![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
In this essay I attempt to unpack Andy Kaufman in his many manifestations, ultimately arguing that traditional notions of comedy cannot help us get at the root of what is going on here. Through a discussion and criticism of the theories of comedy presented by Christopher Fry, Susanne Langer, Walter Kerr, and Maurice Charney, I suggest how Andy's comedy employs a rejection of the modernist conceits of a fixed identity, a denotative language, a progressive history, and a separation of temporality from Being. Ultimately focusing on the way in which Freud's theory of comedy gets deconstructed when we read it through the lens of Andy’s work, I take apart specific jokes and comedic “moments” in Andy's work and show how the Freudian framework cannot support such an aesthetic. What is, in fact, most challenging in Andy's work as a comedian is not merely the way in which his own identity is up for grabs but the way in which he forces the audience to have its identity as an audience called into question, the way in which a Baudrillardean simulacrum stands in for a missing punchline while we, his fans, wait for something that is never coming. And yet we, his fans, laugh. Sometimes uncomfortably, but always more authentically.
disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Here, the word “chair” does not have meaning because it indicates – in some metaphysical sense reaches out and touches – some chair in the world. “Chair” has meaning because “legs” and “sit” have meaning; and “sit” has meaning (in part) because “chair” has meaning.
2 See Bill Zehme, Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman (New York: Delacorte, 1999) 197.
3 Ibid. 145–46.
4 Ted Cohen, Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999) 29–31.
5 Andy Kaufman, “The Kaufman Chronicles,” available <http://andykaufman.jvlnet.com/kaufchro.htm> (accessed 8 Sept. 2010).
6 Andy, as quoted by Zehme 194.
7 Andy, talking to Steve Martin, as quoted by Zehme 199.
8 Ibid.
9 Cf. Christopher Fry, “Comedy,” Vogue Magazine Jan. 1951.
10 Susanne K. Langer, “The Great Dramatic Forms: The Comic Rhythm” in Comedy: Plays, Theory, and Criticism, ed. Marvin Felhelm (New York: Harcourt, 1962) 245.
11 The Simpsons, another great icon in postmodern comedy, drives this point home well. In one episode, for instance, the children are shipwrecked on a deserted island and the plot becomes a parody of Lord of the Flies. At the very end, Bart and Lisa and the others are still not rescued. The narrator's voice comes on over the final credits, saying “And so the children survived until they were rescued by … oh … let’s say, Moe.” The resolution, the destination, is not really important – it can be thoughtlessly tacked on without any great loss to the comedy.
12 Maurice Charney, Comedy High and Low: An Introduction to the Experience of Comedy (New York: Oxford UP, 1978) 79.
13 Cf. Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Cloudesley Bereton and Fred Rothwell (Copenhagen and Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999) 19.
14 The experience can also give rise to fear or frustration or pity, etc., yet the experience ends up being one of comedy. More on this below.
15 Steve Martin, quoted in Zehme 198.
16 Sigmund Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1960) 99, 100, 97.
17 Ibid. 103.
18 Andy explained this to Steve Martin (who was guest-hosting The Tonight Show). See Zehme 199.
19 The Steve Allen quote is from Dan Jewel and Lorenzo Benet, “Nervous Laughter,” People Weekly 52.22 (6 Dec. 1999): 149–52; the Carl Reiner quote is from Zehme 296.
20 Andy writing in Rolling Stone, quoted by Zehme 297.
21 Jean Baudrillard, Simulations, trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983) 1–4.
22 Kaufman, “The Kaufman Chronicles.”
23 Langer 251–52.
24 Walter Kerr, Tragedy and Comedy (New York: Da Capo, 1985) 145.
25 Andy Kaufman, God … and Other Plays (Wayne, NJ: Zilch, 2000). Unless otherwise noted, the page numbers that follow in the main text refer to this work.
26 Charney 90.
27 Robin Kirkpatrick, Dante: The Divine Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004) 101.
28 See, for example, Tim Parks, “Hell and Back: A New Translation of Dante’s Inferno,” The New Yorker 15 Jan. 2001, 85.
29 Cf. Charles Singleton, Dante's Comedia: Elements of Structure (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1977) 36.
30 There are many mistakes in the text, and we cannot be sure that he intended them – he has not yet won our trust to misuse the language meaningfully.
31 See the preface and newspaper insert in God … and Other Plays and Andy's father's comments in the Rolling Stone article.
32 Try catching the “m”s and “h”s on page 12 – they elude the eye’s grasp, running forward, just out of reach, madly and freely and happily.
33 Kaufman, “The Kaufman Chronicles.”
34 These latter traits are more divine than human for Andy, but the King and Queen – like all humans – are made in the image of their God.
35 Note that there are already indications of God's demise here as earlier the throne image has been established as the mouth of Hell when the Queen is swallowed and reborn.
36 The Chinese friends play two roles in the play. First, they allow Andy to play further with language (see all of his attempts to capture the textures of a foreign language in sound (esp. 112–13)). And second, they allow him to deal comedically with the Other. The Chinese men represent otherness for Andy – they are on the other side of the world, speaking another language, and engaging in other practices. At first, such otherness responds with aggression: the men try to kill Sammy. But all it takes is time for everyone to realize that innocence comes in many forms. Sparing the lives of the two Chinese men at the end tells us that there will be diversity in the new world, the new Eden.
37 Kirkpatrick 106.
38 David Lindley, Where Does the Weirdness Go? Why Quantum Mechanics is Strange, But Not as Strange as You Think (New York: Basic, 1996) 221, 212.