Storytelling & Comedy

In storytelling we explore the challenges, frictions and conflicts that life throws at us, trying to learn its lessons so we better ourselves. In that space, comedy has the biggest role to play of all, talking truth to power and creating a safe space for us to ridicule our most horrid demons, cutting them down to size and laughing at them, so they don't consume us. In short, comedy is catharsis. And it is the great equalizer of humanity we now need more than ever. Let's explore...

We're so sorry Cartman... (Image Credit: South Park)

The Energy of Comedy

In life, we built up energies which we express through feelings; physical responses of our bodies in reaction to the life we experience. We get excited at a sports match. Sad when something happens to our loved ones. Angry and frustrated when things go wrong. Life is a string of happenings that evoke emotional reactions and our bodies need to release those. Hence you cry, scream, yell and sigh. And... you laugh.

To channel those energies we use storytelling as our main tool. Stories are equipment for living (Kenneth Burke quote) as they function to teach us things about our life's experiences. Most notably, they teach us how best to respond. From terrible wars to you hitting your toe, or having a shouting match in traffic, a lot of life's experiences are negative, and as a result, a lot of the lessons we can learn through our narratives are about managing the negatives in life.

Storytelling thus offers a safe way to explore the best and worst emotional responses we can have to life's situations. We get to experience the emotions of war for instance through a war movie, without having to actually live through a war. Or our reactions to love, our favorite human topic in which we arguably need a lot of lessons, is explored through the many books, series, films and artworks we make.

Through storytelling, we pass our findings along and give others a safe way to assess a situation before they actually literally live through it. As such, storytelling can prevent us making the mistakes we see being made by the story's characters. It prevents us making the same mistakes as those who came before us.

Comedy as the Great Equalizer

And that's where comedy comes in. Because there is no better way to explore our mistakes than to laugh at them. Comedy provides the ultimate safe space to let go of our emotions, those build up energies, without having to suffer through them in real life. Hence, we ridicule our own stupidity. In recognizing our own mistakes through that emotional lens, we recognize our own foolish behaviors.

We empathize with those who make the mistakes, because we too realize we're only human, and can make the same mistakes. It's in this recognition we laugh. We laugh at others but mostly at ourselves. Thinking... 'that's something I could have done'.

In essence, it points out to us than no one is flawless. As a result, no one is above ridicule. Especially not ourselves. It works as the great equalizer: every one is the same, everyone can be made fun of, everyone can make mistakes. It's the ultimate equality: don't take yourself more serious than other human beings. You are after all, the same in the end. We all share the demons. Maybe some of us let them out more, but we carry them all, no exceptions.

The Difference Between Comedy and Bullying

Those who can't accept that, who have a hard time being made fun of, are the ones who invite even more ridicule. They can't accept that they too are flawed, and we make fun of them until they do. Yes, I feel you right now... there is a fine line with bullying. In short, the difference between a comedian and a bully is that the comedian does not take themselves seriously, whilst the bully does.

A bully is someone who thinks they are better, usually used as a shield to hide their own insecurities. They use ridicule to put others down, not themselves. A comedian does not hide their insecurities. In fact, they play on them. They use ridicule to put others down too, but with an extra touch: self awareness. There is no joke better than the joke of the jester putting themselves in the shoes of the bully... with empathy. And then, ridicule themselves: 'I could've been that stupid too. Couldn't you?'

Empathy Versus Sympathy

Why does it work that way? Empathy, not conflict, is the natural state of human beings. Even empathy with the stupid and the evil. We are social animals who rely on each other to survive and thrive. We rely on the baker for bread, on the farmer for potatoes, on the truck driver for their deliveries. As such, the best survival tactic is always empathy: the ability to see the other person as a human being.

But empathy is not the same as sympathy. Empathy means you can understand the other, even their demons, as you recognize them in yourself. With empathy you understand... but you don't have to agree or feel the same. Sympathy means you feel the same. Those who feel sympathy for the un-empathic - people who do bad things to others for their own gain - thus invite more ridicule: 'You didn't recognize the demons in your own head? We'll show them to you. Here they are!'

Enter the Jester

This is especially true to those in powerful positions. In the old days, when a great general would come back to Rome after a victory, they would put someone next to them in the chariot for their parade to keep whispering in their ears: "Memento Mori" (Remember you will die). Or things like "You are not a God. You are not better than others." or similar wordings. The same goes for the court jester. They would make fun of the powerful, often in open court, bringing them back to human - flawed - size, so the powerful would not lose their empathy for their servants.

