Last week I attended a show at Joker’s Comedy Club in Halifax. While the show was hosted by a very funny female comic, the opener, middler, and headliner were all the familiar breed of white, heterosexual, male humorist with which the Canadian comedy scene seems to be flooded. This mathematical majority did not, however, prevent both middler Guy Earle and headliner Daryl Makk from lamenting the fact that as white, heterosexual, men they were a minority in this diverse and politically correct world. Their complaints brought to mind a few lines from John Raulston Saul’s Reflections of a Siamese Twin (Toronto: Penguin, 1997):

The victims of victims are surely confused. What else can it mean when so many of us see ourselves as the party hard done by? How can we live in such a society? How can it function in such a clamour of competing inferiority complexes, particularly when so many of these are disguised as competing self-confidences.

Earle was particularly adamant about his victimhood, spending a portion of his set complaining (with very little humour) about a legal battle he is currently embroiled in following his treatment of a heckler at a show in Vancouver. By most accounts, Earle’s treatment of three lesbian audience members at his show was offensive, idiotic, and utterly unfunny, but most also suggest that the suit is going too far (see Funny business at B.C. human rights hearing; Comic’s lawyer attacks B.C. right’s panel).

From what little I have seen of Earle’s comedy, my feeling on the matter is that he is stuck in a fairly predictable Canadian comedy rut. Not talented enough to move up in the industry, he is likely tired of working inappropriate venues (the Vancouver show was at a restaurant where not all patrons were there to see comedy) and being constantly on the road. Earle is clearly frustrated, but also not able to accept that his chosen career might not be going anywhere. During his brief set at Joker’s last week, he frequently fell back on the problematic comic technique of reminding the audience that they are in a comedy club anytime one of his jokes fell flat. Essentially, Earle was blaming the audience for not finding him funny. This is a particular problem with “edgy” material as the comic can simply blame the audiences political correctness when material doesn’t work. Comics clearly can address vulgar, challenging or sensitive material in their sets—George Carlin did it, Louis CK currently does it—the difference between these guys and Earle: Earle isn’t that good at being funny.

Guy Earle is currently embroiled in a legal battle after his offensive treatment of a heckler at one of his shows.

While he probably could have gotten a room full of frat-guys laughing,  live performance venues clearly cannot survive on this audience alone. The very sparse audience at the Friday night show suggest that this type of live performance is not succeeding. Live comedy is best experienced in a full room. If men like Earle and headliner Makk can’t speak to a broad, diverse, urban audience, then perhaps club owners should be reconsidering such a line-up.

Both Earle and Makk complain that they are the minority, but I think the real problem is that they ARE NOT the minority. We only ever hear voices just like theirs, but comedy requires innovation. Most of us seldom laugh at a joke the second time around, and there is a lot of material out there that has simply been done to death. If live stand-up comedy is going to survive in this sparsely populated, diverse country, then innovation, not mindless reproduction, is required. Rather than blame everybody else for the stagnation of his career, perhaps Earle should rework his approach. After all, it’s a comedy club, so you may want to say something that the audience actually finds funny.

While television networks and entertainment producers are still debating the feasibility of making money from internet programming, the value of online spaces for the development of creative material is unquestionable. It is increasingly possible for comedians and comedy writers to be “discovered” through online video content, and going viral is an almost sure-fire way to launch into the industry. As many networks were initially slow to pick up on the opportunities available through online content provision, comics have been increasingly able to access audiences without going through industry gatekeepers.

However, the issue of unpaid creative labour continues to be a sticking point for many. The internet is a wealth of creative content for which many of the performers and writers have not been paid. Often, for new comics the potential pay-off of increased exposure and notoriety is deemed worth the temporary forfeit of paid work. However, when working, often unionized, actors engage in unpaid labour, questions about where the line ought to be drawn are raised, and the murky regulative space of online content is increasingly contested.

FunnyOrDie Panel at Just Comedy, Montréal 2010

At the Just Comedy Conference this summer, writers for FunnyOrDie were adamant that the lack of regulation in online content production has contributed to a creatively satisfying production environment. FOD’s Seth Morris suggested that once someone finds a way to earn money from or unionize work related to online content production, much of this creative freedom will dissolve.

Advances in digital technology have certainly thrown a wrench into industrialized models of comedy production. The popularity of low production value webisodes initially made little sense to networks accustomed to investing sleek sit-coms. But, as established networks learn to use this technology to acquire inexpensive content, the benefit to creative workers becomes increasingly ambiguous.

The CBC’s recent Clash of Comedy presented by Radio One program Laugh out Loud provides a good example of this tension. Comedians upload self-produced content to the competition, enabling them to reach a national audience. The CBC is provided with this content free of charge. Both parties benefit, and the winner of the competition receives additional publicity. The issue for content producers is when and how to transition from providing free cultural labour into being paid for their work. They must, after all, earn a living somehow.

Perhaps this is simply another right of passage from amateur to professional that most performers experience early in their careers. However, as opportunities to draw on endlessly available, free content continue to multiply with the rapid democratization of media production through technological advances, it is not evident that online content provision practices will change radically anytime soon. When change does occur, it will no doubt be at the hands of innovative, creative workers— not regulators and broadcasters.

Canada is not the same as the US. At the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, you’ll hear about that a lot. For the Canadian audience, it would seem, jokes about the metric system, the french language, strong beer, politeness, and smoked-meat never get old. “Poutine! That stuff will kill you” says the comic, and laughter generally ensues.

It is a rhetorical strategy that makes practical sense for the the visiting comic who must find some way to connect with an audience about whom they know very little. In the case of Just for Laughs, however, this gimmick is taken to another level. This was well illustrated by Montréal sketch troop Uncalled For in their improvised show “How to Run a Comedy Festival” where one of the comedians ‘performed’ stand-up comedy by simply listing ways that Montréal is not like America. The bit worked; the audience laughed.

That Canadian’s derive so much pleasure from these statements of our collective difference—even when these statements are disparaging—says a great deal about our comedic culture. Why does the acknowledgment of our difference generate laughter, applause, even cheering? This points to a paradox of Canadian nationalism. American culture, the greatest threat to our cultural sovereignty, is also the most important means of defining Canadian distinctiveness. This is particularly evident in comedy, where the popular and industry definitions of “making-it” remain defined by a career south of the border. This system explicitly expresses pride in Canadian comedy, while implicitly privileging the American industry. This reproduces constraints on Canadian comics within the Canadian industry which has arguably positioned itself as nothing more than a feeder system for LA and New York.

What is at stake in such a system? If Canada produces comedians for the American entertainment industry, can the export of this talent really be a boon to national culture? Rather than invest in developing completed cultural products for export (or domestic consumption), there seems to be an over-emphasis on exporting “raw goods” and re-importing finished products. Incidentally, we do the same with tuna. With limited opportunities for domestic comedy production, I’m not convinced Canadians will continue to have cultural differences to laugh at.

The latest issue of Stream was released this spring. It includes reviews, essays and articles on issues pertaining to art, culture and everyday life. It is also the last issue of Stream that I will be editing. Thanks to the team for helping me put it together. Check it out here:

http://www.streamjournal.org/index.php/stream/issue/view/5/showToc