Although she’s a woman in comedy, Julie Gillis has nothing but love for the hilarious men who bring the funny to the stage and screen.
Funny. I’ll start by saying that all human beings are funny. We’ve had to be, or we’d have died out from all the varying dramas and tragedies the natural world throws at us. Plague? Childbirth? Ebola? War? Dentistry without Novocaine? Humor may well have been born out of a defense mechanism to deal with the horrors we found in the world around us.
For most of my life, I’ve been a performing artist. No matter the form, I’ve been on stage or backstage for more years than I’d like to count. I’m naturally comedic (as a defense mechanism to deal with the horrors I found in the world around me?) so my roles have usually been funny ones, and in the past eight years, my artistic career has lead me to comedy.
I love comedy. Comedy is smart. It can turn an idea on its ear, it shows us all what silly crazy creatures we are, it allows us to express hostility or sadness in socially acceptable ways, and it allows us to recognize ourselves in ridiculous situations, mirroring solutions to difficult problems or just letting us know we are all human.
Funny men on stage. I love them. Fierce, aggressive, passionate. Wickedly intelligent. Pushy? Sometimes. Manic? Dirty, scatological, and inappropriate? Sure.
Sexy? Damn straight. I think there is little sexier than a man who is funny. Funny means he’s smart; it means he’s thinking all the time. It means he’s aware of power dynamics, how to wield them in a joke. It means he’s got scar tissue and has found a way to deal with it. I like to watch men onstage the same way I like to watch athletes on the field.
I love to see that controlled adrenaline, exploding in bursts of comic energy. I enjoy discovering the thread of anger or emotion underneath a joke, the aggressiveness of give and take when men play. It’s wild to watch, and so fun to try to meet, match, and play that power back on stage. Women often play differently than men, and I’ve learned an incredible amount as a performer from watching and playing with many of the exceptionally talented fellas here in ATX.
(Frankly—and this is entirely another article—I see great parallels to sex from working solely with women, to working in co-ed troupes, to watching purely male groups perform. Call me bi-comedic, but I kind of dig it all.)
So without further ado, here are many funny men that I love and am giving thanks to for teaching me and making me laugh. Enjoy the humor over the Thanksgiving holidays!
The Marx Brothers: Vaudeville, naughty double and triple entendres, distinct characters. A Night At The Opera was one of the first comedic films I ever saw. I really dug the sexy humor, slapstick, and physical prowess the Brothers displayed.
George Burns: This man was wry, sideways glancing, sexy as all get out, and was never without his signature cigar. In his early comedy days, he worked with his wife, Gracie, and they played out hilarious status games in early television and radio. Subtle and wise, his humor was always a comfort to me, as was the knowledge that you could be funny no matter your age.
The Men of Laugh In: Rowan and Martin took digs at the mores of the time. It was one big, crazy, martini-free love party, but underneath the “Sock It To Me” and bikini dancing, there was a fierce political awareness and commentary on the Vietnam war, the presidency, gay issues, race, and more. I really thought that adult life would be a great deal like the Laugh In parties I saw on television. I’ve done my best to replicate it.
Richard Pryor: Amazing amounts of talent and vulgarity, piercingly focused on race and issues of the time. Bill Cosby reportedly once said, “Richard Pryor drew the line between comedy and tragedy as thin as one could possibly paint it.”
Bill Murray: Who can forget him in SNL, Caddyshack, or Ghostbusters. He was able to create extraordinarily memorable characters, imbuing them not only with lascivious humor, but pathos and subtlety.
Steve Martin: One of my favorite comedians, writers, and performers. This man is brilliant. His career is multifaceted and his work is both exquisitely physical and keenly intelligent. Tightly wound, tightly controlled, perfectly aggressive.
Eddie Murphy: Gorgeous, engaging, sly. His stand up is as great as his film work. Willing to cross lines, dealing with race, gender, and more, his work pushes you to react and challenge yourself.
Mike Myers and Dana Carvey: I was in love with both of them. Also, I was in love with Wayne and Garth. Also also, I was in love with boys like that in high school. Amazing character work, brilliant sketches. Cheeky, naughty monkeys. ‘Nuf said.
Eddie Izzard: OK, OK. I realize a lot of you may not like the whole transvestite aspect of his early work, but the man’s a bloody genius. Ratatat history lessons, surreal connections, manic delivery. And he does it in heels!
The Men of Mad TV: Michael McDonald, Aries Spears, Bobby Lee, Frank Caliendo. Such great sketch work. Funny, tight, spot on character work. It was too damn hard to pick just one sketch, so I’m linking a whole show here.
TJ and Dave: These two make their improvisational duo seem like they are channeling stories out of the sky, or as if they are literally hit by a runaway story. The great documentary, Trust Us This Is All Made Up, shows their process as a duo, and how they approach telling stories.
Finally, my dad, Don Gillis, while a composer, conductor, and teacher, was also a very funny man. His warmth, kindness, and wry, gentle humor taught me so much about life and about what a good man should be. There’s no way I’d be as funny today if it wasn’t for him.
Thanks to all the funny men out there. Keep us laughing and keep pointing out the truth as you see it.
—Photo Gino Domenica (AP)/SFGate
About Julie Gillis
Vocalyze
Steve Martin…..sigh….
Great piece! All such great moments in comedic history. I have to go with Bill Murray hands down. Probably because I was a child in the 80′s and Ghostbusters was my first favorite movie. His roles in Kingpin, Caddyshack and Stripes were outrageously funny to me.
But it is more than his humorous roles. In my time, in a way that’s recognizable to me, Bill’s grown .
Fabulous article. You had me at “Ebola!!!” In the library with my hand stifling my mouth!
