Re-Thinking Dutch Cabaret: The Conservative Implications of Humour in the Dutch Cabaret Tradition

MA Thesis Kunstwetenschappen / Art Studies University of Amsterdam Dick Zijp (5844029) Supervisors: Prof. dr. Maaike Bleeker and Dr. Bram van Oostveldt December 2014

1 Table of Contents

Introduction 4 Questioning Dutch cabaret 5 Procedure 6

Chapter 1: The Critical Reputation of Dutch Cabaret 9 Early history: Wim Ibo 9 The 1990s: engagement vs. authenticity 13 Jacques Klöters 14 Hilde Scholten 17 Van den Hanenberg and Verhallen 19 The 2000s/2010s: new forms of engagement 21 Robbert van Heuven 22 VSCD Cabaret Prizes 23 The question of humour 24 Example #1: Lurelei - Arme ouwe (1966) 25 Example #2: Youp van 't Hek - Buckler (1989) 27 Example #3: Theo Maassen - Crucifix (2005) 29

Chapter 2: The Conservative Implications of Humour 32 Billig and humour studies 32 Billig and classical theory 34 Billig and Bergson 36 Billig and Freud 40 Billig and conservative humour 42 From function to strategies 44

Chapter 3: Re-Thinking Dutch Cabaret: Micha Wertheim's Deconstruction 46 of the Dutch Cabaret Tradition A joke about joking 47 Wertheim steps out of his role, or doesn't he? 51 Dissecting visuality 52 The authentic comedian 55

2 Ridiculing Facebook 57 Re-thinking Dutch cabaret 59

Conclusion 63 Looking back: conservative implications 63 Looking forward: new critical possibilities 64

Works Cited 66

3 Introduction

In December 2010, I attended a performance by the Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim, titled Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer (Micha Wertheim for the Umpteenth Time).1 I was already familiar with Wertheim's work at the time, and I knew that he was an experimental comedian who often played with the expectations of the spectator and addressed his audiences in unexpected ways. Yet this performance initially seemed to be more conventional in structure than Wertheim's earlier performances: Wertheim, standing behind a microphone on an almost empty stage, presented us with a succession of jokes, grouped around a series of personal stories and observations. However, after some forty minutes, something unusual happened. In the middle of a personal commentary upon Facebook, Wertheim suddenly took one step back from the microphone. At this moment, a recording of Wertheim's voice came in, and continued the story that Wertheim was telling live. Wertheim, who had been standing behind the microphone from the beginning of the performance, now left the microphone, took a chair and sat down at the front of the stage to listen to the voice-over. After a while, he unplugged the cord of the microphone. The voice-over immediately stopped. Next, Wertheim started to reflect upon the Facebook commentary. He told us that this seemingly personal commentary upon Facebook did not reflect his personal opinion, but was actually made up. It was 'staged'. Furthermore, Wertheim revealed that he was not making fun of Facebook because he found it important to make a critical statement about it. Rather, as he put it, I did it because it "worked", because I wanted you to believe me to be truly "angry" about this. Watching Wertheim's performance was an uncomfortable experience. I felt a little bit unsettled, troubled, when Wertheim revealed this seemingly authentic moment of self- disclosure to be 'just an act'. I began to wonder where this discomfort and this confusion came from. To understand this, it seems first of all important to recognize that Wertheim unsettles common expectations about authenticity. Cabaret performers and stand-up comedians are generally expected to be themselves on stage, to be 'authentic' (Klöters, "Even samenvatten", 37). When comedians are sometimes not 'themselves', they normally communicate to the audience that they are 'playing a role' by using props, theatrical costume, or adopting a silly voice. In line with this, comedians are expected to be 'sincere', to present an audience with personal stories and opinions (Heuven 82). Wertheim refuses to perform according to these

1 Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer, De Kleine Komedie, Amsterdam, 12 Dec. 2010. For the detailed analysis of Wertheim's performance conducted in Chapter 3 of this thesis, I have made use of the television registration of this performance: Wertheim, Micha. "Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer." Npo.nl. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.

4 conventions of authenticity. He does initially not communicate to the audience that his commentary upon Facebook is 'just' an act. Rather than adopting a silly voice to comment upon Facebook, and then switching back to his 'own' voice, Wertheim keeps speaking within the same voice, while also indicating a change by 'doubling' his voice and stepping out of the story to reflect upon it, thereby confusing the clear-cut distinction between self and role and confusing our expectations of the authenticity of the comedian. By playing with and making us aware of these conventions of authenticity, Wertheim also confronts us as spectators with general assumptions about what counts as 'critical' cabaret, and points us to the fact that strategies of authenticity can be used to mask the conservative implications of what seems to be a very critical use of humour. Namely, Wertheim reveals to the audience that he did not make fun of Facebook because he wanted to make a personal statement about it, but rather because he knew that the audience would recognize 'Facebook' as a heavily debated topic worthy of critique: for although Facebook is indeed a very popular medium, it has also stirred critical debate. As Wertheim goes on to demonstrate, precisely by reiterating this familiar critique of Facebook, he was able to make it seem as if he was truly angry about it.2 However, reiterating a very familiar critique is not very challenging; doing so, one merely confirms what most people think, and this is actually a very conservative thing to do. Yet, as Wertheim demonstrates, precisely because it is a cliché recognized by many people, the comedian ridiculing Facebook is perceived by the audience as 'authentic', as 'truly' angry and critical. In this thesis, I set out to theorize these conservative implications of humour explored by Wertheim in his performance, as well as the strategies of authenticity used by comedians to mask these conservative implications of humour.

Questioning Dutch cabaret By pointing to the role of strategies of authenticity in masking the conservative implications of humour, Wertheim raises urgent questions about Dutch cabaret as a cultural tradition. To make this point clear, I will first provide some background information about the Dutch cabaret tradition. In the Dutch context, the term 'cabaret' refers to a very popular form of theatrical comedy. It has thus nothing to do with the cheap nightclub entertainment that the term 'cabaret' refers to in the Anglo-American context. Rather, Dutch cabaret is a form of comedy that can be traced back to the European cabaret movement of the late nineteenth and

2 Wertheim's Facebook story presents a critique of the idea of digital friendship. People on Facebook, says Wertheim/the voice-over, may think of themselves as very 'social' and 'connected', but they are actually very lonely. They believe they have made 'real' friends, but actually they are sitting all alone behind their computer screens.

5 early twentieth century. In his classical historical overview work on Dutch cabaret, Wim Ibo has demonstrated that Dutch cabaret can ultimately be traced back to the late nineteenth- century French cabaret-artistiques, the artistic cafés in which French artists, poets and writers experimented with a new form of satirical comedy (see Ibo, Chap. 1). Although Dutch cabaret was initially very strongly influenced by the French as well as by the German cabaret tradition, in the course of the twentieth century it developed into a distinct form of comedy which is often conceived as 'typically Dutch' (Hanenberg and Verhallen 10). Today, the typical cabaret performance is a solo performance of a comedian who presents (semi- )personal stories and observations interspersed with jokes, often combined with social and political commentary. This element of social and political criticism is especially important. Dutch cabaret has a strong reputation as a critical and progressive form of comedy. In his standard work about cabaret, Ibo has typified cabaret as "protest against conventions, traditions, and dogmas" (21).3 Furthermore, many authors have pointed to the important role of engagement in the Dutch cabaret tradition (Scholten). Moreover, it has often been suggested that the political and social criticism provided by comedians has a personal flavour: comedians are 'authentic', they stand on stage 'as themselves', and they directly address the audience to tell about their personal problems and struggles with the world around them. In the 1990s, the concept of 'personal engagement' has been coined to emphasize this strong relationship between social and political criticism and the personal life of the comedian (Scholten 12). It is against this background that Wertheim's remarks about the conservative implications of humour, and the role of authenticity in obscuring these implications, must be understood.

Procedure In this thesis, I will use Wertheim's performance as my theoretical object4 to re-think a Dutch cabaret tradition that is generally perceived as critical and progressive, and to re-direct attention to the more troubling political implications of humour within this tradition. My main aim is to theorize the conservative implications of humour within Dutch cabaret and thereby to problematize a dominant and rather one-sided understanding of cabaret as critical and progressive.

3 My translation. Ibo argues that cabaret always has the form of a "protest" and adds to this: "het stelt [...] betrekkelijkheid tegenover conventies, tradities en dogma's". 4 I take the notion of theoretical object from Maaike Bleeker (Visuality 8). With this notion, Bleeker argues for an approach in which the reflexive nature of cultural objects is taken seriously, and in which these objects are not used as mere illustrations of theory.

6 To re-think the Dutch cabaret tradition, we first need to understand how this tradition has traditionally been perceived, and what the problems of these traditional views are. This is what I aim to do in Chapter 1. Within this chapter, I present an analysis of popular texts on Dutch cabaret. I argue that there are two dominant ideas about Dutch cabaret, which have in current discourses become deeply intertwined: first, the idea that cabaret is a critical and progressive form of comedy, and secondly, the idea that cabaret is about authenticity and personal expression. To further unpack these ideas, as well as to understand their intertwinement in today's discourses on cabaret, I trace them back to older texts, in which they are more clearly separated. This short history will lead me from the early 1970s, via the 1990s, to the present. Next, I problematize the traditional understanding of cabaret as a critical and progressive form of comedy by looking into three famous examples of so-called critical cabaret: Cabaret Lurelei's mockery of Queen Juliana (1966), Youp van 't Hek's critique of the non-alcoholic beer Buckler (1989) and Theo Maassen's intense kissing of a crucifix (2006). Within a close analysis of these examples, I demonstrate that the supposedly critical humour of these comedians has actually quite conservative implications. In Chapter 2, I further theorize the conservative implications of humour by providing a close reading of Michael Billig's book Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour (2005). In the book, Billig argues against a dominant ideology according to which humour is good-natured, warm-hearted and rebellious, and re-directs attention to the conservative functions of humour in social life. Within my reading of Billig, I first demonstrate how Billig's theory draws upon and combines elements from the humour theories of Bergson and Freud to arrive at his thesis about the conservative functions of humour. Next, I re-read Billig's critique of humour and ideology through Freud's arguments about the rhetoric of joking. By doing this, I aim to demonstrate that Billig's theory raises interesting questions about how humour can be used to co-construct or to contribute to ideology. In Chapter 3, I use Micha Wertheim's performance Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer as a theoretical object to think about the strategies used by Dutch comedians and how these strategies work on an ideological level to construct humour as 'positive', 'good-natured' and 'rebellious' and to mask the conservative implications of humour. It is especially Wertheim's artistic reflection upon the comedy of Toon Hermans and Youp van 't Hek that helps me to articulate an alternative history of Dutch cabaret, in which more attention is paid to the conservative implications of humour. I propose to re-read Wertheim's artistic reflection upon humour in the Dutch cabaret tradition through Maaike Bleeker's theory of visuality. This

7 theory helps to explain the important role that authenticity plays within the strategies of humour analyzed by Wertheim in his performance. In the Conclusion, I argue that my reading of Wertheim's performance, framed through Billig and Bleeker, allows for a critical re-thinking of Dutch cabaret in terms of the conservative implications of humour in this tradition, and also contributes to Michael Billig's reflection upon humour and ideology. Furthermore, I point to the new critical possibilities that I have encountered in the work of Micha Wertheim and others, which present interesting new questions for future research.

8 Chapter 1: The Critical Reputation of Dutch Cabaret

In popular discourses on Dutch cabaret, we find two dominant ideas: the first one is that cabaret is essentially a critical and progressive form of comedy, that the comedian is critically engaged with society; the second one is that cabaret is about authenticity and personal expression, that comedians are 'themselves' on stage and present the audience with personal stories and opinions. The aim of this chapter is to analyze and to destabilize this traditional view of cabaret. In the first part of the chapter, I present an analysis of popular discourses on cabaret. In today's discourse on cabaret, notions of authenticity and engagement have become deeply intertwined. To further unpack these notions and to study their relationship, I will trace them back to older texts, in which they were more clearly separated. This historical exploration will lead me from the early 1970s, via the 1990s, to the present. The idea that cabaret is a critical and progressive form of comedy will be traced back to Wim Ibo's classical historical overview work about Dutch cabaret: En nu de moraal van dit lied: 75 jaar Nederlands cabaret, which was first published in 1970.5 The idea that cabaret is about authenticity and personal expression will be traced back to cabaret discourses from the 1990s. In the second part of the chapter, I question the dominant idea that cabaret is critical and progressive by addressing the role of humour in three classical examples of supposedly critical cabaret: Cabaret Lurelei's mockery of Queen Juliana in the song Arme ouwe (1966), Youp van 't Hek's critique of the non-alcoholic beer Buckler (1989) and Theo Maassen's intense kissing of a crucifix (2006). It is important to remind the reader at this point that the aspect of authenticity, already emphasized in my reading of Dutch cabaret discourse, is further questioned and made productive for a critical analysis of Dutch cabaret in Chapter 3 of this thesis.

