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Response to: Caroline's Comedy Blog

John Mulaney

Because the clip was only about two minutes long, I could only get a sense of Mulaney's character. However, as Caroline said, he definitely does seem to be degrading himself often regarding this bit about how he is a terrible driver. The statement that struck me as most relevant to this particular comedian was "well constructed stand-up comedy depends less on the audience feeling superior and more on the self-awareness of the comedian." As Caroline mentioned, Mulaney knows that he is "inferior" to the audience, but that is the whole point of his joke. He wants to make himself feel inferior, which allows the audience to laugh at him without the feeling of superiority. This alleviates any tension between the audience and the comedian which gives the audience the ability to laugh freely at his jokes and recognize that he is making himself inferior for their own amusement.

Comments

  1. Shane HerronOctober 12, 2018 at 10:22 AM

    That's interesting that in a sense he's not making the audience feel superior to him but more just letting them approach him as a human. That's closer to Hutcheson's theories.

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  2. UnknownOctober 12, 2018 at 4:15 PM

    I think that comedians that get rid of any feelings of superiority with the audience are some of the best. I definitely agree that this gets rid of any possible tensions which is great since people go to comedy shows to laugh and not be made fun of.

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  3. UnknownOctober 15, 2018 at 12:15 PM

    I would say it's more of a combination of both rather than others. Sure, comedians need to be self-aware, but without the audience feeling superior to the comedians helps to portray the desired affect.

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