H 23°, L 4° | Tomorrow: 
H 22°, L 6°Tasteless and occasionally vulgar jokes that would make Howard Stern blush — these are the hallmarks of comedy clubs and are precisely why many people love them. The Comedy Club on State Street is no exception and regularly has me gasping for air between jokes about one-night stands and aging politicians.
My last two visits, however, made me question the comics’ morals for reasons other than their dirty jokes.
They started with the usual openers: “This town loves to drink!” “Your city kicked my ass last night.” “I think I’m still drunk.” The audience chuckled. But then, a question — “So you guys drinkin’ tonight?”
There were a few claps and verbal acknowledgements, but most were waiting for the punchline. Then it was delivered: “OK, so you’re all alcoholics. How many of you drove here then?” The audience erupted in cheers and laughter as the comic raised his glass in salutation.
Are we really still in the dark ages when drinking and driving is funny?
I get it — comics are supposed to be edgy. They’re supposed to be callous, jaded individuals who have a propensity for pointing out the absurdities of everyday life. They don’t give a damn what we think and make a career out of telling us why.
But joking about, and even encouraging, drunken driving is neither funny nor appropriate. It’s tasteless, amateurish and, to be frank, lazy.
I might have been able to pass it off as a bad choice of comic had it happened only once. But when the same jokes kept popping up visit after visit, I began to ask myself why I keep coming back.
The CC surely doesn’t endorse drinking and driving, but what is it doing featuring comics that regularly cheer it on? If these jokes are intended to encourage patrons to exceed the CC’s two-drink minimum, so be it. As long as the over-indulgers walk or are driven home, life will go on. But providing reinforcement to those that exceed the two-drink minimum to get behind the wheel and drive home is nothing short of irresponsible.
According to a 2007 government survey, Wisconsin has the worst drunken driving record in the country. Approximately 25 percent of Wisconsin’s residents have admitted to driving under the influence in the previous year, and it’s not unreasonable to think that the actual numbers are even worse. I’ll keep the preaching short — you know, I know, and even stand-up comics know drunken driving is a bad idea.
It’s no secret either that much of Madison’s social scene revolves around alcohol, so I wouldn’t expect anything less than plenty of well-crafted jokes inspired by it. The guy running down State Street naked at 3 a.m. the other night knows he’s fair game as the “butt” of someone’s joke, and Ian’s Pizza probably has enough funny stories to last a lifetime. But when our state is leading the country with our drunken driving record, we need to lay off the jokes — it’s just not funny.
I find it hard to believe that any of these guys — many of whom are smart, witty and very observant — are so hard up for material that they resort to jokes that might have been permissible 30 years ago but are profoundly out of line given what we know today about the tragic consequences of drunken driving and the enormous public resources that have been devoted to discouraging it.
So shame on you, comics, for stooping this low for a few cheap laughs. And shame on you, Comedy Club, for hiring them anyway. Step it up, be adults (or at least take a stab at it) and get some new material. I’ll be back eventually, but in the meantime, I’ll have to stick with Comedy Central.
Laura Brennan ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in communicative disorders.
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You’re not allowed to drink and drive, but you’re allowed to drive in blizzards. There should be a “blizzard hour” on our roads where drunk driving is allowed, but you then drive at your own risk, as in a blizzard.
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i cant believe i just wasted time reading this. horrible.
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The basis of all comedy is irony. I don’t think that’s what Ms. Brennan understands about the nature of stand up comedy. When she says that ‘tasteless and occasionally vulgar jokes…are the hallmarks of comedy,’ she is plain wrong. But these tenets are precisely what forms the pillars in her mind. It is irony. Something unexpected comes out of the comics mouth, or situations that are visualized turn into completely different turns, albeit they sometimes occur at the expense of the absurd or sometimes disturbing, vulgar and inappropriate.
Let’s take something simple, like, oh, I don’t know, allow me to take a page from Ms. Brennan’s book and turn on Comedy Central, and, ok, here it is, South Park. Let’s take a scene from South Park’s ‘Christmas Critters’ episode. In it, fuzzy little animals parade around all cute and cuddly, but then turn into bloodthirsty, ritualistic rapists. Let’s have a blood orgy, one of them suggests. Use the blood as lube, the other retorts. That’s funny right? How about we ask someone who was raped. Would it be funny to them, even if it is in the context of Christmas Critters? Probably not. But it’s ironic, and those of us not exposed to a close one being raped, would find it hysterical. Quite a paradox. So does Ms. Brennan really ‘get it,’ or is joking about drunk driving go way over her head? I’m not sure if she’s affected by drunk driving. But calling out the Comedy Club for it’s comics relying on the absurd and ironic, telling them they are in ‘the dark ages’ by trying to make people laugh at the absurdities of life, is missing the point. She has this notion that she ‘gets it.’ What’s there to get, besides pointing out the ridiculousness of life if only for a moment, and turning the so called serious issues into a joke. Ms. Brennan tries to pass off some sort of comedic moral code, but here’s another tenet of it: if I, the comic, find it funny, then someone will. Put the joke in a context, lead up to it, and then deliver the punchline. What Ms. Brennan does in this article is try to press her stilted views of what is considered appropriate and inappropriate, creating a reality that is black and white (by the way is that allowed, or is it bad taste Ms. Brennan?) where she is decider. It’s unfortunate that the decider is not us, the masses of listeners, but a staff writer at the Badger Herald. Now that’s irony!
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I love comedy but not all comedy appeals to me. As a former bartender in Madison, I had to be able to tell jokes and there were times I told some really bad ones that I used to find funny until I found out some were too offensive (especially in Madison). I’ve since stayed away from people who take offense and have cut back on offensive humor. I’ve also seen a LOT of alcohol being consumed especially during Halloween. People passed out near State Street, my roommate passed out on the stairs of our apartment, people yelling and laughing after bar time; these are part of Madison’s realities. Drinking and driving may sound like a good comedy topic until you witness or become a victim of the results. It’s an easy subject for stand-up comedy; but it has lost its appeal for the more discerning ears. I liked Ms. Brennan’s article and can only hope that comics lacking in material sober up to the realities of their driven drinking jokes. Madison is a beautiful city that doesn’t need to have a dubious award for alcoholics. Nor does it really need cheap humor.