Eddie Izzard – Engelbert Humperdinck – pure genius and wet making!
But I’m shocked! No Robin Williams?
If I’d included everyone it would have been the worlds longest post
. I like Williams, but I have to admit something about him freaked me out when I was younger. Maybe it was the coke induced mania. He’s mega talented, but never had the same impact on me as the others.
These are so great. The Marx Brothers, Steve Martin… Bill Murray is wonderful, but “Ghostbusters” embarrassed me so much to watch again when I tried this year. Before college feminism, I was so innocent. I could enjoy treacle like “Glostbusters,” the original “Star Trek” series, and “Stranger In a Strange Land,” before I realized how horribly sexist they all were.
“Humor may well have been born out of a defense mechanism to deal with the horrors we found in the world around us.”
So are rape jokes included in this? Baby rape and torture jokes as a defense mechanism to the horrors of reality? I find it strange some subjects are so utterly taboo yet others seem fine, we’ve laughed about male castration and men being hit in the balls, slapping women or men, racism, sexism, all kinds of jokes yet some are not “ok”. Where the line and what is acceptable? Why is murder more palatable vs rape?
I’ll link my reply from this post, My Favorite Dick Joke, by Justin Cascio
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/my-favorite-dick-joke/
“Good satire is extraordinarily difficult and takes thoughtfulness and intelligence. There is a huge difference between a “rape joke’ and a “joke that breaks down components of rape, and turns the table on the listener so that they have to think about things, even if they don’t want to.”
It’s hard to do and a lot of young comics dont’ know the difference. Or don’t care. But some do, and their work is solid.”
Also, there is a big difference between telling a joke to be cruel (in the case of male castration perhaps) and telling a joke to highlight issues and juxtapose ideas (the idea of any kind of plastic surgery vs genital mutilation of any kind). Lots of comics just tell bad, poorly thought out jokes in a defensive attempt and humor. I don’t like jokes like that personally (murder, rape, genocide, etc) I don’t tell them and I don’t prefer hearing them, but I think I understand why they exist.
“Artists do not create art to educate, placate, or soothe. They should not censor. They should observe and report what they see in the world around them, even if its ugly. This is their role. Sarah Silverman is an artist and as such, I believe she has every right to use her skills and talent to provoke, comment, and distill what she sees around her into art, even if that makes people uncomfortable..
If Sarah Silverman shouldn’t make jokes about rape, then following that logic, Tori Amos shouldn’t write songs about hers. Kurt Cobain shouldn’t have written songs about pain. Toni Morrison shouldn’t have written books about slavery. Simon Wiesenthal shoudn’t have published Sunflower about the Holocaust. Picasso, Guernica.
Should comedians avoid dark subjects? Then we’d have NO COMEDY AT ALL. Sure there’d be some light hearted looks at the world, but in my opinion, all comedy shows off pain. Pratfalls. Status games. Who’s on top, bottom, how does it switch. Death, mayhem, pain. We need comedy to let steam off. People think that jokes indicate agreement when actually they are often a way for people to agree that the subject matter is difficult and too much to bear.
Most of the art that has ever existed would not have been created if artists were worried about offending people or setting bad examples. Yes, I think comedy is an art form.
That being said, do I like rape jokes? No, not really. Have I seen really bad ones? Yes, I have. And I’ve schooled a few folks about it. Some accept the feedback and get better at their craft. Some grow out of it. Some are just jerks (male and female alike). But see, because I’m able to see them in real time? I know who they are. They know who I am. Nothing has been hidden.
I’d rather live in a world where artists (and non artists) have the ability and freedom to express, than in a word like say, North Korea, where the tamping down of artistic expression is so tight that nothing but Dear Leader art is produced. This is not to say you are asking for that, but I do think humor serves many purposes well. That’s her skill. That’s her offering. It’s not her fault if people aren’t smart enough to get it.
Finally, there have been young dumb dbags (of all genders) making ill-conceived and badly manifested jokes about rape, murder, theft, genocide etc etc long before Facebook and Sarah Silverman is not to thank for any of those pages. She could stop making jokes completely and pages like that would crop up.
I’m actually of a belief, radical as it might seem, that humor and the inappropriate use of it can actually act as a release valve for those dark thoughts, rather than storing them up. It’s a growth phase for many people, being inappropriate. Sure, there will be a few actual predators in there (though most of the predators I’ve observed in my life aren’t actually funny-see that terrible performer in NYC that got so much attention for his monologue about a date rape. The story was heinous and he lacked comedic skills in toto, not to mention he was tone deaf. He was shamed right the hell out of comedy, but see, we all know who he is.
I’m not a fan of censorship. I am a fan of intelligence, pushing for it, grooming it, and I”m a fan of artists who have the skill to reflect back to us what we are showing them.”
I’d love to live in a world where I could count on comics to tell their jokes at the highest level of intelligence. I’d also love to live in a world where there wasn’t murder, rape, genocide and etc….
Anyway, I’m going to finish up my holiday weekend.
One more note? I also think there is great value in a) knowing your audience and b) telling jokes within proper context while being aware of your own level of social skill.
I had a very dark and twisted sense of humor during my depression which I find helped to soothe the pain, kind of a way to laugh at anything and try enjoy the tiniest bit of life wherever I could. What I’d laugh at would only be in a fictitious setting, much like violent games and murder instead of laughing at real murder, so I could go from laughing at a horrible joke to very serious and concerned of a real case of rape, murder etc.
The way I reacted to fiction was very different to reality, I can only assume it was the defense mechanism to make the big bad world seem humorous and less threatening at the time. It’s very Un-PC though and I doubt many would understand, though once the depression disappeared the extreme topics became less funny. The mind sure is a mystery…
Wonderful article Julie and a great collection of wits.