Stasi Comedy

So I found another watchable television comedy, Workaholics, and of course, a reviewer has to piss all over it.

Enter Steve Heisler, the newest agent from the Stasi Bureau of Meaningful, Purposeful, Decidedly Unfunny Television.

In his first two reviews Agent Heisler flashes his T.V. reviewing credentials by name-dropping other shows he’s seen, like The League, Important Things With Demetri Martin, Michael And Michael Have Issues, and The Life And Times Of Tim. You know what these shows have in common? Your readers aren’t watching them. Waving around your breadth of television knowledge, Agent Heisler, doesn’t do anything for your credibility as someone who knows which end is up when it comes to comedy. If anything, it makes you an even less reliable source.

But after the pilot, Agent Heisler, you saw some promise in the show.

Workaholics is, surprisingly, a lot more charming than it's made out to be, and it contains a few welcome twists on the familiar. It's a comedy that knows its limits and strengths and tries its best to play to them.

I don’t normally look for charming or for “welcome twists on the familiar” in my comedy unless I’m watching a Lawrence Welk variety show, but fine, you liked it, I’ll take it. Or did you?

No matter what I say, though, I can't shake the feeling that Comedy Central is going to cancel this anyway.

Is this how you communicate to the higher-ups, Agent Heisler? “Wink, wink, network execs, it’s kind of an okay show, but let me start a discourse about cancellation that you can step right into when you feel ready?”

I chatted with Michael Schur from Parks & Rec last week, and he told me that comedies typically take a long time to build momentum, especially character-based ones.

Well good for you. Last week Oprah braided my hair.

Until you know who these people are, the jokes simply aren't going to hit as hard. …I'm not saying Workaholics is the greatest, most promising comedy to come through, or that the network will definitely be canceling it.

No, you’re not saying that the network will definitely be cancelling it, but in a review of the pilot of a show, you end by wielding a sickle. Way to redeem TV criticism for writers like Schur.

Let’s see what you have to say after the first season.

Workaholics is now an aimless show about troublemakers who make bad decisions just because they can, and their exploits—fueled by an endless stream of pot and booze—are kind of pathetic, like when that 40-year-old dude shows up at the frat house during alumni week, hoping to score with some freshmen.

Holy shit Agent Heisler, you smacked that sickle down! Also, you just described a show I really want to watch. Troublemakers, bad decisions, “an endless stream of pot and booze”? Sign me up! And I don’t know about you, but when a 40-year-old dude showed up at our sorority house during alumni week it was fucking hilarious, but maybe that’s a girl thing.

The central problem with Workaholics is that its characters, even after an entire season, are entirely disposable.

Yup, yup, there we go, a clear transgression of Stasi code 118.37, the characters we don’t cherish. I want to wub my chawacters and snuggle up wif dem!

They’re all essentially playing the same character, so there’s no little comedic game they can play amongst themselves that might even make them feel more like well-rounded people. The focus of the episode, instead, is the game they’re playing with the rest of the world—one three-headed dumb dude vs. The Man, for no particular reason.

God you would have really hated Waiting for Godot. I can barely tell those two apart! They’re just sitting there on stage, struggling against some undefined “Godot” guy. It’s like the fact that the two of them aren’t “well-rounded people” keeps the focus on this inexplicable force they’re opposing! What crap. How absurd.

But what really gets Agent Heisler, I can tell, is the violation of Stasi TV code #1: The Doing of Things For No Particular Reason. What does it all mean?! Why are these insane adolescent douchebags always fucking with everyone around them? Why can’t we all just get along, for Chrissake?

Because that wouldn’t be funny, that’s why. Nor would it be absurd. Or interesting, at all. I know I’m pushing a new, crazy idea on you, Agent Heisler and your Stasi comrades, but pure mayhem—like I don’t know, “an endless stream of pot and booze”—can be really funny when it’s done well. Admittedly, this concept only goes back to the Greek satyr play, but I get it, that’s still pretty green at 2600 years old. Wouldn’t want to spring things on you too fast, Steve, what with all the new episodes of post-Steve Carrell The Office you have to study up on for your credential to determine what qualifies as funny.

But the guys aren’t speaking from any specific perspective other than, “Work sucks and getting stoned is the best,” so the conversations don’t go anywhere. There’s little reason to continue with Workaholics; the show refuses to dig into its premise beyond surface level, and given the plethora of comedy options on TV today, it’s not worth sticking around.

Ugh, yes, that code of Stasi codes Agent Heisler begrudgingly has to enforce, the show that doesn’t “go anywhere.” It just exists, opposing the man for no particular reason, relishing absurdity and inebriation, and skimming the surface of absolutely everything in order to bring it all together into one joyously comic revel. There’s just a “plethora” of comedy options doing anything that smart or absurd or transgressive anywhere on TV right now. Thanks for being part of the reason why, Agent Heisler.

The Danger of Words with More than One Meaning

I'm back! (That sheepshearing took a lot longer than I thought).  And guess what?  Neil Genzlinger is back too!

Remember Neil?  He’s the guy who writes the same terrible article over and over again for the Times.  Here’s his formula: Take a meaningless “development” on television, like bad mothers, or using the word “really?” too much in comedies, and write a piece bemoaning how that “development” foreshadows the end of civilization.  Write the article in a vaguely tongue-in-cheek manner in an attempt to avoid criticism for making such an asinine “point.”  And then go on and on and on and on (1155 words for this latest beaut).