The jester may be the single most important person in a democracy as such. They are the last line of defense, especially when authoritarian forces start to take over. They keep hubris from our leaders at bay. This is of course the reason why comedians are always first to be targeted by authoritarian leaders. Leaders who think they are the exception, above ridicule and as such, above judgement by the 'lower' people.

The jester became the canary in the coalmine; when it falls, democracy falls soon after. A great example is president Trump lashing out at the late night hosts in America, to the point where he forces the show of Stephen Colbert's into cancellation at the time of the Paramount merger.

The jester however, can also became the one who forces the right kind of change. Famously, master of storytelling Shakespeare took the piss on the rich and powerful of his time in his plays, spurred on by the lower class masses who understood this all too well (in those days, his plays weren't for the cultural elite, but for the masses). Some of his messaging was serious. But he just as often went for ridicule.

So, when the going gets tough, comedians often raise the stakes, both then and now. Realizing that Trump didn't get the message from Stephen Colbert, and needed more of his ego brought down to size, the South Park creators - licensed by Paramount for 1.5 billion dollars - immediately pumped up the ridicule to the president. A 16 million pay out for the merging parties that Trump would receive, quickly became a 1.5 billion dollar nightmare for him.

Roasts and Discrimination

Yet, political people are far from alone in receiving ridicule. We do this too towards those who have made great artistic strides, since in those circles the demon called vanity can take over one's personality. Hence, the 'roasts', a mostly American tradition - stemming from their tendency to elevate individuals into the stratosphere - where for a short period of designated time you're allowed to say anything, even the vilest of things, to celebrities.

Often the celebrities willing to undergo the roasts are those who think they'll be immune to it. Which is of course all the more reason to bring them down a notch. And yes, rarely do they stay immune for long. Especially when the roasts get very funny. And start coming from their best friends.

Those roasts ironically often also reveal something about the roasters themselves: deep-seated envy at the success of the celebrity can lead to particularly harsh roasting, as they let go of this envious energy in that safe space too. This can lead to wildly inappropriate moments which we as the audience still accept, because in the end, everyone lets go of their negative energy and feels better.

The Demons of Comedy

Yet comedy goes far beyond a mere roast. Standup comedians have ridiculed everything from gender, race, sexuality, political preference... basically all demographics can be filled in here, often with hilarious results. This is actually quite surprising, since we have laws and regulations against discrimination based on demographics. Yet in the comedy setting, we allow them and even applaud them.

The reason this works so well is again: demons. Although as a social species we've learned that cooperation brings us further than conflict, we still also have the demon of conflict inside of us, often fueled by fear. The human mind can make shortcuts when it runs into things it doesn't know, hence we can all discriminate and sweep entire genders, nations and skin colors into harmful simplifications.

In short, all of us human beings have the capacity to discriminate. And when we don't have an energetic outlet for this, then harsh but relatively harmless words can transform into deeply harmful behavior. As such, comedy allows us to let it all out, laugh at our own discrimination tendencies - our demographic demons - and move on feeling connected to the world again.

Women versus Men

The best examples of this are still men versus women jokes. Of course, every human being should be judged on their individual traits and characteristics. That's the law, at least, in functional democracies. But in practice, we also share things across demographics, such as gender, which can lead to very different behaviors, driven by biological processes we cannot escape.

So, we are all the same but also different? How do we bridge the gap between the theory of 'everyone is equal' to the practice 'we are wildly different sometimes'?

We do that by making jokes. Making fun of typical male or female behavior has the adverse effect when we leave the theater again: it first enlarges these differences into absurdity. We laugh those absurdities off, realizing they weren't that important as we thought. We then simply downplay those differences in our minds, so we can do the right thing and judge an individual on their character and not their gender demographic when we leave the theater.

Why Woke and Comedy didn't match

This of course, brings us to the concept of woke in these modern times. The Woke Movement started of as a way to channel the energy of injustice towards minorities being discriminated and prosecuted unfairly, especially by a new destructive conservative culture sweeping across our societies, in its denial of discrimination. Especially the George Floyd moment, and many similar, were catalysts for genuine outrage at unnecessary systems that caused terrible and irreparable harm.