Early history: Wim Ibo In 1970, writer and producer Wim Ibo published an historical overview work on Dutch cabaret, which has become a classical work in the field. His En nu de moraal van dit lied: 75 jaar Nederlands cabaret presents an overview of Dutch cabaret in the period 1895-1970. Ibo was not a professional historian; he was an amateur, who began his career as a cabaret artist,

5 I do not claim that the idea that cabaret is critical originates with Ibo, quite the contrary: I will demonstrate that Ibo responds to - and tries to resist - dominant ideas about the role of social criticism in Dutch cabaret. However, Ibo's text is the first systematic overview work about Dutch cabaret, therefore it explicitly addresses the critical nature of Dutch cabaret.

9 but became successful as a producer of records and radio/television programmes on Dutch cabaret. Although Ibo was not the first cabaret historian, he was the first to present a systematic overview of the history of Dutch cabaret, and to provide a definition of the genre based upon extensive historical research. Most relevant for our discussion is the first, introductory chapter of Ibo's book. Within the introduction, Ibo very explicitly reflects upon the 'nature' of Dutch cabaret. Ibo's suggestion in this chapter is that, to be able to understand cabaret as an artistic form, as well as to provide a definition of the genre, we have to trace it back to its origins. He finds these origins in late nineteenth-century Paris, where a new form of satirical entertainment arose for which we now use the term 'cabaret'. As Ibo points out, the French term cabaret was, at the time, used in a slightly different sense. In the late nineteenth-century, the term cabaret referred to a public café, a night club or a restaurant. Although these public cafés or restaurants sometimes provided entertainment, this was not the type of satirical entertainment that we now call cabaret. Cabaret, as an artistic form, was the product of artistic experiments that did not take place in the public cafés, but rather in artistic cafés, the so-called cabaret- artistiques, which were only open for members, usually writers and artists. According to Ibo, the new form of comedy invented in the cabaret-artistiques was the direct precursor of Dutch cabaret. There was one artistic café in particular which played a very important role in the popularization of this new form of comedy. This was the famous café Le Chat Noir on Montmartre, the first cabaret-artistique which was open for non-members as well. The commercial entrepeneur Rodolphe Salis, who was the manager of this café, decided to make Le Chat Noir a public café so as to attract a larger audience, and thus to make more money. In 1881, Salis opened his café for the curious crowds on the streets. Le Chat Noir became immediately successful. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, French cabaret spread across Europe. Whereas some artists travelled to Paris, the performers of Montmartre also played in other European countries. This led to the establishment of artistic cafés à la Le Chat Noir in different European capitals, a.o. Berlin, Copenhagen, Vienna and Amsterdam. In his characterization of the French cabaret of Montmartre, Ibo emphasizes the element of critique. Ibo points to at least three important characteristics of French turn-of-the- century cabaret. First, it was often anti-bourgeois. It was rooted in the socialist, realist, and naturalist movements of the late nineteenth century. However, there was also a more romantical tradition, which was anti-naturalist. Secondly, it was literary-musical entertainment. Song-singing played a very important role. The cabaret artists presented lyrical, but also satirical songs. The emphasis was on text, not on music; the music had to

10 support the message, which was often critical. Thirdly, the cabaret artists performed in the intimate setting of an artistic café for an intelligent audience. The cabaretier directly addressed, and often insulted, the spectator. According to Ibo, Dutch cabaret was directly influenced by the French tradition. Eduard Jacobs, generally seen as the first Dutch cabaretier, had even worked as a pianist in Le Chat Noir. Jacobs was an Amsterdam diamant polisher who had tried his luck in Paris, and found work in the entertainment industry. Back in the Netherlands, he presented solo performances, mainly consisting of Dutch translations of French cabaret songs. For Ibo, Jacobs's first solo performance in Amsterdam marks the 'birth' of Dutch cabaret. On 19 August 1895, Jacobs presented his first cabaret performance in a night pub in the Quellijnstraat 64, De Pijp, Amsterdam (Ibo, Chap. 3) Not only Jacobs, but also other early Dutch cabaretiers were inspired by the French cabaret artists of Montmartre. The French influences came in particular from Aristide Bruant, whom Ibo calls the "father" of Dutch cabaret (12). Next to French cabaret, German cabaretiers like Ernst von Wolzogen and Rudolf Nelson have had a considerable influence upon the Dutch cabaret scene. Whereas the French cabaret of Montmartre presented solo performers as part of a larger programme, German cabaret mainly consisted of cabaret ensembles (53). Both forms existed in the Netherlands. Whereas early Dutch cabaretiers like Koos Speenhoff and Eduard Jacobs were inspired by the French cabaret of Aristide Bruant (47), the ensemble cabarets of Wim Kan (the famous ABC Cabaret, established in 1936) and Wim Sonneveld (Cabaret Wim Sonneveld, established in 1943) were directly inspired by the German Nelson Cabaret (55). By tracing Dutch cabaret back to its origins in late nineteenth-century France, and by pointing to the many influences of French and German cabaret upon the Dutch tradition, Ibo's history of cabaret emphasizes continuity. Dutch cabaret as a tradition has, according to Ibo, always been faithful to its origin. Its 'spirit' or 'essence' has not considerably changed. Hence, Ibo proposes a definition of cabaret which is in line with his observations about the original French cabaret of Montmartre: "Cabaret," Ibo writes, "is professionele literair-muzikale theaterkleinkunst in een intieme omgeving voor een intelligent publiek." (16) Ibo's characterization of cabaret as a "literary-musical" form of theatre, which is presented in an "intimate setting" for an "intelligent audience", matches his observations about the French cabaret of Montmartre. Yet what seems to be remarkably absent from this definition is the satirical or critical aspect of cabaret, which did have a prominent place in Ibo's account of the Parisian cabaret of the late nineteenth century. As it turns out, however, the element of social

11 critique is implied within the idea that cabaret is a "professional" and autonomous artistic form. Ibo elaborates upon this point on the pages following his definition. Here, Ibo opposes his view of cabaret as an autonomous artistic form to the idea of engagement, which, as the author writes, is too often seen as a prerequisite for critical cabaret. He states:

Bij beschouwingen over cabaretprogramma's [...] schijnt men vooral de laatste jaren steeds meer behoefte te hebben aan het uitpluizen van de politieke richting van de kleinkunstenaar, alsof dat de voorwaarde is die iemand tot cabaretier stempelt [...] Wie de arrogante pretentie heeft solisten en groepen op demagogische wijze te veroordelen omdat ze niet 'geëngageerd' (in de zin van 'getuigend') zouden zijn, geeft blijk van een intolerantie die het wezen van het cabaret raakt, omdat deze kunst de individuele vrijheid van de ongebonden kunstenaar impliceert (20).

According to Ibo, to say that cabaret is about engagement is to suggest that cabaret can be reduced to one political programme or ideology. However, the cabaretier is a professional artist, which means that he or she is independent, and does not commit him or herself to one political ideology. It is precisely this autonomy or independence of any political ideology or any direct political goal which enables the cabaretier to be truly critical. Accordingly, the idea that cabaret is necessarily left-wing is, according to Ibo, not correct: "Ook de stelling dat cabaret niet anders dan links gericht kan zijn, berust op een misvatting" (Ibid.). Cabaret is not necessarily left-wing or right-wing; however, it is always critical: "Want de cabaretartiest heeft ons altijd iets te zeggen: wat hij doet en hoe hij dat ook doet, hij protesteert [...] Cabaret is protest in de meest ruime zin van het woord, het stelt kunst tegenover kitsch, eenvoud tegenover glamour, oprechtheid tegenover hypocrisie, verdieping tegenover vervlakking, betrekkelijkheid tegenover conventies, tradities en dogma's." (20-1) Ibo's characterization of cabaret as a form of protest is interesting because it tells us something about the reputation of cabaret in the early 1970s. First, Ibo's text suggests that cabaret, at least in the 1970s, had a strong reputation as politically engaged and explicitly left- wing, even though Ibo himself rejects this view of cabaret as leftist and politically engaged. Ibo cites many authors who believe cabaret to be explicitly political and (sometimes also) explicitly left-wing: "Een cabaret, as Jan Musch writes, "wil het aan zijn doel beantwoorden, moet politiek zijn of zal niet zijn." (Musch qtd in Ibo 15) "Cabaret", as Johan Verdoner adds to this, "kan niet anders dan progressief zijn en moet dus een linkse indruk maken. Een behoudend cabaret is onvoorstelbaar." (Verdoner qtd in Ibo 15) Furthermore, although the authors disagree about the extent to which comedians need to be politically engaged, the idea that cabaret is a critical form of comedy seems not to be under discussion. Both Ibo and the

12 authors to whom Ibo refers seem to agree about this. It is only the form of this critique about which the authors disagree: whereas Ibo believes that a truly critical comedian is not politically engaged, the generally accepted idea seems to be that critique of the comedian is motivated by his or her political engagement. Finally, although Ibo argues against the dominant idea that cabaret is oriented towards the left, he actually reinforces the dominant idea that cabaret is 'progressive' by characterizing it in terms of a "protest against conventions, traditions and dogmas" (qtd above)

The 1990s: engagement vs. authenticity In the decennia after Ibo published his classical overview work, a new idea about Dutch cabaret arises: the idea that cabaret is about authenticity and personal expression, i.e. that comedians are 'themselves' on stage and present the audience with personal stories and observations. This idea is very strongly embedded within cabaret discourses from the 1990s, to which I will take a closer look in this section. The emphasis upon authenticity in cabaret discourses from the 1990s reflects some important changes that have taken place in the cabaret landscape in the 1980s and the 1990s. Most importantly, in the early 1980s, the personal life of the comedian began to play a more important role in the performance. Authors use different, and often pejorative, terms to characterize these new, more personal, forms of cabaret: they speak of 'ego-cabaret', 'ik-tijdperk', 'authenticiteit' and 'persoonlijk engagement'. The many pejorative terms used to describe these new forms of cabaret demonstrate that authenticity and personal expression were not always seen as very positive. This is explained by the fact that many authors in the 1990s believe the new, personal forms of cabaret to pose a challenge to cabaret's critical nature. Within the following, I will analyze the idea of authenticity, as well as the perceived tension between authenticity and critical engagement. I argue that by criticizing the trend of personal cabaret, authors often reinforce the traditional idea that 'true' cabaret is critical. I will start by looking at three shorter texts which are among the very few which provide a more or less systematic historical discussion of how cabaret has developed and changed as an artistic form (see also Krans 134-6, Otte and Verboeket 131 ff). In the three texts discussed here, the idea of authenticity is explicitly addressed and reflected upon. The first two texts are written by cabaret historian Jacques Klöters (1997, 1999), the third text is written by theatre researcher Hilde Scholten (1995). Next, I discuss Patrick van den Hanenberg and Frank Verhallen's overview work Het is weer tijd om te bepalen waar het allemaal op staat: Nederlands cabaret 1970-1995 (1996). The book by van den Hanenberg and Verhallen is the only historical overview work which has

13 been published after Ibo's classical study, and covers the period from 1970 to 1995. Although this book is more oriented towards individual comedians than the shorter texts discussed in this chapter, its reading of the history of cabaret, including the role of critical engagement and authenticity, is in many ways similar to the readings of Klöters and Scholten, as will be further demonstrated below.

Jacques Klöters In 1997 and 1999, theatre historian Jacques Klöters published two short essays on Dutch cabaret in Sketch, a specialized journal on popular theatre in the Netherlands.6 The first of these essays, "Cabaret dankzij de provincie", appeared in a special issue of Sketch, published in March 1997. This issue was dedicated to cabaret historian Wim Ibo, and all articles published paid tribute to Ibo by addressing a topic that Ibo was interested in, personally or professionally. In his tribute to Ibo, Klöters wrote about the history of cabaret, and remained, not surprisingly, very close to Ibo's reading of this history. In the essay, Klöters emphasized the critical nature of Dutch cabaret. In his second essay, however, Klöters chose a different path: in "Even samenvatten...... ", published two years later in Sketch 16 (1999), Klöters argued that present forms of cabaret are often not so critical anymore when compared to cabaret performances from the 1960s and 1970s. Let us first take a closer look Klöters's earlier essay. In the essay, Klöters provides a short history of Dutch cabaret, focusing upon cabaret's origins as a marginal artistic form in the late nineteenth century and its development into a form of mass entertainment in the decennia after the Second World War. Following Ibo, Klöters argues that the origins of Dutch cabaret lie within the French and German cabarets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This original form of cabaret, Klöters explains, was not popular. Rather, cabaretiers were "onmaatschappelijken" (44), operating from the margins of society, and ridiculing the norms and conventions of that society. Cabaret was transgressive, it was a form of protest, a protest against social norms and conventions. In the Netherlands, cabaret lost some of its radicalism, and after the Second World War, developed into a form of mass entertainment. This loss of radicalism, however, did not lead to a situation in which cabaret became pure entertainment. Like Ibo, Klöters argues that cabaret is always more than entertainment, and

6 In 1987, Klöters published a more extensive historical overview work about Dutch popular theatre: 100 jaar amusement in Nederland. In this section, I do not discuss this work. Although Klöters dedicates part of this book to the history of cabaret, the book mainly provides a documentation of the works of individual comedians and ensembles. In the two shorter texts published in Sketch, Klöters takes a more analytical perspective, and provides a more explicit reflection upon the role of authenticity and engagement in Dutch cabaret.

