also with him, and I believe Fred Durst, too) and dissed him, drunkenly, foolishly, and he graciously admitted he knew he stood for "everything that [was] wrong with the teen pop generation."
(2) Boston Comedy Club - February or March 2002 - I go with a pseudo-platonic friend to a showcase featuring a person that lived across the street from our dorm (Janeane Garafalo did too, but this was a person named Jordan who had a bit about Mike Tyson having a match-up in the ring with a wild animal, shortly after he announced that he would eat Lennox Lewis's children). There is a two-drink minimum and we are not yet 19. I am put on the spot and asked if she is my girlfriend. I say she is not (I leave out that she wanted to be, once, and that she had a boyfriend now) and the comic generally makes fun of me, like I am dorky or whatever, and then adds that tonight they are going to get me laid. It was extremely uncomfortable, but there was a prophetic element buried in there, too.
(3) The Comedy Store - Sometime in early 2008 - My friend, a manager for a famous jazz musician, is in town for a tour stop and taking a few of the back-up musicians from Africa out for a good time, and we all go for a night of comedy, and are frequently mocked for the oddness of our group. My friend and I are considered the "Jewish handlers," because we were white and wore glasses, and then I am called Harry Potter, and it is only better because there is a women with a really crazy "emphysema laugh" in the audience that the host pivots towards for crowd work, and then later because Pauly Shore took the stage and apparently did not want to make me any more uncomfortable.
So yeah, it was kind of funny to read this from Fox:
"'Look at Harry Potter over here.' That's what I would get. I had not read Harry Potter or watched any of the movies, but I got what they were trying to say--I had brown hair and glasses. I should say they didn't just say 'Harry Potter.' No, that's not funny enough. 'R*****ed Harry Potter.' Now, that's funny. 'Gay Harry Potter.' Funnier! Honestly, as a group of four guys, it was a lot of gay stuff. It blurs, but I'm pretty sure Lisa Lampanelli called us the 'United Nations of f*****s.' I forgot this, but one of my fellow UN representatives remembers Lampanelli touching another's leg and making some sort of Black penis joke. He also told me he always thought her act was kinda racist. I had no idea. I had not asked my friend at the time. I'm sure I laughed. Maybe I thought this was funny, maybe it was the pressure of the crowd, maybe I was scared she'd notice and go after me next. I know I was not offended. Why would I be? I was not gay, but I also didn't know why I would be offended if I were. But, also, in general I didn't get offended. This is not a point of pride as much a proof of privilege. None of the slurs Lampanelli threw around--and she threw them all around--applied to me, and everyone else seemed to be laughing. I guess she'd call people 'kikes,' but by 2002 that wasn't a word that meant anything to me. Frankly, in retrospect, I was desensitized." (190-191)
Now, I was offended, because it made me feel like a loser, and maybe this segues into the Doppelganger thing, or the anti-woke thing, or the freedom of speech thing, or the punching down thing, because they all feel connected.
*
When I was about halfway through this book, one night I watched the newest specials by both Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais. Chappelle's was better, but Gervais's wasn't terrible. Both of them are lightning rods for obvious reasons. Perhaps its best to start with something Gervais says towards the end of his special:
"Here's the irony: I think I am woke, but I think that word has changed. I think if woke still means what it used to mean, that you're aware of your own privilege, you're trying to maximize equality, minimize oppression, be anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic....Yes, I'm definitely woke. If woke now means being a puritanical, authoritarian bully, who gets people fired for an honest opinion or even a fact, then no, I'm not woke. Fuck that."
Rather than pointing out specific examples of people getting fired after being "reported" by a Woke Person (because it is usually not just having an honest opinion or stating a fact that does it), I want to analyze this the way that Fox would. Because on the one hand, Gervais is right, and the authoritarian, bullying Woke Person is part of the "fractured left" that Naomi Klein bemoaned in Doppelganger. On the other hand, when he says "fuck that," it gets a big cheer that sounds too much like a rallying cry. It's a rallying cry against cancel culture, and the "anti-woke" comedians often complain about being cancelled despite the First Amendment (Fox notes more than once that they are on a stage and getting paid for saying these things), and on WTF Marc Maron will talk about how freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of what you say, which really is how we live as civilians. It's a broad rallying cry against cancel culture, but cancellations are highly specific.
Fox does discuss Louis C.K. in some detail, but Aziz Ansari is consigned to a footnote as being one of the eighteen acts that has headlined Madison Square Garden (9). Talking about him or Al Franken is tricky (talking about their books is not). There are likely other "woke" people that were cancelled and came off as hypocrites, but these two seem most prominent, and both were cancelled for acts with women that felt creepy, transactional and/or gross. (Let's ignore Bill Murray and James Franco for now--"me too," like sexuality, exists on a spectrum.) In any case, none of them happened just because of words.
Ansari was the only one to make a "mainstream" comeback, and I am surprised that Fox did not take a moment to talk about his comedy special Right Now but he does talk about John Mulaney's "comeback"* after going to rehab. Maybe there was no point to be made, and I don't know how most people feel about that special, but to me, it was fine, and he did the right thing, and he took his time away, and he did his penance, and he talked about it openly onstage (albeit briefly and vaguely)--he did it mostly the right way.
Most people, however, do not get the opportunity apart from their "apologies" posted to social media, which are often lambasted as "non-apologies" if they contain any whiff of self-defense. Being cancelled is incredibly scary, but there is a whole playbook for it now, PR-crisis mode, and anyone that chooses not to "play the game" runs the risk of committing career suicide, unless their intention is to drop out entirely.