Soon, however, this unfortunately became politicized. The Woke Movement was became an excuse to silence people that were not liberal 'enough', leading to what is now known as 'Cancel Culture'. Many of the cancellations that followed were understandable to a degree, but the misuse of the woke ideal quickly went too far on many occasions. It not only accused people of wrongdoing without sufficient evidence, it became a self-censoring mechanism. It led for instance to university teachers being afraid to adopt topics such as history and discrimination, in fear of having minorities turn against them in class.

While on paper the Woke Movement had the right intentions, and had started out so admirably with the much needed Black Lives Matter protests and the MeToo ideals giving attention to the ever present abuse of women, the road to hell became paved with those same good intentions by media personalities eager to do 'the right thing', leading to people losing their livelihoods if they were seen as 'anti-woke'.

Comedy and Free Speech

Great friends of mine, a rock band from Australia, also became a victim of this. A harmless, but very drunken shouting match between a thoroughly misbehaving singer and a transsexual women in an equally bad mood - a lot of demons coming out there from both sides - was picked up by an eager medium looking for a quick click-bait-filled scoop. In no time, the band was pegged as 'anti-woke' in the media and their career long work getting the - heavily discriminated and still not acknowledged - indigenous Australians to tell their stories through music, was undermined with one wrong headline.

Thankfully, they crawled back up, and justice was restored when the true story came out. Yet, damage was done, contracts were cancelled, friendships broken. The sin here was 'wrath': in the understandable frustration and anger against so much wrongdoing and discrimination in this world, people had forgotten that a transgender person is also just a person, who can be in an equally foul mood as our straight singer, especially after a night of Aussie style drinking for the both of them.

The lesson of the story became that you need to calm your own demons first, before you can slay the demons of others, or else you damage more than you bargained for. That wrath-demon damaged the bands' efforts to actually fight the real fight against discrimination through representation. A lesson I feel both our stupid drunks have learned very well, but the media did not.

They managed to restore all of it thankfully, yet many others however were not so lucky, as woke became a form of (self) censorship, and fear of being cancelled spread. Most notably, in comedy. Where for a time, the primary avenue of jokes had become 'office puns', in fear of reprisals from any demographic, across the board.

One comedian however, refused to give in.

Fighting with Ridicule

This brings us to the elephant in the room: the ongoing discrimination against transsexual people by the rich and powerful in media and politics on the conservative side. No doubt, transgenders are at the pointy end of bullying these days. Their rights are under threat, if not downright down the drain already.

I'm writing this from my canal home in Amsterdam, where I'm seeing the first boats arrive for later today the Gay Pride Canal Parade will make its yearly rounds in a feast of love and equality. Yet I already know that the loudest call for this equality will come for transgenders, and understandably so. So, again, we'll be talking about a lot of demons. How do you fight these anti-transgender demons with comedy?

Ironically, their most prominent and unexpected fighter became Dave Chappelle, who fought their fight with a series of moves that at first was totally misunderstood, and vilified: he went full blown anti-woke and started to ridicule transgenders.

Dave Chappelle and Raising the Stakes

Now, most of you know what Chappelle did this in a string of shows, and sparked a lot of outrage and condemnation with it. The answer to how we should judge this jester ultimately comes down to his intend: does he take us down the bullying road? Or does his ridicule serve a deeper purpose?

His answer is: he did both. Intentionally. And by doing so, he raised the stakes.

He eventually won the argument, silencing his critics, and dealing a blow to woke thinking, cutting it down to size, just as South park is prone to do. The way he won however, begs deeper exploring, since the demons from the theater shows spilled over into real life, and actually cost someone's life: his friend and colleague on the road, the transgender woman Daphne Dorman.

The story starts with Chappelle himself, who rose to fame in part by his uncanny good imitations of the 'standard white man', with a special voice and all, which he brilliantly ridiculed thousands of time during his career, bringing us white dudes down a good peg down. Including me, I must add (I was pretty cocky and entitled in my youthful days. Lots of demons there, mostly hubris if you must know...).

Noting that transgenders were in the news more a while back, he cracked a single, pretty harmless, joke at them in a comedy club. He took a swing, and he hit. The reaction was deep outrage from that community, who by and large did not appreciate being laughed at. So far, so understandable.

Chappelle however, sniffing out a new comedic avenue, quickly started making more and harsher transgender jokes, with the express intent of bringing that community down a notch towards the human level. With, what later became apparent, a much deeper meaning underneath: we are all human. No exceptions.