14 has always remained faithful to its origin: "wat gebleven is," Klöters writes, "is de protesthouding. Het cabaret is tegen." (50) In the essay published two years later, Klöters presents a rather different history of cabaret. Whereas Klöters, in his tribute to Ibo, emphasized that postwar cabaret continued to be critical, in the other essay Klöters suggests that postwar cabaret marked a new beginning, the beginning of what he calls "zelfportretten-cabaret" (37):

In het naoorlogse Nederlandse cabaret is er een typische vorm ontstaan, de zogenaamde 'one-man-show'. Toon Hermans, Wim Sonneveld en Wim Kan en in hun voetsporen talloze anderen gingen alleen het toneel op en voerden een programma op waarin (zogenaamd?) ook hun eigen biografie behandeld werd (36).

Klöters continues to argue that this 'zelfportretten-cabaret' developed into the dominant form of cabaret throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a form of cabaret that is not at all critical:

Dat de eigen persoon centraal gesteld werd, was normaal geworden. Men gaat tegenwoordig niet meer naar het cabaret om te horen wat iemand van iets vindt, maar om mee te maken hoe iemand is. De vragen die de huidige cabaretier zich in z'n programma lijkt te stellen, zijn: 'wie ben ik, wat wil ik, wat houdt me tegen, wat vind ik, hoe voel ik me, en wat moet ik doen.' Het engagement met de samenleving dat in de jaren zestig en zeventig zo opvallend was, is in de periode daarna opgevolgd door speelse nonsens, ironie en therapeutisch aandoende ik-gerichtheid. Ik durf te stellen dat het zelfportret het belangrijkste genre is geworden in het cabaret (Ibid.).

Klöters is not very positive about the new, more personal forms of cabaret that arose in the 1980s and 1990s. He speaks, quite pejoratively, of "therapeutisch aandoende ik-gerichtheid". Furthermore, he opposes the personal cabaret from this period to the political engagement of the 1960s and 1970s. This is not a neutral comparison: rather, by denouncing the personal cabaret from the 1980s and 1990s as "therapeutisch aandoende ik-gerichtheid" and by comparing it to the 1960s and 1970s as an era of political engagement, Klöters presents the critical, political cabaret of previous generations as a norm, and applies it to present performances, thereby suggesting that 'good' cabaret is critical. It would not be fair, however, to suggest that Klöters simply denounces the idea of authenticity. Within the second part of his essay, Klöters presents a more nuanced analysis of the important role of authenticity in Dutch cabaret. Within this part of the text, Klöters explicitly uses the term 'authenticity': "Bij cabaret," Klöters writes, "verlangt het publiek van de speler integriteit en echtheid oftewel authenticiteit." (37)

15 Within Klöters's essay, the concept of authenticity seems to refer, first and foremost, to the idea that the comedian is 'him or herself' on stage. Klöters points here to the distinction between comedy and drama: "Een toneel-acteur representeert meestal een door een ander bedachte rol die ook in het verleden kan spelen of in een ander land […] Maar een cabaretier presenteert voornamelijk zichzelf in het hier en nu op deze avond." (Ibid.) This does not mean, however, that comedians never play roles. On the contrary, comedians very often use role-playing as part of their act. Yet comedians never disappear into the roles they are playing. According to Klöters, comedians always remain visible as 'themselves' behind the role they are playing, and they may at each and every moment step out of their role to comment upon it. The comedian plays with the boundaries between self and role: "In het cabaret wordt fictie opgebouwd maar ook voortdurend onderuitgehaald. De speler valt uit zijn rol of speelt meerdere rollen tegelijkertijd [...] Zijn vermomming is rudimentair en nauwelijks geloofwaardig." (Ibid.) However, this play with the boundaries between self and role never leads to actual confusion: we always know when the comedian 'pretends' and when he or she does not:

Paul de Leeuw bijvoorbeeld speelde een theaterprogramma waarin hij begon als de bekende cabaretier, vervolgens uit zijn rol viel en privépersoon werd, daarna onder andere een meisje speelde dat hem zeer bewonderde en voor hem een imitatie gaf van zijn bekende creatie Bob de Rooy. Al deze gedaantewisselingen werden door het publiek begrepen en kwamen zonder veel scènische middelen tot stand (Ibid.).

It is not only the specific use of role-playing that contributes to the authenticity of the comedian, but also the way in which the comedian addresses the audience. Direct audience address is an important element of "zelfportretten-cabaret": "Het zelfportret stapt in het cabaret voortdurend uit de lijst en houdt voortdurend contact met de waarnemer. Het cabaret doet niet aan de onzichtbare vierde wand." (38) Furthermore, the comedian combines fictional elements with stories from his personal life and explicit references to topical political and social issues: "Hij gebruikt verzonnen gebeurtenissen maar tegelijkertijd ook ware, er figureren echte en verzonnen figuren in zijn verhalen. Er komen namen van reële personen in zijn tekst voor en gebeurtenissen die die ochtend in de krant hebben gestaan." And: "Hij [de cabaretier] neemt zijn persoonlijke geschiedenis mee het toneel op..." (Ibid.) Within his analysis of the authenticity aspect in Dutch cabaret, Klöters actually poses a challenge to the strong opposition between personal expression and political engagement introduced at the beginning of the essay. According to Klöters, by playing with the boundaries

16 between self and role, the comedian poses a challenge to the conventions of role-playing. In this way, role-playing is used by comedians in a subversive way. Klöters writes: "Het cabaret spot met de eis van de consequent volgehouden identiteit van de fictieve figuur zoals dat elders bij toneel gebruikelijk is." (Ibid., emphasis added) Furthermore, comedians use role- playing to criticize the behaviour or opinions of the character they portray: "Zijn [De cabaretiers] vermomming is rudimentair en nauwelijks geloofwaardig. Zijn taalgebruik is niet karakteriserend, maar vooral satirisch bedoeld" (Ibid.) Authenticity and engagement, as Klöters suggests here, are not necessarily opposites.

Hilde Scholten Hilde Scholten also addresses the relationship between authenticity and engagement in her introduction to the book Cabaret in Nederland: Sociale en economische aspecten van het cabaretbedrijf (1995). While the book concentrates on the organizational structure of cabaret, the opening chapter provides a short introduction to cabaret as an artistic form. At first inspection, it seems as if Scholten does not reinforce traditional views of cabaret as a predominantly critical form of comedy. At the beginning of her text, Scholten argues that cabaret is a "pluriform en kameleontisch genre dat continu verandert" (9) There are many different forms of cabaret, and new forms have been invented within the course of history. Scholten argues against the idea that Dutch cabaret is necessarily about political or social engagement. Comedians, Scholten writes, may also provide pure entertainment: "Een geëngageerde inhoud wordt door velen als vereiste voor cabaretprogramma's beschouwd: een cabaretvoorstelling moet getuigen van de maatschappelijke betrokkenheid van de cabaretier. Dit laat zich echter slecht rijmen met het even grote aantal voorstellingen - door de jaren heen - waarin niet het engagement, maar het amusement voorop stond." (11) It is important to keep in mind, however, that Scholten very much emphasizes the critical aspect of Dutch cabaret. Scholten argues that social criticism can be considered one of the "dominant" (10) elements of Dutch cabaret (next to the conference, the song, and direct artist-audience communication). She also points out how breaking taboos has always played an important role in the work of Dutch comedians (14). But although Scholten on the one hand reinforces traditional views of cabaret as a predominantly critical form of comedy, she also suggests that social criticism and taboo- breaking have, in recent years, lost some of their importance for the Dutch cabaret tradition. Like Klöters, Scholten points to the 1980s as a period in which critical forms of cabaret

17 largely disappeared, and in which the personal life of the comedian began to play a more important role in the performance. She observes:

Vanaf de jaren tachtig ondergingen de thema's binnen het cabaret een aanzienlijke verandering. Protest, maatschappijkritiek en politieke betrokkenheid, waar men in het cabaret jarenlang van had getuigd, verdwenen grotendeels. Er kwam een meer autobiografische inhoud en een persoonlijker engagement voor in de plaats (12).

In line with Klöters, Scholten opposes the 'old' cabaret of "protest, social critique and political engagement [politieke betrokkenheid]" to the non-critical, "autobiographical" cabaret of the 1980s and 1990s. But compared to Klöters, Scholten's tone is different. She does not denounce the personal cabaret of recent decades as "therapeutisch" (Klöters, qtd above), but characterizes it, more positively, in terms of an "autobiografische inhoud" and "personal engagement". Furthermore, although there is still a tension in Scholten's text between the idea of social engagement and the idea of personal expression, by using the concept of 'personal engagement', she does at the same time undermine or destabilize this opposition. By articulating personal cabaret in terms of 'engagement', Scholten suggests that the personal cabaret of the 1980s and the 1990s is somehow still critical. Scholten makes this explicit when she points out that the boundaries between personal and political engagement are never fixed:

Maatschappelijk en persoonlijk engagement blijken niet strikt van elkaar gescheiden te zijn. Lenette van Dongen vond in haar eerste solovoorstelling Mag het wat zachter een gemiddelde tussen beide. Kleine, dichtbij gelegen zaken werden door haar doorgetrokken naar grote wereldproblemen (Ibid.).

Personal expression and political engagement, it turns out, cannot be clearly separated.7 According to Scholten, the personal cabaret of the 1980s and 1990s is not only different from the political cabaret of the 1960s and 1970s in the themes it addresses, it is also different in form. Whereas traditional cabaret performances are composed of separate acts which bear no necessary relationship to each other, giving the comedian the possibility to play

7 The notion of personal engagement is quite common in the cabaret discourse of the 1990s. It is not always very clear what the term means. It definitely refers to a form of cabaret in which the personal life of the comedian plays an important role, but it is not always very clear why authors speak of 'engagement'. Otte and Verboeket, for instance, use the term in their short history of cabaret to emphasize the shift from social criticism to personal expression, but they do not indicate to what extent this new form of cabaret is critical. In the 1980s, as they write, "wordt het maatschappelijk engagement grotendeels vervangen door persoonlijk geëngageerde soloprogramma's en nonsens-cabaret; de privépersoonlijkheid van de cabaretier wordt belangrijker dan de maatschappelijke context." (154)

18 many characters during one night, the cabaret of the 1980s is characterized by a continuous story with a single character. Yet the comedian, as Scholten emphasizes, does not want to make the spectator forget that he or she is looking at a theatre performance. Like Klöters, Scholten points in this context to the distinction between comedy and 'straight acting'. Unlike the actor, the comedian does never disappear into the roles he or she plays:

De cabaretier is - doordat hij af is van het mozaïek van losse nummers - voortaan in staat zijn rol uit te diepen tot een karakter met meer reliëf. Maar het wordt niet zijn doel om daarmee een ingeleefd personage neer te zetten, zoals een acteur dat doet. De cabaretier blijft de illusie heel bewust doorbreken door uit zijn rol te stappen - om commentaar te leveren, een andere rol te spelen of een liedje te zingen - en het publiek direct aan te spreken (16).

Scholten's analysis of role-playing in Dutch cabaret neatly fits in with Klöters's analysis of the relationship between role-playing and authenticity. Comedians never disappear into the roles they are playing; we always see the comedian behind the role. Furthermore, comedians often step out of their role and become 'themselves' again. When comedians are 'themselves', they usually directly address the audience and present this audience with a personal commentary or a song. To sum up, the cabaret of the 1980s and 1990s is not only characterized by personal storytelling, but also by the visible presence of the comedian 'him or herself' behind the roles that he or she plays.

Van den Hanenberg and Verhallen In 1996, Patrick van den Hanenberg and Frank Verhallen published an historical overview work about Dutch cabaret, covering the period 1970-1995: Het is weer tijd om te bepalen waar het allemaal op staat: Nederlands cabaret 1970-1995. The book is presented by the authors as a sequel to Ibo's history of Dutch cabaret, and it is the last systematic historical overview work on Dutch cabaret that has been published.8 The focus of the book lies upon detailed descriptions of the works and careers of individual comedians and cabaret groups. Van den Hanenberg and Verhallen, unlike Klöters and Scholten, do not explicitly address questions of authenticity, role-playing and personal expression. However, we do find a strong opposition in the book between personal expression and political engagement. This opposition, as I will demonstrate in a reading of van den Hanenberg and Verhallen's chapter on political cabaret, works to promote the idea that 'good' cabaret is critical.

