Responding to Anthony Jeselnik

Hello again!  The end is drawing near, friends.  :(

This week I will be responding to Walker's lead blog post.  Walker posted about a comedian who was two specials on Netflix.  This comedian is Anthony Jeselnik.  You can watch the clip, a compilation of some of Jeselnik's comedy, that Walker focused on below.

As Walker notes in his post, Jeselnik's comedy is darker than most we have focused on thus far.  However, I will say that I believe last week's content to have crossed into that category a bit as well.  You can look back if you want to see what I mean.

Anyway, dark humor does not mean bad humor.

It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, and that is 100% okay!  I would say that it is usually not mine, but I did find this clip funny.

As Walker discussed, Jeselnik's comedy plays so, so heavily into the incongruity theory!  In fact, I think that it may be one of the best examples of incongruity that we've had thus far.

Again, as Walker mentioned, the key to Anthony Jeselnik's humor is that it is highly unpredictable - and thus highly incongruous.  You never can really understand where one of his jokes will end.  Yes, all of the jokes seem to take a dark turn, and some do stop there.  

But, some of the jokes, like with the example about the firearm, the joke just keeps going and going.  It's going along and then, all of a sudden, it takes a dark turn.  Haha, funny, punchline, end of the joke.....right?  WRONG.  It keeps going and going.  It keeps getting worse and worse.  It keeps going darker and darker.

This not only makes Jeselnik's comedy distinctive, but it also makes it funnier!

Some of my early posts on this blog focused a lot on the predictability of comedy.  We discussed several clips in which repetition was employed to a great degree.  Remember our back and forths about whether that repetition made the comedy funnier or more boring?

Well, throw that all out the window!

It doesn't matter because Jeselnik has nothing predictable about him.  Okay, I take that back a little, because obviously it is safe to assume that most all (if not all) of Jeselnik's comedy is going to be dark.  But, beyond that, who knows?  Who knows where that path of darkness will lead us?  Who knows where it will stop?

I hope you enjoyed this week's post.  Let me know in the comments down below: Is dark comedy your cup of tea?

Until next time,

Always Laugh Lots!!!

- Anna Kathleen Spitler <3

Sources:

https://walkerfyw.blogspot.com/2019/11/best-of-anthony-jeselnik.html#more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reuJjGhgU_k&t=343s
https://sjndamericandream.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/sorry-were-open-incongruity-blog.jpg?w=584
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