When Comedy Speaks Truth About Covid
As a comedian, it’s been fascinating for me to observe how other comics have incorporated the topic of Covid into their material. Early in the pandemic, there were tons of jokes about our shared experiences with masking, working from home, getting vaccinated – the stuff most everyone could relate to. The punchlines revolved around putting it all behind us and getting back to normal. That's what we all were expecting to happen.
It's what we were promised.
But with the unexpected directions this pandemic has taken, so have the Covid jokes.
Standup comedy is a conversation between the performer and the audience. The comic tells a joke, often discussing a mundane subject, but employing a comedic device like exaggeration, puns, hypberbole, or taboo to make it funny.
The audience responds one of four ways.
Sometimes there is no reaction. It happens whenever a joke isn’t easily understood, isn’t relatable, or simply isn’t funny.
Sometimes there’s a pushback reaction, like groaning, booing, or walking out. It happens when the comedian crosses a line and offends members of the audience.
The most common reaction is a chuckle. A reactionary laugh that follows a joke because it was funny, it made sense, and it resonated with the audience. It’s an affirmation to the comedian, as if to say, “yeah, you got that right. Now tell me more!” Once the chuckle is done, the audience is engaged, attentive, and ready for the next joke. The comedian’s job is to keep the conversation going.
The holy grail of reactions is a belly laugh. Uncontrollable, prolonged, euphoric laughter that you don’t quickly recover from. It’s usually accompanied by applause and some enthusiastic WOOOHOOOOOs from the audience. Belly laugh jokes are usually interspersed throughout a comedian’s set, with the best saved for last.
Using taboo as a comedic device is often one of the best ways to elicit belly laughs. When a comedian says something out loud that audience members have thought about, felt, or experienced – but can’t say out loud because it would be socially unacceptable – uproarious laughter is the reward. It’s an affirmation that “yeah, you REALLY got that right.”
I recently watched the ‘Live from the Mother Ship’ special on Netflix, featuring the talented, hilarious comedian Brian Simpson. Around the 25-minute mark, he begins talking about Covid. I was pleasantly surprised by the direction he took.
“We didn’t cure Covid… we just stopped caring,” is his first Covid joke. It’s met with a chuckle from the audience– and one endorsement of “Right!” from a guy in the audience. He talks about how conservatives and liberals both stopped caring about Covid, just on different timelines. The only difference, he points out, “is how long you gave a fuck.” The audience laughs and applauds.
“We all arrived at the same conclusion – grandma needs to stay in the fucking house, so we can go outside.” He acknowledges the return to normal without us having contained Covid means that vulnerable people were left behind. The audience belly laughs and applauds again.
“You’re sitting here, not caring about something we were so serious about… losing friends, you stopped talking to family…” He encourages the audience to not let politicians rile them into hating their neighbors, seeing how we ultimately ended up in the same place. And he’s subtly calling out the absurdity of how we so casually live with a deadly and disabling pathogen that disrupted the entire world in 2020 and still remains a threat, in spite of our collective complacency toward it.
Next, he says the only place where it still feels like we’re in a pandemic is in an Uber. “There’s small part of Americans that didn’t get the memo… like it’s still 2020… masked up, gloved up… and sometimes they’re your Uber driver.” A chuckle follows from the audience.
“They’re not wrong,” Simpson continues, recognizing that those who mask have a valid reason for doing so. Then under his breath adds, “but it’s like… stop that shit… you’re making me feel stupid.” He acknowledges the social discomfort of being unmasked around people who are masking. The audience belly laughs and applauds.
“But if you’re in somebody’s car, you’ve got to be on what they’re on,” he continues. “So I’ve got to keep a mask on me when I go to certain places.” He then mimics the conversation he has with an Uber driver when getting in for a ride, comparing masks to condoms while waving his hand up and down over his nose and mouth. “So… are we…? We can use them if you really want to use them…” His joke acknowledges he’s willing to mask if others around him are masked – even if he doesn’t think it’s helpful or necessary. He’ll do it to avoid social discomfort.
More laughter and applause follow.
There are no awkward silences. There is no booing or heckling or walking out.
Only laughter and clapping. Even a few belly laughs.
And Netflix did not cut those jokes out of the special.
I applaud Simpson for speaking hard truths out loud about Covid and how we’re dealing with it (or not dealing with it) as a society. He’s acknowledging our collective cognitive dissonance. He’s shedding light on how our needs for comfort and conformity in social settings have superseded logical thinking, rational behavior, and concern for others. He’s calling out politicians for dividing us, and ultimately, failing us by forcing us to choose between social safety and physical safety.
And the audience backs him up on every single point he makes.
I find this hopeful and encouraging. It tells me people are aware that Covid remains a threat, our vulnerable loved ones have been left behind, and our country’s response has been a shitshow of epic proportions. It tells me their aversion to standing out in a crowd is more powerful than their aversion to masking. It tells me that people aren’t as deeply entrenched in denial as I previously thought. Their knowledge obviously doesn’t translate to behavior, but it’s a start. It gives me hope there's enough common ground in our beliefs about Covid that there are opportunities for change.
We won't change anything by being silent. We have to keep talking about Covid and the harm it causes so others will feel safe to join in the conversation. I encourage you to watch ‘Live from the Mother Ship' on Netflix starting at the 25-minute mark. The 3 minutes of Covid jokes which follow, and the audience’s reaction to each, speak volumes about what’s really going on inside people’s heads these days. If a comedian like Simpson - whose livelihood hinges on everything being back to normal - has the integrity to speak up and say such uncomfortable shit out loud in a Netflix special, the rest of us can keep speaking up too, anywhere and everywhere we have a voice.
“…Even more than penetrating to a seed of truth, good satire is able to penetrate to an issue’s heart. To its moral core. Through their perfect pitch for irony and their flawless bullshit detectors, comedians confront us not only with lies and hypocrisy, but also with what it means to be human.” – Rob Wijnberg
In good humor and solidarity,
Guiness Pig
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