8 The authors call Ibo's book "the bible of cabaret" and their own work the "New Testament" (9).

19 Like Scholten, van den Hanenberg and Verhallen start from the observation that there are many different forms of cabaret, which cannot be captured by one definition. In the introduction to the book, the authors criticize Wim Ibo for providing a single and very strict definition of cabaret:

Wim Ibo heeft in zijn beschrijving van de eerste 75 jaar van het Nederlandse cabaret tamelijk traditionele grenzen aangehouden [...] Wij behoren tot de rekkelijken. We zien vele verbindingslijnen tussen allerlei theateractiviteiten, zoals show, entertainment, muzikale grappen, podiumliteratuur, toneelcabaret en fysieke clownerie, die samen het brede web vormen van... cabaret (10).

The thesis of van den Hanenberg and Verhallen, which is worked out in more detail in the different chapters of the book, is that the cross-pollination between cabaret and other genres, e.g. literature, (pop) music, and theatre, has led to the rise of many different, often hybrid, forms of cabaret. Consequently, cabaret is not necessarily critical: "socially engaged" [maatschappijkritisch] cabaret is only one form among others (263). In this context, the authors also point to some important changes in the cabaret scene throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. Critical cabaret, as the authors recount, lost much of its importance at the end of the 1970s. At this time, there was a 'crisis' of cabaret: audiences lost their interest in the critical comedy of the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, a new generation of comedians, providing entertainment rather than social criticism, caused a 'revival' of cabaret (169). This so-called 'nonsense cabaret' (see Otte and Verboeket 154) did not wholly replace the critical cabaret of the 1960s and the 1970s; rather, in the 1980s and 1990s, critical and non-critical forms of cabaret existed next to each other. Yet the critical cabaret of the 1980s and the 1990s was less explicitly critical than the cabaret of the 1960s and 1970s. In a chapter on political cabaret, the authors contrast the explicitly political cabaret of the 1960s and 1970s with the critical cabaret of the 1980s and 1990s.

Halverwege de jaren tachtig, met de komst van Jack Spijkermans Dubbel & Dwars, en even later Lebbis & Jansen, wordt links cabaret weer salonfähig. Maar dat betreft cabaretiers die intuïtief links zijn. Zij achten een gedegen studie van de socialistische grondbeginselen geen voorwaarde om progressief cabaret te maken (113, italics in original).

First, it is important to note that the comedians dealt with in van den Hanenberg and Verhallen's chapter on political cabaret are all classified as "left-wing" and "progressive". Van

20 den Hanenberg and Verhallen thus reaffirm the traditional view that cabaret is a critical and progressive form of comedy. Yet the cabaret of the 1980s and the 1990s is not explicitly left- wing and critical anymore. According to van den Hanenberg and Verhallen, political engagement in the sense of a commitment to a particular political ideology does not exist anymore within the 1980s. The authors refer in this context to the work of Lebbis & Jansen, who presented their first performances in the late 1980s:

Ze [Lebbis & Jansen] maken maatschappijkritisch cabaret, maar er spreekt geen diepgeworteld engagement uit […] Een voorstelling zal bij hen nooit een politieke bijeenkomst worden, zoals bij de felrode cabaretiers in de jaren zestig en zeventig. De oude idealen zijn verdronken in het ik-tijdperk, zonder dat ze oppervlakkig worden […] Voor de nieuwe generatie lucht het al genoeg op om even een mening te spuien, zonder moraal (136).

In line with Klöters and Scholten, van den Hanenberg and Verhallen construct an opposition here between the political engagement of the 1960 and 1970s and the personal cabaret from the 1980s and 1990s. They argue that the political cabaret of the 1980s, of which Lebbis & Jansen provide an example, was less preachy than the political cabaret of the 1960s and 1970s. It is more about expressing "opinions" than about "political engagement". The notion of 'opinion' used here emphasizes the personal aspect of cabaret: the cabaret of the 1980s is more about personal expression than about explicit political criticism. Although the authors write that the political cabaret of the 1980s is not "oppervlakkig", they also use the notion of the "ik-tijdperk", a negatively connotated term which is generally used to refer to the 1980s as an era of narcissism. Furthermore, by suggesting that cabaretiers in the 1980s "meningen spuien", the authors suggest that the political cabaret of this time was quite "oppervlakkig" after all. In this way, the authors construct an opposition between the 1960s and 1970s as an era of 'true' political engagement and the 1980s as an era of narcissism and personal expression. They seem to take the political cabaret of the 1960s and 1970s as a norm, and to apply it to the cabaret of the 1980s. In the light of the explicit political criticism of the 1960s and 1970s, the 1980s can only appear as 'ik-tijdperk', as an era of narcissism and navel-gazing. 'Good' cabaret, as the authors suggest within their analysis, is explicitly critical.

The 2000s/2010s: new forms of engagement In recent discourses on cabaret, the ideas of authenticity and personal expression have become widely accepted. The strong opposition between personal expression and political

21 engagement, so typical of the 1990s discourse, has been broken down. Authenticity and personal storytelling are no longer believed to pose a threat to the critical nature of cabaret. On the contrary, authors in this period begin to emphasize the direct link between the authenticity of the comedian and his or her critical engagement with society. The idea of a personal engagement with society, coming up in the 1990s, is central to the cabaret discourse from this period. Within the following, I will analyze this idea of personal engagement as emphasized in discourses from the 2000s and 2010s. Unfortunately, no overview works have been published in this period. Hence, no books are available in which authors look back at the personal cabaret of the 1980s and 1990s or closely analyze present forms of personal engagement. However, there has been published an interesting short text, written by Robbert van Heuven, which analyzes the personal cabaret of the Dutch-Moroccan comedian Najib Amhali. Van Heuven's essay will be my starting point in this section. In addition, I look at the jury reports of the VSCD Cabaret Prizes, two prestigious prizes annually awarded by the Vereniging voor Schouwburg- en Concertdirecteuren (VSCD).9 These jury reports are interesting because they make explicit the criteria used by the jury to evaluate cabaret performances. The jury reports thereby give a good impression of what professionals in the field (cabaret critics, programmers, directors, etc.) consider as 'good' cabaret and why.10

Robbert van Heuven In his academic essay "'Dat mag je dan weer niet zeggen over eskimo's': Het interculturele cabaret van Najib Amhali", theatre scholar and journalist Robbert van Heuven analyzes the work of the Dutch-Moroccan comedian Najib Amhali, emphasizing the role that Amhali's cultural background plays within his performances. To theorize the distinctive ways in which Amhali, as a comedian, is able to play with his cultural background on stage, van Heuven starts by making a general observation about the important role of authenticity in Dutch cabaret. Like Klöters and Scholten, van Heuven does this by drawing a distinction between cabaret and 'straight acting'. He argues that the comedian, unlike the actor, is 'him or herself'

9 The two Cabaret Prizes awarded by the VSCD are the "Poelifinario" and the "Neerlands Hoop". The Poelifinario is a price for the best cabaret performance of the season. The Neerlands Hoop was initially meant for promising comedians at the beginning of their career. Today, it is meant for comedians who have shown an interesting artistic development (but these comedians need not necessarily be at the beginning of their career). The name Poelifinario refers to a famous sketch from comedian Toon Hermans, in which he imitates the sound of fictitious birds. The Poelifinario is one of these birds. Neerlands Hoop is the name of a famous Dutch cabaret duo from the 1970s, consisting of Freek de Jonge and Bram Vermeulen. 10 I have looked at the jury reports that were available on the website of the VSCD: these are the reports from the period 2007-2014.

22 on stage: "Een belangrijk verschil tussen toneel en cabaret is dat er bij toneel over het algemeen sprake is van door acteurs gespeelde fictieve personages [...] Bij cabaret is de cabaretier (als hij geen typetje speelt) zichzelf, of doet hij in ieder geval of hij zichzelf is." (81-2). Van Heuven's definition of cabaret in terms of self-presentation provides the starting point for his analysis of Amhali's work, in which van Heuven further emphasizes this authenticity aspect in terms of Amhali's embodiment of different cultures. Van Heuven writes:

Najib Amhali [...] heeft beide culturen [de Nederlandse en de Marokkaanse] in zich verenigd en ook de botsingen tussen die culturen zijn deel van zijn identiteit. Daarin is hij dus intercultureel en is zijn programma Freefight een intercultureel product. Hij laat daarin immers zichzelf (of in ieder geval zijn gespeelde zelf) in al zijn aspecten zien... (85)

Van Heuven's analysis not only emphasizes Amhali's work in terms of authenticity and self- presentation, it also establishes a link between Amhali's authenticity and his critical engagement with society, thereby demonstrating that Amhali's work displays a strong personal engagement. According to van Heuven, Amhali's comedy poses a challenge to a dominant ideology of multiculturalism: by demonstrating that he himself embodies different cultures, Amhali challenges the multiculturalist idea that cultures are wholly separate entities, and that the tensions between different cultures can be resolved by forcing the cultural 'other' to adapt to 'our' national culture. By sharing his personal experiences and observations, Amhali questions prejudices and generalizations about 'Moroccans', and demonstrates that his cultural identity cannot be reduced to these prejudices and stereotypes.

VSCD Cabaret prizes In the jury reports of the VSCD Cabaret Prizes, authenticity and personal expression have also been emphasized as important aspects of Dutch cabaret. In the most recent jury report (2014), authenticity is explicitly mentioned as a criterion: "Voor beide prijzen [Poelifinario en Neerlands Hoop] is nauwkeurig gekeken naar authenticiteit en geloofwaardigheid." Furthermore, the jury has often explicitly made the link between the authenticity of the comedian and the comedian's critical engagement with society, often by using the concept of personal engagement. In 2008, for example, the jury mentions "persoonlijk of maatschappelijk engagement" as important criterion for Dutch cabaret. In 2012, jury member Patrick van den Hanenberg gives a more detailed description of the different forms of

23 engagement in Dutch cabaret, and places a strong emphasis upon personal engagement: "Engagement heeft bij de genomineerden en de winnaars [...] altijd voorop gestaan. Soms is dat puur maatschappelijk engagement [...] soms wordt het algemeen menselijk tekort gesignaleerd [...] en heel vaak krijgt het persoonlijke verhaal een algemeen maatschappelijke kleur." (Juryrapport 2012, 4).11 To give one final example, the jury of 2013 gives a description of the strong personal engagement observed within the work of a new generation of comedians: "Bij deze Sturm und Drang-groep hebben we worstelingen waargenomen over hoe je om moet gaan met de huidige, steeds snellere wereld en hoe je dat gevecht vorm kan geven op het podium. Een van de juryleden zag bijvoorbeeld voor de zomer bij de Koningstheateracademie in Den Bosch twee afstudeervoorstellingen die bijna pijn deden, zo indringend persoonlijk waren ze. Zo heftig was bij deze twintigers de noodzaak om uiting te geven aan de moeizame ervaringen met de wereld." (Juryrapport 2013, 4) In contrast to the explicit political engagement of earlier generations, the comedians from the newest generation, as emphasized here by the jury, use personal experiences to give expression to their engagement with the world.

The question of humour Whereas the authors discussed within this chapter have emphasized authenticity and social criticism as important elements of Dutch cabaret, they have not explicitly thematized the role of humour in the cabaret tradition. The aspect of humour is already remarkably absent from Wim Ibo's definition of cabaret. Authors after Ibo who were discussed in this chapter did also not explicitly thematize humour as an important element of Dutch cabaret. However, looking more closely at the role of humour is important to reach a better understanding of the political implications of Dutch cabaret, for it is often by means of humour that comedians seek to challenge or to question commonly accepted ideas, norms and conventions. Many authors discussed in this chapter implicitly acknowledge this: in his paper about Najib Amhali, for example, Robbert van Heuven provides many examples of jokes which challenge prejudices about the cultural 'other' (Heuven 83). Furthermore, by using terms like 'satire', authors implicitly acknowledge that the humour of Dutch comedians is often critical (Ibo 20; Klöters, "Even" 37). Within the following, I will analyze the role of humour in three classical examples of 'critical cabaret' so as to complicate the dominant idea that Dutch cabaret, and the humour of

11 The quote is taken from a lecture presented by van den Hanenberg on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the VSCD Cabaret Prizes in 2012. The text of the lecture has been published as part of that year's jury report.