I’m not the only one to take offense.  No, the one and only Tell Funnier Jokes hero Jerry Seinfeld has written in to complain, and not so surprisingly he really nails it.  I particular like his criticism of the “wrap your head around it” phrase Neil uses.  Here’s Neil’s immortal line:

Back when Einstein first announced that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, the “Reallys?” that resulted were saying: “I am astounded by your discovery, so much so that I can scarcely wrap my head around it. You, sir, are a genius.”

Yup, Neil, nothing works better in an article that tries to skewer a cliché than using a particularly egregious one yourself!

Seinfeld kinda took care of this one (“your column was so deeply vacuous that I couldn’t help but feel that you have stepped into my area of expertise”), but there’s just so much that’s terrible here I couldn’t help but single out a couple of other particularly stupid moments.

So Neil’s premise, if you can call it that, is that TV shows use the phrase “Really?” too much.  “Really?” in a mocking, condescending manner.  Like—“so the Times sought fit to devote one thousand one hundred and fifty-five words to this article.  Really?”

In example number infinity, Neil criticizes Veep’s use of “Really?”:

John C. Calhoun and who knows how many other oratorically inclined former vice presidents turned over in their graves.

So for your example of great vice presidents of the past, you chose notorious slavery defender John. C. Calhoun?  Really, Neil?  Even Spiro Agnew might have been preferable.

But then things get real.  Real stupid.

“Really?” was once an expression of wonderment that also acknowledged a gap in the user’s knowledge. 

Ah yes, the halcyon days when boys were boys and “really” was “really.”

The word also spent time as an interjection, an expression of dismay. “Really!,” a stuffy aristocrat might have said when she saw young people jitterbugging. I’m no etymologist; I don’t know when that exclamation point became a question mark and was wrapped in sarcasm. But “Really?” wasn’t the first to undergo the transformation from innocuous to malicious.

First off, the difference between “Really!” and “Really?” is barely anything—they both express contempt or disapprobation.  But I know, Neil, you’re not an etymologist.  Far be it for you to actually find the answer to that question you pose.  That would take you far too much time, I’m sure, and you’re clearly pressed for time having written an endless ass piece.  You know how long it took me to find the answer to that question? THREE MINUTES.  You don’t have access to the Oxford English Dictionary at the Times.  Really? 

And guess what, when you look shit up in the OED you find out some interesting stuff.  Did you know that Neil Genzlinger is included in it?  It’s true!  I’ll give you the entry:

Neil Genzlinger. n.  A known idiot who writes for The New York Times.

You know what else I found out?  (Again, three minutes this took me).  You know when the first recorded reference of “really” meaning “Interrogatively, expressing surprise or doubt” took place: 1753.  In everyone’s favorite novel, Sir Charles Grandison (almost as long as one of Neil Genzlinger’s articles!).  That was the closest definition to Neil’s “expression of wonderment that also acknowledged a gap in the user’s knowledge.”

But what about this newfound sarcasm, this “Really?” that’s destroying the foundations of American society?  How about “expressing asseveration, protest, or dismay”—that sounds like what you’re criticizing, right?  First use of that meaning? 1604.  So the sarcastic “Really” predates the earnest one, despite Neil’s lament of when the exclamation changed to the sarcastic question.  In other words, Neil Genzlinger is an idiot.  You couldn’t have looked this shit up?  Again, three fucking minutes!

Also, you know where that first reference to “Really” expressing “asseveration, protest, or dismay” showed up?  Motherfucking Hamlet, bitches!  Neil Genzlinger just said that Shakespeare was a hack.  Oh no he d-in’t (I hope you felt that glottal stop there.  It was an angry glottal stop). 

And it gets worse:

This linguistic co-opting cannot go on. For one thing, having words with more than one meaning is dangerous — who among us hasn’t been slugged after offering a pre-“Jessie” “excuse me” that was interpreted as an age-of-sarcasm “excuse me”? For another thing, there are only so many words in the language. Soon the only emotion we’ll have words to express is disdain.

Personally, I have not been slugged because of a linguistic misunderstanding.  But then again, I tend not to provoke as strong feelings of anger as Mr. Genzlinger’s articles clearly do in me. 

But let’s back up a second.  Because the above paragraph contained by far the stupidest sentence I have ever had the misfortune to quote on this blog.  Can you guess which one?  That’s right:

For one thing, having words with more than one meaning is dangerous.

Really?!  I can’t stress this enough: that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.  Let’s just take one random word: hip.  So confusing!  I went in to get an operation to help me with some problems I was having walking and when I came to they had implanted a chip in my brain that just played Arcade Fire and Twin Shadow.  So embarrassing!  And so dangerous! 

Let’s try another!  Fuck--kind of a lot of different meanings to that word. And what about radical?  They’re coming to deport me, cause they think I’m a radical trying to undermine the government, when all I was doing was talking about square roots with my friend. 

You know how many meanings of the word “form” there are?  Thirty-two.  (and that’s just the noun form).  Most of the time we know what other people mean.  But Neil may just be a little slow. 

Also, by the way, it depends on the estimate, but there are a lot of words in the English language.  171,476 entries in the OED, and by recent estimates 1,013,913 individual words.  I think we’ll be able to express things other than disdain.  When it comes to discussions of Neil Genzlinger’s articles, though, maybe not.