Fox does address this to an extent with Kevin Hart and his rescinded invitation to host the Oscars (actually just for one joke itself), and Louis C.K. did immediately respond with a mostly appropriate apology in The New York Times (I am not going to hunt it down and analyze it, but that's how I recall it). He didn't later try to get a big special to win everyone back, but instead made his own platform, and you can find him if you want to find him. (Trump has taken a page out of the same book, but you will still find him even if you don't want to.)
It's hard to treat everyone perfectly equally (some people get away with everything), and some cancellations are deserved and some aren't, and while I pretty much agree with Gervais's statement, I don't think I would cheer for it, or even clap. It's simplistic, neat and tidy. Plenty of people say "gender is a fact," and not all of the authoritarian bullying Woke People think they should all lose their jobs, but they will certainly try to convince them that they are wrong, or write them off. (And yes you can lose your job for any reason, employment is almost always at-will unless you are unionized, and First Amendment Retaliation claims are only cognizable for governmental/public employees.) These people can petition Netflix to remove certain jokes, but they don't bend to them (though the Academy did). The truth is generally found in the details.
*
Dave Chappelle has said he is "Team TERF," and so perhaps its best to end here, because after his previous special, many people at Netflix protested and their boss told them he heard them, but he wouldn't take it down, and they could leave if they felt that strongly about it. (I think that's what happened, right?) Chappelle cancelled his own show after he realized he was getting laughs that made him uncomfortable, when he perceived a segment of the audience had been laughing at him rather than with him. I don't know how many more specials he has under contract with Netflix, and think what you will about him, but I do not think he can or should be cancelled.
As a critic, I prefer not to take sides, but it is inevitable, and I do not think Dave Chappelle is socially irresponsible. I do think he could be less "lazy," though his most recent special showcases his joke-book, and I do not want to accuse him of that. He could pander more, I guess, but if there is one thing comics should never do, it is pander. If he panders, his audience will think he's a sellout, and he will lose the juice that comes with being "bad boy." He doesn't feel he has to "repent" for anything, and I did find it curious that Fox left out the "epilogue" part to one of his specials where he spoke at length about his relationship with the trans community and his trans friend that essentially gave him permission to do the jokes. These are really thorny topics and I'm feeling the urge to use the phrase Gordian Knot.
I do think plenty of us growing up in the 80's and 90's dealt with "punching down" humor as a matter of course and reflection of reality, and this may be why many comics of that time period and earlier find censorship of such comedy to be "woke BS." We all had to put up with it, we all have internalized homophobia, deal with it! Yet we don't grow by thinking that way. But if we do grow, our comedy may turn into a Ted Talk.
This book is about what comedy is for, and comedy is for many things, but most directly, trauma-coping. Comedy can do many other things, as can literature. We can learn from a comedian's set the same way we can learn from a book, and we might become better human beings for having experienced them. There are ways to do both--Nanette being the prime example. But Chappelle can't pivot like that. Hannah Gadsby broke through with that trope. Chappelle broke through the way most comics of his generation did, and he has no reason to do the type of mea culpa that Ansari did. He could only do that if he was cancelled in a major way, and his audience is such that it would never happen, because he is not actually a bad person, he just sometimes tells jokes that offend a lot of people. (That being said, he could make some kind of statement, and most of his fans would continue to follow him, and he does not need to worry about money.)
*
In writing this review, I think I am coming up against the problem that Fox must have had in writing it: the tendency to rant and fight with oneself about taking sides. This was the quote:
"Though the direction of the joke is against North Carolina's bathroom bill, how it is received will vary based on each audience member's prior thoughts and feelings. A trans person or a total ally will have different opinions about the joke itself, but their stance on trans issues would very likely not be impacted at all. Audience members who obliquely support the trans community but feel some trepidation or confusion around the topic might find relief from their worry about this issue, in a way that moves them in the direction of unqualified support. Conversely, for audience members who aren't outright bigoted but are confused, skeptical, or generally weirded out by transgender people, Chappelle's dehumanizing fascination with the biology of the trans community can resonate and reverse any soft allegiances they were forming. For the unrepentant transphobe, Chappelle, just like the satirists of Chapter 5, is giving the audience a vocabulary to talk about trans people--he is giving them ammunition. It's hard to prove anyone ever heard a joke and then went out and committed a hate crime, but people repeat jokes they like. It deems certain speech allowable, and worse, it encourages people who are less funny, who are more oblivious to context, to try to walk the same line, and that will result in vulnerable people feeling bad and more vulnerable." (227)
Basically, to Fox and many younger comedians and audiences, Chappelle is a master of the craft, and a dinosaur. Bigotry is hack. New comedy will find a way to be funny without punching down. Query whether "punching down," now, is actually punching back.
I personally do not like to punch back. I will take the punch, and walk away, and I know I will be the bigger person for doing that. But I guess now, before you decide to go talk on stage for a living, you really ought to do a lot of work on yourself, and make sure that your heart is in the right place, and make sure that no one will get the wrong idea. That may be impossible. They will always get the wrong idea. It's how you deal with the blowback, how you "respond, rather than react," that will dictate your fate. Just generally speaking as a human being, it is better policy to love than to hate, and we can reflect the ugliness of reality in our art, but we can also imagine different realities and re-think the idea of "targets" in general.
I'll die on this hill with respect to comedy: everyone should just make fun of themselves. Self-deprecation is life.
Comedy Book: B+
Review of Comedy Book: D+
*I watched Baby J last night, and to be honest, it is probably better than Right Now. My only issue with it is that he only really talked about the rehab experience for the entire time. The reference to divorce and lack of further elaboration feels like a missed opportunity to do a super special, back-to-back, but I am sure this was the more emotionally responsible choice to make.
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