24 Dutch comedians, is critical and progressive. The examples discussed here are: Cabaret Lurelei's Arme Ouwe, a song about queen Juliana (1966), Youp van 't Hek's critique of Buckler, a non-alcoholic beer from the Dutch brewer Heineken (1989), and Theo Maassen's kissing of a crucifix (2005). The examples represent three generations of comedians: Lurelei represents the controversial cabaret of the 1960s, characterized by a strong social and political engagement; Youp van 't Hek represents the 'critical' comedy of the 1980s and the 1990s; and Theo Maassen represents the comedians who emerged from the Dutch stand-up comedy circuit in the 1990s. Furthermore, the examples represent three favourite subjects of criticism in Dutch cabaret: the royal house, bourgeois life/consumerism, and religion.

Example #1: Lurelei - Arme ouwe (1966) The first, and oldest, example presented here is taken from the work of Cabaret Lurelei, a cabaret ensemble established in 1958 by Eric Herfst, Ben Rowold and Kees Bergman, and based in Amsterdam. Lurelei has existed, within different formations, until 1968. Among its members were famous Dutch comedians like Jasperina de Jong, Gerard Cox, Frans Halsema and Leen Jongewaard. Initially, Lurelei did not display a strong political or social engagement. However, during the roaring 1960s, the performances of Lurelei turned more political. This was also due to the influence of writer Guus Vleugel, who wrote many satirical songs for Lurelei in the course of the 1960s (Ibo 615). The explicit reflection upon and engagement with the protest culture of the 1960s has made Lurelei into one of the most important representatives of the political cabaret of the 1960s. In his history of cabaret, Wim Ibo called Lurelei the best cabaret ensemble of the era. Lurelei, Ibo writes, was engaged and especially the texts of Vleugel often succeeded in breaking taboos (Ibid.). The example that I discuss here is the controversial song Arme ouwe, taken from Lurelei's performance Relderelderel (1966). In his history of Lurelei, Paul Blom has argued that Relderelderel was Lurelei's most political performance (417). It was also the most controversial one, and this was mainly due to the song Arme ouwe. This song, a mockery of Queen Juliana, has led to fierce protests among audiences, in Amsterdam and elsewhere. The song was seen as "republican" (Blom 425), and Lurelei has even been accused of lese majesty, which led to an unexpected visit of the police during the opening night in Amsterdam. What the strong protests against Arme ouwe clearly demonstrate is that this song has been perceived as rebellious and subversive, as an undermining of authority. This idea neatly fits in with the reputation of Lurelei as a critical and progressive cabaret ensemble. However,

25 if we look at the political implications of humour within this example, a rather different image arises. Arme Ouwe is a song about a protester who wants to throw smoke bombs to the gilded coach, but makes up his mind because Queen Juliana remembers him of his poor old mother:

't Is Prinsjesdag vandaag En alle andre provo's zijn vertrokken naar Den Haag. Maar ik ben d'r niet bij, 'k Ben netjes thuisgebleven, want ze hebben niks aan mij. Niet dat ik pro Oranje ben, ik haat de monarchie, Ik kan wel kotsen als ik Trix of Claus of Bernhard zie, En Juliaan is ook niet veel, dat geef ik dadelijk toe Ze is volstrekt verwerpelijk, maar ze lijkt zo op me moe Die heeft ongeveer hetzelfde soort figuur, Die heeft ook zoiets onzekers in d'r ogen, Die kan ook zo prutsen aan d'r brilmontuur Als ze bang is dat de mensen haar niet mogen... En in Den Haag had ik dus nooit Een rookbom naar d'r koets gegooid, Ik had het echt niet opgebracht En enkel maar gedacht:

Arme ouwe blijf maar zitten op je troon. Ach, wat zouden we jou daar nou af gaan douwen... Blijf maar zitten, net als vroeger doodgewoon, Arme ouwe, arme ouwe... (qtd in Blom 468)

On the one hand, the comparison between the Queen and the mother figure works to downgrade the Queen: she is portrayed as a poor old lady ("arme ouwe"), and thereby her authority is undermined. The song might thus indeed be taken as an example of critical and rebellious humour: humour is used within this example to mock the Queen, to reveal that she is actually just a silly old lady, and thereby to undermine her authority. At the same time, however, the comparison between Queen Juliana and the mother of the protester works to exonerate the Queen, to defend the status quo that it initially seems to attack. This is most evidently so in the chorus of the song: "Arme ouwe blijf maar zitten op je troon / Ach, wat zouden we jou daar nou af gaan douwen... / Blijf maar zitten, net als vroeger doodgewoon / Arme ouwe, arme ouwe..." Although the comparison between the Queen and the mother figure might be taken as very critical and progressive because Juliana is portrayed here as a poor old lady, the implication of this comparison is that the Queen, precisely because of her being a poor old lady, is harmless, so that we should not try to do away with her. The critical

26 and progressive humour of Arme Ouwe can thus be said to have quite conservative implications, and in this sense the song is not so anti-establishment as it is often taken to be.12

Example #2: Youp van 't Hek - Buckler (1989) My second example is taken from the work of the famous Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek. Van 't Hek is especially well-known for his critique of the bourgeois way of life. He often ridicules the conventions and lifestyle of his middle-class audiences. His performances usually tell the story of a man who wants to escape his family - especially his stupid wife - and his boring job to live a 'true' life. This story is normally interspersed with anecdotes and jokes about consumerism and the latest trends embraced by the masses, e.g. the checked trousers and the Van Dyke beard (which van 't Hek called a 'talking cunt'13). The example that will be discussed here is a short scene from Youp van 't Hek's Oudejaarsconference 1989 / New Year's Eve Show 1989.14 It is van 't Hek's famous critique of Buckler, a non-alcoholic beer brought onto the market by the Dutch brewer Heineken in 1988. The Buckler example provides an interesting case study because it has become a classical example of subversive humour by a famous Dutch comedian. Its classical status is mainly due to the fact that van 't Hek's critique of Buckler is believed to have had severe consequences: it is commonly believed - although very hard to prove - that van 't Hek's critique damaged Buckler's reputation to such an extent that sales decreased dramatically in the months after the performance, eventually leading Heineken to take Buckler off the market. The Buckler affair has stirred a lot of media attention, and is still often referred to on television and in newspapers. The affair has even inspired new words: Buckler-lul ("NTR"; Verdegaal; Voskuil 85), and Buckler-effect ("Het"; Wynia). The term Buckler-lul - although not used by van 't Hek himself - captures van 't Hek's critique very nicely, for this critique is not primarily directed at Buckler, but rather at the type of guy drinking this beer. Van 't Hek's critique actually only consists of a few remarks:

12In his discussion of Arme ouwe, Ibo remarks that the protagonist of the song is a right-wing rather than a left- wing protester: "Bij dit brokje voorbeeldig cabaret toonden vele Nederlanders dat ze niet konden luisteren of lezen; hadden ze dat wèl gedaan dan hadden ze een rechtse provo ontdekt..." (618). However, Ibo does not explain what this means for the reputation of Lurelei as a leftist and progressive cabaret ensemble. 13 The Dutch term is "pratende kut". The term was used by van 't Hek in his Oudejaarsconference 1989, the same performance from which the example of Buckler is taken. 14 The oudejaarsconference (probably best translated as New Year's Eve Show) is a subgenre of Dutch cabaret. It is a special show performed during the last weeks of the year, in which the comedian provides a satirical commentary of that year's most important events (mostly political events and other news events). The oudejaarsconference is broadcasted on national television on New Year's Eve and usually attracts a lot of viewers. Next to regular performances, van 't Hek has presented six oudejaarsconferences. At the moment of writing, van 't Hek is preparing a new oudejaarsconference, which will be broadcasted on television in December 2014.

27 Buckler, dat kent u wel, dat is dat gereformeerde bier hè, dat kent u wel hè? Buckler- drinkers, daar heb ik nou een hekel aan, Buckler-drinkers. Van die lullen van een jaar of veertig die naast je in het café staan met die autosleutels...rot 'ns op, jongen! Ik sta hier een beetje bezopen te worden, ga weg, gek! Ga in de kerk zuipen, idioot, hè! Ja, zuip dan niet, idioot! Buckler-drinkers!

At first inspection, van 't Hek's critique of Buckler seems to confirm the dominant perception of Dutch cabaret as a critical and progressive form of comedy. The Buckler example seems to be in line with van 't Hek's anti-bourgeois rhetoric. Van 't Hek ridicules the lifestyles and conventions of the middle class by portraying the Buckler drinker as a pathetic family man, who does not want to drink alcohol or to get drunk because he still has to drive home to wife and kids. Van 't Hek is critical and progressive here in the sense that he does not reinforce, but rather questions and undermines dominant norms and conventions. However, although van 't Hek indeed uses humour to mock the conventions and lifestyle of a particular group, and thus seems to criticize the norms and conventions of this particular class, he does this by appealing to another dominant norm. Van 't Hek's humour is normative because it appeals to dominant ideas about how men should behave within the setting of a bar. In a bar, van 't Hek suggests, we drink beer. This 'we' is constructed as male: both van 't Hek and the Buckler drinkers are men. Van 't Hek's critique of Buckler actually reinforces dominant ideas about what it means to be a 'true' man. 'True' men, van 't Hek suggests, drink beer, and get drunk. Van 't Hek himself embodies this norm: he tries to get "bezopen" but is hindered by the Buckler drinker. The Buckler drinker is the one who does not comply with the norm. Interesting in this respect is that van 't Hek's critique of Buckler is embedded in a story about Ria Lubbers, the wife of that time's Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers. Van 't Hek mocks Ria Lubbers for trying to be more than the Prime Minister's wife:

Ria Lubbers, ...oh, daar ben ik dus allergisch voor, Ria Lubbers. Op de meest intieme plaatsen krijg ik pukkeltjes als die op de buis komt. Ik wil openlijk m'n netvlies laten transplanteren als die geweest is, echt waar. Ria Lubbers, o, die wil ook altijd: 'O, ik ben helemaal niet de vrouw van de premier, ik ben gewoon een Rotterdams meisje.' Laatst ook weer: 'Ik zou het liefst een kroegje beginnen.' Als die een café begint, binnen een uur is de hele bar aan de Buckler, absoluut!

Although it is not completely clear why the presence of Ria Lubbers makes the visitors of the bar want to drink Buckler, the joke is rather conservative, not only because it suggests that Ria Lubbers should not try to escape her passive role as the Prime Minister's wife, but also

28 because it suggests that the bar is a place for men. It is a place where men drink alcohol. If the woman enters, the man starts to drink Buckler, and this seems to pose a threat to his masculinity.

Example #3: Theo Maassen - Crucifix (2005) My last example is taken from the work of Theo Maassen. Like other comedians from his generation, Maassen emerged from the Dutch stand-up comedy circuit of the early 1990s, but developed himself as a cabaret performer playing for larger theatre audiences.15 He quickly became one of the most popular comedians of his generation. The example discussed here is taken from Maassen's performance Tegen beter weten in (2005). For this performance, Maassen was awarded with the Poelifinario 2006, one of the VSCD Cabaret Prizes. The jury praised Maassen for his strong engagement with society: "Geen cabaretier behandelt de tijdgeest zo actueel, persoonlijk, scherp en humoristisch als Theo Maassen in Tegen beter weten in." (qtd in Bilsen) This statement of the jury neatly summarizes Maassen's critical reputation: Maassen is often described as "socially engaged" (Hanenberg, "Theo") and also as "left-wing" (Donkers). In the scene that I will now discuss, we see Maassen holding up and intensely kissing a crucifix. We see how Maassen sucks Christ's nipples, apparently to turn Him on. At the end of the scene, Maassen looks at Christ's penis and jokes: "Geen wederopstanding!" Maassen's religious provocation seems to be a good example of critical and progressive comedy. Namely, Maassen uses humour to desecrate, to mock the presumed holiness of a religious symbol, and thereby to challenge and subvert religious dogmatism. However, upon closer

15 The history of stand-up comedy in the Netherlands can be traced back to the early 1990s, when Raoul Heertje, inspired by the stand-up comedians he saw in the US, founded the Comedytrain, a training center/comedy club for young comedians. The Comedytrain provided these comedians with the opportunity to experiment in the intimate setting of bars. Although stand-up comedy exists within the Netherlands as an autonomous artistic form, it has also retained its original function of training: most comedians use the comedy club as a site of experimentation, and see stand-up comedy as a means to prepare themselves for a career as cabaret performer. Many contemporary comedians who were trained in comedy clubs now perform almost exclusively for large theatre audiences. Theo Maassen is one of these comedians. Although stand-up comedy is not so popular in the Netherlands as it is in the United States or the UK, it is because of its function as training that it has had a considerable influence upon Dutch cabaret. In the 1990s and the 2000s, there has been a cross-pollination between cabaret and stand-up comedy, which led to the rise of new, hybrid forms, sometimes referred to as "stand-up cabaret" (Scholten 9). Due to the rise of stand-up comedy in the 1990s, the theatrical cabaret of the 1980s, initiated by Freek de Jonge (cabaret with a continuous story and with a distinctive theatrical scenery and costumes), lost much of its importance. Instead, the structure of the short stand-up comedy performances as developed in the comedy clubs was implemented in the cabaret performance. This led to the rise of cabaret performances which did not have a central storyline anymore, but rather consisted of loosely connected jokes and observations. Furthermore, due to the rise of stand-up comedy, the role of song, traditionally an important element of the cabaret performance, decreased. Theo Maassen is one of the earliest comedians who experimented with this new form of 'stand-up cabaret'. See for a short history of Dutch stand-up comedy also Zijp.

