Stop The Smirk

NSFW - but what is these days?

The 00s was the golden age of offensive comedy. Our screens and stages were awash with well-dressed, good-looking men who said terrible things with a smile. Well, less a smile, more a smirk.

I have already written about Jimmy Carr. But he wasn’t alone. Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle started on Mock the Week in 2005. Here is a selection of his gags from that time. If you are offended by them, well done. You have played right into his hands.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, a young Anthony Jeselnik was plying his trade. Boyle and Carr scrub up fine but Jeselnik was male-model good looking. Here’s an early set. If you are offended… yadda yadda.

I have a with problem Boyle and Jeselnik’s early work. It’s not so much the content. While there are jokes that don’t work for me, Jeselnik in particular pays exquisite attention to the language and the rhythm of delivery he uses for his plot twists.

The problem is the character delivering those lines - what Aristotle might call the ethos and how it interacts with the narrative logic (logos) and emotional charge (pathos) of what they do. They both take on high status roles - dominant, in control, predatory. And they smirk as they say terrible things to audience. For me, the effect is that of school yard bully homing in on a victim, like a shark registering a seal in the water. As an audience member, I feel complicit in their attacks. Laughing at the sidelines. Hoping that by laughing, I will avoid the next attack.

Who says something matters. How they say it matters.

I like their later work much more.

Frankie Boyle got fat and bearded. A slovenly dad, broken down by an absurd world. The attacks come across less as sadism and more as a bitter, rueful response from a man watching everything go to hell.

Meanwhile Jeselnik has pushed his predator persona to absurd, unhinged levels. Reminiscent of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, his scenarios are ludicrous and his apparent calm with them evidence not of superiority but psychopathy. Jeselnik’s on-stage character holds your gaze for just a little too long and goads you not to laugh but to leave a few stops too early to get away from him. The next two bits are some of my favorite comedy of all time.

Even better, Jeselnik has no time for the cancel culture whining of comedians. New (and not always sensible) cultural rules are not an oppression but an intellectual opportunity. You can’t do obvious materials about gender and race and stuff? Boo hoo! Write better material! Do your job.

Meanwhile Jimmy Carr has had multiple cosmetic surgeries over the years so he can always be the comedian he was in 2006.