The Punchline

He even explained this deeper meaning in his shows on why he did it: we all have demons. And especially when you are discriminated as heavily as transgenders are, you need to make peace with your own demons first in order to win the fight for your rights. Doing that will make you stronger, he argued. Just like black people had to do the same after the horrors of slavery, and still have to do in too many cases today. He literally even said: transgenders are the new black people.

Another reason why he did it was to actually expose his audiences to this heavily discriminated transgender demographic, since many did not know them, and felt fear for them. In doing so, he humanized them... by ridiculing them, just like the jesters of old. His message was subtle but crystal clear: we are all human. Transgenders too. Deal with it.

He even called the final show with this subject 'Sticks and Stones', relaying the message that only sticks and stones can break your bones. And that if you are transgender and want to be recognized, you should toughen up. Just like African Americans had to do to survive, so do transgenders need to learn to deal with the bullying, instead of avoiding it and trying to cancel it.

You need to win from the bully by looking them straight in the eyes. Not run away from the bully and asking them to be cancelled. It was a trick: Chappelle became devil's advocate. He became the bully. Willingly. And vulnerably.

The last reason he did what he did, was that he had recognized that the woke-thinking had transformed from something good into something bad. The woke proponents now held a lot of power, even to the point of (self) censorship. And like a true jester would, he singled out those who held too much power.

Chappelle played the bully through several shows. Raising the stakes. Becoming ever harsher. Until eventually, he delivered a punchline that no one had expected. A punchline that he didn't just build up to in one show... he used five shows to get to it. It was brilliant. Yet, it wasn't funny.

The punchline? He revealed his friendship with Daphne. And her suicide.

Why the Jester is All

Daphne Dorman, a huge fan of Chappelle, understood this in the years leading up to her untimely death. She picked up the mantle in her own comedy shows, trying to get these messages through to her own demographic. They had become friends, and Chappelle started touring with her across the country. So, while Chappelle in his main show would make jokes on transgenders, a transgender woman was his support, and opened these same shows, offsetting the discrimination.

She was leaving the dream; touring with her great hero Chappelle. They both did what they thought was right: ridicule everyone, especially each other, so the audience could learn to understand their own demons. But the transgender community didn't pick up on it and started bullying Daphne online. Thousands of messages called her a betrayer of her 'own' kind.

She committed suicide not long after.

Chappelle dedicated Sticks and Stones to her. And you can see deep and profound sadness in his eyes when he delivers that final punchline. The best comedic build up of his life, ended in the punchline that wasn't funny, but sad.

Not just because he had lost his friend. But because Daphne and he failed to get through when she was alive. They failed in creating the safe space in both their shows to let the demons out. The catharsis failed. Only her death silenced the bullying. Only her suicide stopped the demons inside all of us. She died fighting for the right to make fun of people.

Sadly, the demons won that day.

Don't Take Yourself So Seriously

You may have noticed I've written this entire piece without cracking a joke. That's because I want to make sure you get my point: comedy may be the single most important form of storytelling. I could have made it funny. But I decided to follow Chappele's lead this time around.

The point is: comedy tells truth to power. Your power too. It lowers your ego. It shows you your demons. As such, it is the ultimate equipment for living. The single most important lesson you must learn in life: don't take yourself so goddamn seriously that you can't laugh at your own stupidity anymore. And if you want to fight the demons in others, you must understood those inside you first.

Next time, I'll get back to sarcasm and irony and funny anecdotes. But for now, I want to invite you to take a step back and understand the significance of it all. We live in a world where the discourse is broken. So broken, it takes lives. Only comedy seems to unite us, sometimes.

But it is under threat. And with it, the right to free speech, yours and mine. Because when comedy fails, when this last line of defense dies, so will you soon after, in a pool of authoritarianism. Be it by someone else's, or your own dictatorial tendencies to bring others down and see yourself as above the rest of us. Above ridicule.

So, if after reading this article you feel angry, bitter and vengeful towards the jesters and comedians who ridicule you or the politicians you like, or you feel bitterness and angry and vengeful towards other demographics in this world, even your own... maybe it's time you look inside to your own demons. And ridicule them. The world needs that more than ever right now.

And if you still take yourself too seriously? You still can't laugh at your own demons?

Then rest assured, we will. As the last ones laughing.

Love, as always,

Rogier

(In loving memory of Daphne Dorman... may God in heaven piss in his transgender pants laughing at your jokes up there my friend)

The Whole Story - The Ultimate Guide to Storytelling - Rogier van Kralingen