29 inspection, Maassen's religious provocation turns out to be embedded within a more conservative narrative which has strong nationalist overtones. At the end of the crucifix scene, Maassen expresses his relief about the fact that it is possible to mock the Christian faith, especially because a similar provocation of the Islam is not acceptable: "Weet je, da's toch te gek man, dat wij een profeet hebben die je belachelijk kan maken! Alleen daarom al vind ik 'm superieur!" The comparison implicit within this joke is that between the figure of Christ and the figure of Muhammad, and has to be understood against he backdrop of the Muhammad Cartoon Controversy of 2005, when a cartoon in the Danish paper Jyllands- Posten, which portrayed Muhammad as a suicide bomber, caused outrage among Muslims in the Middle-East. Although the crucifix moment initially seems to be a strong criticism of religious authority, by creating an opposition between 'us', the Christian world, and 'them', the world of Islam, this religious criticism is partly being undone. By presenting 'our' prophet as superior to the prophet of the religious other, Maassen reaffirms Christianity as part of 'our' cultural history, a history that 'we' can be proud of because of 'our' tolerance. Furthermore, this comparison between Christ and Muhammad leads up to a whole series of rather conservative jokes about the Islam. The last, and probably most offensive joke made by Maassen in this context addresses the sound of the word 'imam'. Maassen says: "Imam, imam, imam! Ik vind 't helemaal geen woord, ik vind 't veel meer het geluid wat een geit maakt als 'ie in z'n kont wordt geneukt!" With this joke, Maassen alludes to the death of Theo van Gogh in November 2004. Van Gogh was murdered by the Muslim fundamentalist Mohammed B. because of his explicit and rude criticism of the Islam. Van Gogh famously called Muslims "goat fuckers" (see Fransen). By comparing the sound of the word 'imam' with the sound of a "goat being fucked in his arse", Maassen thus calls up the familiar image of the Muslim as goatfucker, thereby reinforcing stereotypes about the Muslim as primitive and uncivilized.

The examples discussed above raise questions about dominant discourses on Dutch cabaret as analyzed in the first part of the chapter. More specifically, they raise questions about the reputation of Dutch cabaret as a critical and progressive form of comedy, as well as about implicit assumptions concerning the critical potential of humour in Dutch cabaret performances. What the examples of Lurelei, Youp van 't Hek and Theo Maassen have demonstrated is that humour is used by comedians in quite ambiguous ways, and that so- called critical humour can have strong conservative implications. In the next chapter, I will

30 further theorize the relationship between critical and conservative implications of humour within a close reading of Michael Billig's book Laughter and Ridicule.

31 Chapter 2: The Conservative Implications of Humour

In his Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour (2005), Michael Billig points to an interesting tendency in current usages of the term 'humour', in academic scholarship as well as in public discourse. The concept of humour, as Billig observes, is used in a predominantly positive way. Humour is commonly believed to be intrinsically good: it is believed to be "good-natured" (3) and "warm-hearted" (11). Furthermore, humour is often said to be "rebellious" (2) or critical. These ideas about humour are not self-evident, as Billig demonstrates in an investigation of historical discourses on humour from Plato to Freud. Drawing upon the humour theories of Bergson and Freud in particular, Billig presents an alternative view on humour, which emphasizes humour's conservative functions in the maintenance of social order. Within this chapter, I will use Billig's book to further theorize the possible conservative implications of humour. I will first contextualize Billig's theory within the field of humour studies, demonstrating how it emerges from this field but also makes an original contribution to it by paying systematic attention to the cruel nature of humour as well as to the conservative functions of humour in social life. I go on to demonstrate that Billig's theory is based on a deconstructive reading of two seminal theories of humour, the theories of Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud. Finally, by re-reading Billig through Freud, I argue for the possibility to expand Billig's theory to the rhetoric of joking so as to address the question of how comedians, through humour, negotiate and co-construct the ideology of positive and rebellious humour criticized by Billig.

Billig and humour studies Billig's Laughter and Ridicule is written as a critical response to current humour scholarship and its tendency to think about humour in positive terms. By framing his theory as a critique of humour scholarship, Billig implicitly presents a critique of 'humour studies', the field of research in which most of the academic humour scholarship is currently based. Humour studies is an interdisciplinary field of research with contributions from many different disciplines. Psychology and linguistics are most strongly represented, but there are also contributions from sociology, philosophy, education, history and cultural studies (among other fields). Humour studies is a predominantly Anglo-Saxon research tradition, with many scholars and research programs based in the UK and the US. The International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS) is the main organization in the field. The ISHS organizes annual

32 international conferences on humour and publishes a peer-reviewed academic journal which is simply called Humor.16 By presenting his own theory in opposition to humour scholarship, Billig positions himself outside of the field of humour studies, and is thereby able to present his theory as more 'true' than the theories produced within the field.17 It is a strategic move that works to promote his own theory as the 'truth' about humour and its social functions. I propose to read Billig's theory not in opposition to humour studies, but rather as emerging from this tradition. In the first part of his book, Billig presents a critical reading of academic and popular- academic discourses on humour, especially from the field of psychology. However, when articulating his own ideas about humour in the third part of the book, Billig also often refers to academic texts on humour as evidence for his own ideas and observations. He especially refers to small-scale studies on humour and social interaction (189-92). Thus, Billig's own research is also rooted in humour studies, and not (always) radically opposed to it. When we read Billig's theory as emerging from humour studies, it also becomes possible to undo this theory from its claim to universalism. Billig argues that humour has a disciplinary function, and that this disciplinary function is necessary for the maintenance of social order. According to Billig, it is not just the modern, Western society in which humour fulfills this function; discipline is humour's main social function, across cultures and over time. Billig's theory, then, does not leave much room for cultural or historical variation: the disciplinary function of humour is universal, it is only the way in which discipline is enforced that varies from culture to culture, and from time to time. Yet it is also possible to read Billig's theory in a slightly different way, which is more in line with current approaches in sociology and cultural studies. 'The' function of humour, as has been emphasized here, does not exist; the functions fulfilled by humour depend upon social and cultural context. The point is neatly summarized by Stefan Horlacher:

THE laughter is an illusion, since there are always only endlessly proliferating forms of laughter, their only point in common being their physical manifestation; a physical manifestation that can stand for a whole variety of feelings, ideas, and intentions [...], that has a historically and culturally variable and instable significance, and therefore needs interpretation (20).

16 See for more information the website of the ISHS: http://www.hnu.edu/ishs/. A good introduction to the field of humour studies is provided by The Primer of Humor Research, edited by Victor Raskin. 17 Already at the beginning of his book, Billig makes it very clear that he is 'against'. In the introduction, he states: "It is the good-natured theories [of humour] that currently predominate. Accordingly, the present analysis is an argument against such theories." (3, emphasis added)

33 Giselinde Kuipers has made a similar point, emphasizing the ambiguous nature of humour:

The polysemy of a joke makes it impossible to say with certainty which function it fulfills or what the joke teller meant: humour is by definition an ambivalent form of communication. 'The' function of the joke or humorous genre can thus not be firmly established. What's more: even 'the' function of a single joke about Turks in one, specific, social setting generally cannot be established firmly" (Good Humor, 9).

These ambiguities of humour also play a role in Billig's own argumentation. In the last chapter of Laughter, in which he articulates his own theory of humour, Billig argues that the distinction between disciplinary and rebellious forms of humour is not stable: seemingly rebellious humour may sometimes fulfill disciplinary functions, and vice versa. Taking this observation as a starting point, it becomes possible to read Billig's theory not as a universal theory, but rather as a theory that self-consciously presents a partial view of humour so as to redirect attention to humour's conservative functions, which have been underemphasized in humour studies as a whole.

Billig and classical theory So how does Billig redirect attention to the possible conservative functions of humour? Billig does this in a close reading of several historical discourses on humour: the 'classical' theories of humour and the theories of Bergson and Freud, dealt with in this and the next sections respectively. When humour theorists provide an historical overview of humour theory, they usually distinguish between three main theoretical traditions, often referred to as the classical theories of humour: superiority or hostility theories, incongruity theories, and relief theories (Attardo 47-53, Carrell 310-4, Critchley 2-3; Morreal, Taking; Morreal, "Philosophy"). Within his discussion of historical humour theory, Billig also takes the three classical theories as his starting point. However, Billig's approach differs in two important respects from the approaches usually taken by humour scholars. First, Billig uses these theories to denaturalize today's positive view of humour. Although the philosophers and psychologists who contributed to these theories have not always emphasized the cruelties of humour, they did also not believe humour to be necessarily positive. Secondly, Billig argues against the idea that the classical theories provide us with a "set of separate hypotheses" (5-6) which are to be "evaluated separately in terms of the modern evidence" (6). This is the way in which the classical theories are often treated by

34 humour scholars. Billig argues that these theories are to be understood from the social and historical context in which they were developed. By looking at the social and historical context from which they emerged, Billig is able to demonstrate that their technical hypotheses about the cognitive and mental processes involved in the perception of humour were actually bound up with notions of taste, class and social hierarchy. Billig demonstrates, for example, that the incongruity theory, developed in the coffee-houses of eighteenth-century England and Scotland, reflected the ideas and tastes of the social upper class (Chap. 4). So Billig's reading of the classical theories emphasizes the social nature of humour, and challenges the tendency only to look at their implications for psychological and linguistic approaches to humour. Within this section, I do not provide a detailed discussion of Billig's treatment of the classical theories, for this is not directly relevant for the understanding of Billig's own theory. However, I will summarize the theories shortly because they are important for an understanding of the theories of Bergson and Freud (discussed in the next two sections). Before turning to these theories, it is important to stress that the idea that there have been three general theories of humour is actually a historical simplification. In his chapter on the superiority theory, Billig emphasizes that it is actually misleading to speak about a 'theory', because there have only been "scattered observations" (38), not a general theory. The same is true about the incongruity and the relief theory. The superiority or hostility theory of humour is generally believed to be the oldest theory of humour. The concept of superiority refers to a diversity of historical accounts on laughter and comedy which have in common that they associate laughter with aggression, derision, and contempt. The term is used to summarize a long philosophical tradition in which laughter is often articulated in negative terms. This philosophical tradition can be traced back to the works of Plato and Aristotle, but has mainly become associated with the work of Thomas Hobbes (Billig 50). According to Hobbes, laughter rests upon a comparison between ourselves and others, and arises from the feelings of "sudden glory" (Hobbes 65) that we experience when we discover some lack or deformity in the other that we ourselves do not have. The second theory is the incongruity theory. The concept of incongruity was introduced by the eighteenth-century critics of Hobbes, who argued that laughter is not an expression of superiority, but rather arises from the juxtaposition of incongruent ideas or words, e.g. when the solemn is compared to the vulgar or the banal. The mechanisms of laughter are here again explained in terms of comparison and contrast. However, in the latter case, it does not necessarily involve a contrast between the superior and the inferior.

35 Important eighteenth-century writers associated with the incongruity theory are Francis Hutcheson and James Beattie (Billig, Chap. 4). Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer have provided later versions of this theory. Unlike the two other classical theories, the incongruity theory is still very important in contemporary humour studies. It has been worked out and tested by humour scholars from different disciplines, and especially in psychological and linguistic humour research, the incongruity theory is the dominant perspective. The most influential linguistic theory of humour which is based upon the idea of incongruity is the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH), provided by humour scholars Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin. However, in other branches of humour studies, the idea that humour rests upon incongruity is also widely accepted, even though it is often not explicitly thematized. The relief theory can also be traced back to the early eighteenth century. The idea of relief is first expressed in the work of Lord Shaftesbury (Morreal, "Philosophy 221), and has been more extensively dealt with in the nineteenth and early twentieth century by Alexander Bain, Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud (Billig, Chap. 5). What the accounts of Shaftesbury, Bain, Spencer, and Freud have in common is that they explain laughter in terms of the relief of tension built up in the body, and try to explain the physical and mental processes involved in this release of tension.

