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EDITORIAL:
Funny Times Are Here Again!
Rousing art often flourishes in dark political times; true to form, the Bush-Cheney years have proved a boon for American comedy. This not only holds true for cultish performers milking contempt for laughs or traditionally left-leaning propagandist funnymen. Rather, some of the shrewdest invective has come from none other than Howard Stern, who returned from a vacation one week and, with a fervor typically reserved for describing the curvature of a Maxim girl, abruptly renounced any kind words he had once granted the President. It is tempting to scold the disc jockey for supporting a string of Republicans in the past -- including a mean-spirited mayor and imbecile governor -- and skeptics have accused Stern of merely acting in his own self-interest. Lowbrow, however, finds his political awakening nothing short of heroic. It is very difficult and hence very rare for an outspoken public figure to make such a turnaround. Notably, the radio star's show has benefited from his leftward shift.
Stern's appeal has long rested in his ability to sneak vulnerability and compassion into a realm of comedy that traditionally promotes a cold machismo -- stumping for, say, gay marriage or women's rights advances this peculiar agenda even further.
Stern does his best work as a faceless voice. Yet many of the most memorable jabs have come through wordless faces -- often belonging to talkative people momentarily shocked into silence. Chris Rock concludes a rant about the government with stunned bug eyes. Joan Rivers, performing her fiendish weekly set at the New York nightclub Fez, manages to squeeze a dollop of emotion from her plastic mug after an audience member claims to be unsure of his voting allegiance. ("You're gay," she informs the man. "You're a Democrat.") But the funniest facial expression belongs to the current top seed of American comedy: Larry David, who, in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, rejects a prospective paramour upon spotting a photograph of President Bush in her dressing room, contorting his face as if the lady he was kissing had suddenly lost control of her bowels.
Though much has been made of David's politics -- mainly his support of electronic cars and the environmental work of his real-life wife, Laurie David -- Curb Your Enthusiasm is only casually political. The punch line to the aforementioned scene comes not from David's righteous character, but rather from his fictional manager: "What the fuck were you thinking?" the fat man bellows at Larry. "A picture of Bush! Who gives a flying fuck? I'd fuck her with a Bush mask on!"
David's willingness to declare his convictions and then sell them out for a laugh -- the sole entity treated with reverence in his world -- has helped make Curb Your Enthusiasm the most cutting television show of the Bush years. It also might be the most defining. Where Seinfeld, the Clinton-era smash that David co-created with Jerry Seinfeld, celebrated the sort of middle-class callousness that was able to bloom during those years, David's follow-up is angrier, more dangerous and much more personal.
Therein lies the difference between Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. The latter figure -- considerably more famous and less talented -- relishes in tepidness. (This is a man who, during the 2000 election, claimed to donate money to both George Bush and Al Gore.) David, however, seems unable to conceal his opinions or refrain from picking sides; everything is personal.
Of course, the chief victim of David's latter-day success is not President Bush -- it's Jerry Seinfeld. As the principal writer during the early and most vibrant years of Seinfeld, Larry David has long won recognition for shaping the sitcom. In hindsight -- with David spinning vicious, Seinfeldian narratives on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Jerry Seinfeld reduced to standup routines about minutia -- it seems that anything great about that '90s cultural touchstone came from the bald man in the backroom. It's an astounding artistic development: Just image if, in the early 1970s, George Martin had launched a solo career and made albums better than those of the Beatles.
Yet one longs to return to an earlier world, where the hardhearted boredom of Seinfeld seemed sensible and Larry David's fabulously mean universe remained a backroom phenomenon; where Chris Rock and Joan Rivers never fell silent; and where Howard Stern placed a higher premium on fart jokes than he did on war.
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