Billig and Bergson Billig's own theory of humour is not rooted in classical theory, but is based upon the humour theories of Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud. Although the views of Bergson and Freud are, to some extent, embedded in classical theory (Morreal, "Philosophy" 224-5, 228-9), both Bergson and Freud also move beyond classical humour theory, as will be further demonstrated below. Their work, as well as Billig's reading of their work, will be discussed in the present and the next section respectively. Before I turn to Bergson's humour theory, it is important to stress that the French and German terms used by Bergson and Freud do not directly correspond to the English term 'humour'.18 The central categories used by Bergson are le comique [the comic] and le rire

18 A close analysis of the French terminology (including the work of Bergson) is provided by Will Noonan. As Noonan has demonstrated in a close historical analysis of the French and the English tradition, the French do not use the term humour, but rather the concepts of le rire (laughter) and le comique (the comic) to refer, in more general terms, to the human condition of funniness. The term l'humour - not coincidentally a borrowing from the English - is often used in a far more narrow sense, and refers to the self-reflexive capacity to laugh at oneself, which is conceived of as typically English. In the Anglo-Saxon world, this understanding of humour as a typically English quality does not exist. Within an Anglo-Saxon context, humour is rather used as an umbrella term to refer to the various cultural manifestations of the funny, the amusing and the comic.

36 [laughter]. Freud, in turn, makes a distinction between three categories: Humor [humour], das Komische [the comic] and der Witz [the joke].19 However, in contrast to the specific categories used by Bergson and Freud, the modern, Anglo-Saxon concept of humour refers to funniness in general as well as to specific cultural and historical manifestations of funniness, and thus covers the more specific categories used by Bergson and Freud. Bergson presents his views on humour in his essay Le Rire: Essay sur la Signification du Comique (1900), translated as Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1905). Bergson begins this essay with three general observations about laughter and the comic. Bergson's first observation is that we only laugh about what is human; we tend to laugh about human beings, and if we do laugh about a non-human being, an animal or a thing, this is because this animal or this thing has some human characteristic that makes us laugh. Bergson's second observation is that laughter is accompanied by an absence of feeling (Chap. 1, part 1). Laughter implies an "anaesthesia of the heart" (Bergson qtd in Billig 120). The third observation made by Bergson is that laughter is social and shared. "Our laughter," as Bergson famously phrases it, "is always the laughter of a group." (Chap. 1, part 1) With this third observation, Bergson presents a critique of the idea of incongruity. He argues that "those definitions that tend to make the comic into an abstract relation between ideas: 'an intellectual contrast', 'a palpable absurdity,' etc. [...] would not in the least explain why the comic makes us laugh [...] To understand laughter, we must put it back into its natural environment, which is society, and above all must we determine the utility of its function, which is a social one." (Ibid.) Bergson criticizes the incongruity theory here because it is an abstract theory which does not take into account laughter's concrete social manifestations. Thus, it fails to see that the main function of laughter is a social one. This social function of laughter must be understood against the backdrop of Bergson's vitalist philosophy (Horlacher 31). Life, according to Bergson, is characterized by change, by the eruption of the new. Society, conceptualized as a "living being" (Chap. 1, part 5), constantly changes as well. Hence, society requires from its members a constant adaptation. The comic, according to Bergson, results from the failure to adapt to society's changing needs and demands. It manifests itself within an inelasticity of mind, body or character. Thus, the

19 In Freud's work, the concepts of Witz, Humor and das Komische refer to different manifestations of the funny which involve different psychological mechanisms. Each form of humour has different sources of pleasure: the pleasure of the joke arises from joke techniques (and, in the case of sexual and aggressive jokes, from suppressed desires), the pleasure of humour is a pleasure found in the potentially painful, and the pleasure of the comic is the effect of empathy. See also the respective chapters from Freud's Jokes: Chap 2-6 (der Witz), Chap. 7 (Humor, das Komische).

37 comic is anti-social; it is a form of social inadaptability which can lead to accidents, and even to crimes. The most basic example provided by Bergson here is the example of a clumsy man stumbling over a stone on the road. This seemingly innocent accident is, according to Bergson, the effect of a potentially dangerous form of behaviour: it is the "effect of automatism and of inelasticity" (Chap. 1, part 2). The clumsy man does not adapt to the changing circumstances - a stone on the road - but acts mechanically, routinely, as if nothing has changed. The comic, as Bergson has famously put it, is "something mechanical encrusted upon the living" (Chap. 1, part 5). The appropriate response to the comic is laughter. Laughter, in Bergson's view, functions as a means of social correction. Laughter is a social "gesture" (Chap. 1, part 2), which points us to the fact that our behaviour is inappropriate, and urges us to change this behaviour. Laughter 'works' by inflicting shame upon its victim, and thereby encouraging this victim to change his or her behaviour, and to comply with the norm. Let me now turn to Billig's reading of Bergson. Billig is positive about Bergson's theory for two main reasons. Billig praises Bergson's theory, first of all, because it is a social theory of humour which emphasizes that humour has a necessary function in social life. Humour scholars, Billig argues, tend to focus upon the 'surplus functions' of humour. They do not see humour as necessary for the maintenance of social order, but rather see it as a marginal social phenomenon (126). But Bergson, as Billig suggests, was actually able to provide a good explanation for humour's necessary function in keeping up the social order: by embarrassing its victims, humour encourages these victims to comply with the norm. Secondly, Billig argues that Bergson's theory is interesting because it poses a challenge to common assumptions about humour's intrinsic 'goodness'. Billig draws an important distinction here between the intrinsic goodness of humour and humour's positive effects. Although Bergson believes humour to have positive effects - it helps to maintain the social order - Bergson does not believe humour to be intrinsically good (125). Bergson's theory acknowledges the cruel nature of humour. It is precisely by taking this cruel nature of humour seriously, as Billig suggests, that Bergson is able to account for the necessary functions of humour in social life, i.e. humour's function of discipline and social correction. Billig does, however, not accept all of Bergson's premises, as he demonstrates within a deconstructive reading of (parts of) Bergson's essay. This deconstructive reading also allows Billig to point to some interesting implications of Bergson's essay, which invite further reflection. First, Billig problematizes Bergson's rigid distinction between elasticity and

38 inelasticity. By doing this, Billig is able to point to the conservative implications of Bergson's views of humour. It also enables him to challenge Bergson's idea that humour is necessarily used for good purposes. "Bergson's theory," as Billig argues, "contains a tension between the idea that laughter serves a disciplinary function and the idea that laughter functions in the service of inelasticity" (131). For the idea that laughter is a disciplinary mechanism suggests that laughter is used to impose fixed norms, which are inelastic themselves. "Yet, it may be argued," Billig writes, "that social conformity demands flexibility and, therefore, Bergson was correct to identify the comic with inflexibility." (132) But this is not convincing, according to Billig: "the well-adapted social elasticity [...] is itself a form of social obedience and, thus, a rigidity of spirit." (Ibid.) Seen this way, Bergson's theory is rather conservative: "In this regard, and contrary to the tenor of some of Bergson's remarks, laughter functions conservatively to discourage the sort of social innovation that inevitably breaks rules." (Ibid.) The seemingly clear-cut distinction between flexibility and inflexibility thus turns out to be unstable; we do not necessarily laugh about flexibility or inflexibility. Humour and laughter, Billig argues, do not have a fixed object, nor can they be used in only one way. Bergson's idea that laughter is necessarily used for good purposes is thus not stable as well: "No form of social action," as Billig concludes, "is, by its nature, protected from the possibility of ridicule. Conventionality and unconventionality, social rigidity and social adaptability, all can be reduced to comic absurdity." (133) As a consequence, "It [humour] can be recruited in the service of conservatism as well as radicalism." (131) Secondly, Billig points to the implications of Bergson's idea of unconscious intention. The notion of unconscious intention does not appear in the original text; however, in the English translation, on which Bergson closely collaborated with the translators (Billig 134), Bergson, in passing, remarks that laughter displays a "secret or unconscious intent" (Ibid.). At the end of Laughter (both in the French original and in the English translation), Bergson adds to this that, given the fact that we laugh at the shortcomings and mishaps of others, the intentions of laughter are rather cruel. Bergson does, however, not want to inquire into these cruel intentions: "Perhaps we had better not investigate this point too closely," he remarks, "for we should not find anything very flattering to ourselves" (qtd in Billig 135). According to Billig, the possible implication of Bergson's observations about the cruel and secret intentions of laughter is that, to be able to enjoy laughter, we have to hide for ourselves its cruel intentions. To enjoy laughter, we might have to foster the self-comforting idea that laughter is not cruel at all, but rather good-natured and positive. "Ridicule," Billig suggests,

39 "may depend on more than anaesthesia of the heart; it may also require anaesthesia of self- knowledge" (135).

Billig and Freud Billig argues that Freud's theory of jokes can help to further articulate the idea of secret or unconscious intention touched upon by Bergson. For whereas Bergson does not further elaborate upon this idea of unconscious intention, the idea plays a central role in the theory of Freud. Freud articulated his ideas on jokes in his book Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (1905), translated as Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1916). Within Laughter, Billig presents a close reading of Freud's book.20 To give some background to Billig's discussion, I will now first summarize Freud's main thesis about the anti-social tendencies of jokes. Next, I will turn to Billig's reading of Bergson. Unlike Bergson, Freud - usually classified as a relief theorist - does not aim to provide a social theory of humour. Rather, he focuses upon the psychological mechanisms involved in the creation and reception of jokes, humour, and the comic. According to Freud, laughter is caused by the relief of energies built up in the body. In Jokes, Freud provides detailed analyses of the psychological mechanisms involved in this process of tension relief. Freud's theory has, however, also a social dimension. Jokes, according to Freud, require at least two parties: we do not tell jokes to ourselves, but to others. Jokes are thus always embedded in social relationships (143). Freud distinguishes between two types of jokes: innocent and tendentious jokes (Chap. 3). Whereas innocent jokes are harmless, tendentious jokes pose a serious threat to the social order. According to Freud, tendentious jokes are a means to circumvent social taboos and to liberate sexual and aggressive impulses that we usually suppress because society forbids us to enjoy them. What we do when we make a tendentious joke is that we direct our sexual and aggressive impulses to other persons or institutions. Whereas an innocent joke only requires two people - a joke teller and a listener - the tendentious joke always requires three parties: the joke teller, the listener and the 'butt' of the joke. Tendentious jokes, as Freud further explains, make us laugh harder than innocent jokes (96). The reason for this is that the innocent joke only derives its pleasure from particular joke techniques: when we make a pun, for example, we play with the meaning of words, and this word play involves particular

20 Next to his extensive work on jokes, Freud also wrote a short essay on humour, simply called "Humor". However, this essay is not directly relevant to a social theory of humour because it focuses more upon the individual experiences of the perceiver. Hence, Billig does not discuss this work.

40 techniques that make us laugh. Tendentious jokes, on the other hand, do not merely derive their pleasure from joke techniques, but also from the liberation of suppressed desires, and thereby affords us, as it were, a 'double' pleasure. Freud neatly summarizes the way in which this interaction between 'innocent' joke technique and suppressed desire works, and how both are played out against each other so as to convince us of the 'innocence' of the joke:

The thought seeks to wrap itself in a joke because in that way it recommends itself to our attention and can seem more significant and more valuable, but above all because this wrapping bribes our powers of criticism and confuses them. We are inclined to give the thought the benefit of what has pleased us in the form of the joke; and we are no longer inclined to find anything wrong that has given us enjoyment and so to spoil the source of a pleasure (132).

Within the above-quoted passage, Freud presents an analysis of what happens within the complex interaction between joke teller and listener. On the one hand, Freud points here to the rhetorical strategies used by the joke teller to draw attention away from the anti-social tendencies of the joke. He explains how the 'innocent' pleasure provided by the joke technique actually works as rhetorical strategy that easily convinces us of the innocence of the joke as a whole, including the 'thought' of the joke, even though this 'thought' is not at all innocent, but rather the expresses a sexual or aggressive impulse. On the other hand, Freud points to how we tend to perceive humour: we are inclined, Freud writes, to deceive ourselves about the possible anti-social tendencies of laughter. In his reading of Freud, Billig places particular emphasis upon the element of self- deception. According to Billig, Freud's analysis of the anti-social tendencies of jokes, which points to our inclination to hide these anti-social tendencies from conscious awareness, can complement Bergson's theory, which does not systematically address this question of secret intention. Billig thus proposes to re-read Bergson's theory through Freud. Conversely, he proposes to re-read Freud's theory through Bergson's (171). To see where this leads to, we have to take a closer look at Billig's analysis of Freud. In a critical reading of Freud's essay, Billig points to a central tension in Freud's work: whereas Freud is, on the one hand, suspicious of jokes and the intentions of the joke teller, he does one the other hand celebrate jokes. Billig states: "Freud loved neither dreams nor moments of forgetfulness in the way that he loved the jokes of his ancestors." (146) Although Freud presents a critical analysis of humour's anti-social tendencies, he does not hide his own fondness of jokes. Freud argues that it is his aim to provide within his book "examples of jokes by which we ourselves have been most struck in the course of our lives and which have made us laugh the most" (qtd in Billig

41 150). In line with this, Freud frames his analysis of the anti-social tendencies of jokes in a very positive way. Freud, Billig observes, believes jokes to be 'rebellious'. This might also explain the sheer absence of sexual and aggressive jokes in Freud's book: "The omission," Billig remarks, "enabled Freud to maintain his theme that humour was rebellious" (168) As Billig demonstrates, re-reading Freud's theory through Bergson's reflections upon the comic can help to re-direct attention to the disciplinary functions of humour. Billig points specifically to a passage in which Freud writes about the laughter of parents. In his chapter about the comic, Freud gives the example of parents laughing at the naive remarks of their children. However, his proposition that the comic is the effect of 'empathy' - and thus, put very simply, that the parents laugh because they empathize with the child - obscures the disciplinary functions of laughter (168-71). By re-reading Freud through Bergson, Billig is able to articulate these disciplinary functions of laughter, and thus to modify Freud's rather one-sided emphasis upon the rebellious functions of humour.

Billig and conservative humour By combining the perspectives of Bergson and Freud, and reading the one through the other, Billig is able to articulate a social theory of humour that challenges common assumptions about humour's intrinsic goodness as well as humour's positive social effects (Chap. 9). To make this point clear, we first need to take a closer look at these common assumptions about humour that Billig seeks to challenge. Humour, as Billig observes, is generally believed to be "good-natured" (3) or "warm-hearted" (11). Humour, it is said, is intrinsically good: the humorist does not have any bad intentions. Furthermore, humour is believed to have positive consequences, both for the individual and for society. Humour would not only contribute to physical and mental health, it would also be used for building social relationships and creating solidarity. This positive view on humour, Billig argues, has led to the idea that humour is 'desirable', even necessary. Having a 'good' sense of humour has become a cultural norm. "To say that someone has no sense of humour," Bilig remarks, "is to utter a criticism" (Ibid.). This view of humour is not only embraced by society at large, it has also been reproduced by humour scholars. In the first chapter of his book, Billig addresses scientific and popular- scientific discourses on humour, demonstrating that humour scholars, in the past decennia, have put a strong emphasis upon humour's psychological and social benefits, and have often directed attention away from the 'dark' side of humour. Billig argues against this idea that humour is "good-natured" or "warmhearted". He argues that humour is, by nature, cruel. This is because humour works by ridiculing others.

42 However, ridicule is not necessarily a bad thing. Many scholars, Billig observes, believe humour to be "rebellious" (2). This is a rather positive understanding of ridicule: humour may be aggressive, but is used for good purposes. Humour, within this reading, is critical, subversive and resistant. Billig problematizes this idea that humour is necessarily critical and rebellious. It is here that Bergson and Freud come in. Following Bergson, Billig argues that the main social function of humour is that of discipline. Humour is necessary for the maintenance of social order; it does not merely have a 'surplus function', as many humour scholars today believe, but fulfills a necessary function. Billig's explanation of the disciplinary mechanism of humour basically follows the model of Bergson. Bilig argues that we use humour to ridicule those who transgress the norm. He also argues that, by doing so, we embarrass the transgressor and thereby encourage him or her to comply with the norm. According to Billig, the disciplinary function of humour is maintained because parents teach the child how to use humour as disciplinary mechanism. Billig relies here upon Freud's psychogenetic approach to humour and laughter, but gives it a twist: whereas Freud focuses upon the rebellious humour of the child, Billig argues that the parents laugh at the child when it transgresses social rules. By doing so, the parent disciplines the child, but at the same time teaches the child how to use laughter as a means of discipline. The child is thus encultured to use humour and laughter in specific ways - to find humour in the errors and misbehaviours of others, and to use laughter as a means of social correction (Chap. 9). Although Billig emphasizes the disciplinary function of humour, he does not deny the existence of rebellious humour. Following Freud, Billig argues that the lesson that the parents teach the child when laughing at the child's mistakes is an ambiguous one: the child not only learn how to use laughter as a means of discipline, it also learns how to turn this lesson around and to use humour and laughter to mock the parents (205). Billig thus makes a distinction between two forms of humour, which fulfill different functions: on the one hand, there is disciplinary humour, for which the image of the child laughing at the parent presents a model. This form of humour has a rather conservative function, because it works as a means of social correction: "Disciplinary humour mocks those who break social rules, and thus can be seen to aid the maintenance of those rules [...] Disciplinary humour contains an intrinsic conservatism" (202). On the other hand, there is rebellious humour, for which the image of the child laughing at the parent presents a model: "Rebellious humour mocks the social rules, and, in its turn, can be seen to challenge, or rebel against, the rules." (Ibid.) Yet Billig argues that we should not think of this distinction between disciplinary and rebellious humour as a strong opposition. He particularly emphasizes that seemingly

43 rebellious humour often fulfills conservative functions. Billig points in this context to the important role of ideology and the way in which ideology affects the way we think about the humour of ourselves and others. Drawing on Freud, Billig argues that we often deceive ourselves about the motivations behind our laughter. Billig writes:

one needs to be cautious about describing disciplinary humour as being unambiguously conservative, and rebellious humour as being objectively radical. It is not quite so straightforward. Denial, selfdeceit and self-righteousness can all be at work. This is particularly so in an ideological climate that favours the rebellious over the disciplinary (204).

Although Billig points to the possibility that disciplinary humour has a rebellious effect, in "an ideological climate that favours the rebellious over the disciplinary", it is usually the other way around: we often tend to see humour as 'rebellious' and forget about the conservative functions of humour.

From function to strategies By emphasizing common ideological assumptions about humour's intrinsic goodness and rebelliousness, and by directing attention to the important role of these assumptions in how we perceive and evaluate humour, Billig's theory also opens the possibility to look at how comedians, by using humour, respond to and negotiate these ideological assumptions about humour. To address this possibility, I propose to re-read Billig through Freud, from which Billig takes the idea that we often deceive ourselves about the motivations of laughter. In Jokes, Freud points to the rhetorical aspect of humour. In my reading of Freud, I have emphasized this rhetorical aspect by addressing Freud's argument about the perception of tendentious humour. Freud argued here that the joke teller can use particular rhetorical strategies to make the joke seem very innocent, even though it is actually not. With this argument, Freud demonstrated that the way in which humour is used affects the way we look at and think about humour. The implication of Freud's analysis is that jokes can be used to co- construct an ideology of positive humour as analyzed by Billig. Re-reading Billig's theory through Freud in this way allows for the possibility to expand Billig's theory from the ideology of positive and rebellious humour to the rhetoric of joking, and the way in which professional joke-tellers like comedians, by using humour, respond to and negotiate ideological assumptions about humour's positiveness and rebelliousness. It also opens the

44 possibility to understand that humour cannot only be used to reinforce or to co-construct, but also to question and to destabilize this ideology of humour. In line with this, I propose an approach to humour which does not primarily look at humour's functions (whereupon Billig's focus lies), but rather at the strategies used by comedians and the political implications of these strategies. More precisely, I would like to shift attention from disciplinary functions to humorous strategies, and to the possible conservative implications of these strategies. Billig's approach to humour can be characterized as what in humour sociology is called a functionalist approach: Billig is interested in the social functions of humour (Kuipers, "The Sociology" 364). Humour, according to Billig, fulfills a necessary social function, which is that of discipline. This is why Billig speaks of 'disciplinary humour', humour which fulfills disciplinary functions. Because of the shift proposed here from functions to strategies, I speak of 'conservative humour' or humour with 'conservative implications' instead of 'disciplinary humour'. I do not look at the social effects of humour, but rather at how comedians, through humour, engage with particular ideas, norms, and values, and with the people who act according to these norms and values. In the following chapter, this approach to humour will be put into practice.

45 Chapter 3: Re-Thinking Dutch Cabaret: Micha Wertheim's Deconstruction of the Dutch Cabaret Tradition21

"It's a quite reactionary profession," as Micha Wertheim remarks in his performance Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer. Wertheim is talking here about the profession of the comedian, and more specifically about the comedians evolving from the Dutch cabaret tradition. Wertheim's performance presents a critical reflection upon this tradition. Wertheim problematizes the strong reputation of cabaret as a critical and progressive form of comedy by pointing to the conservative implications of the seemingly rebellious humour of Dutch comedians. Within this chapter, I will take Wertheim's performance as my theoretical object to reflect upon the strategies used by Dutch comedians to 'upgrade' their humour: to make it seem innocent, or to frame it as explicitly critical. I also look at the effect of these strategies, at the way in which these strategies direct attention away from the conservative implications of humour. I do this by presenting a close reading of two key moments from Wertheim's performance: the opening scene, in which Wertheim uses humour in a self-reflexive way to highlight the important role of ridicule in Dutch cabaret, and a scene in the middle of the performance, where Wertheim presents a more explicit reflection upon the Dutch cabaret tradition, taking the humorous strategies of two famous Dutch comedians as his primary examples. Within the latter scene, Wertheim problematizes general assumptions about the critical nature of Dutch cabaret as well as about the authenticity of the comedian. Wertheim's critical engagement with notions of authenticity is important for an understanding of the humorous strategies used by Dutch comedians. Namely, Wertheim demonstrates that the construction of authenticity is used by comedians to engage with the perspective of the spectator, including the way in which spectators perceive and think about humour. For my analysis of the first scene, I make use of Bergson's theory of the comic. This theory helps me to further articulate Wertheim's reflection upon humour. For my analysis of the second scene, I use Maaike Bleeker's theory of visuality, which helps me to articulate the conventions and strategies of authenticity that Wertheim reflects upon.

21 This chapter evolved out of two end-of-term papers that I have written during my MA and presents, in radically revised form, some arguments that were also presented in these earlier papers.

46 A joke about joking In the opening sequence of his performance, Wertheim uses humour in a self-reflexive way to direct attention to the important role of ridicule in Dutch cabaret. Wertheim does this by using a double strategy. First, he presents a joke that is itself a reflection upon joking, a meta-joke. Secondly, he presents a funny commentary upon this joke. To understand how this double strategy works, I will first discuss the joke itself, and then Wertheim's commentary upon the joke. The joke is a joking about joking: it is a joke about two passengers on a train telling each other a succession of jokes, while a third passenger is watching them. But what these passengers do is actually not what we expect when we think about people telling jokes to each other: the joke tells about two passengers who entertain each other by simply calling numbers. When one of them says "865!", the other immediately starts to laugh. This other man, in turn, says "944!", and his friend now starts to laugh as well. A third passenger, sitting in the same compartment, tries to read a book, but is distracted by the strange spectacle of two men telling each other numbers. At some point, he closes his book, turns around, faces the two other men and says: "275!" What follows is a rather uncomfortable situation:

Totale stilte in die coupé! Die twee mannen kijken 'm aan van: wat wil je met je 275? Dus die man doet meteen z'n boek weer open, begint zo te doen alsof 'ie leest - hij is helemaal niet aan het lezen - om puur en alleen…maar de sfeer is weg in die hele coupé. Duurt zeker twintig minuten voor iemand de pijnlijke stilte durft te doorbreken. Eén van die twee mannen zegt, heel simpel: "1206!" Lachen die twee! Ze liggen helemaal dubbel.

If the third man asks the other two why they laugh at each other's jokes, but not at his joke, the other two, visibly surprised, respond:

Nou meneer, luister, wij kennen elkaar al heel lang. Wij vertellen elkaar al járen moppen. Nou, op een gegeven moment ken je alle moppen wel. Toen hebben we alle moppen geïndexeerd. En wat we tegenwoordig doen…we noemen de getallen die corresponderen met de mop die van toepassing is op het moment en dan hebben we een heel leuk ritje.

The third man, not satisfied with this answer, again asks the other men why they did not laugh at joke nr. 275. The other two respond: "Die kenden we al!" This rather stupid answer is actually the punchline of the joke. At the very end of his performance, Wertheim returns to this punchline. You might think, as Wertheim says to the audience, that this joke does not

47 make any sense, and that is actually true. "Die kenden we al" is a rather stupid answer, because these men knew all of the jokes; to say that one already knows the joke is begging the question. Yet they laughed at each other's jokes, but not at the joke of the third passenger. Wertheim now proposes a different ending: when the man, once again, asks the other two why they did laugh at each other's jokes, but not at his joke, their answer is: "Omdat hij hem beter kan vertellen." This answer seems to be absurd, for these men were not really telling jokes to each other. They were calling numbers. How could some people be better at this than others? The answer is less absurd, however, when read as a meaningful statement about the social nature of humour. Wertheim's joke is reminiscent of Bergson's example of people in a railway carriage telling each other jokes. Bergson uses this example to demonstrate that laughter is social and shared:

Our laughter is always the laughter of a group. It may, perchance, have happened to you, when seated in a railway carriage or at table d'hote, to hear travellers relating to one another stories which must have been comic to them, for they laughed heartily. Had you been one of their company, you would have laughed like them; but, as you were not, you had no desire whatever to do so (Chap. 1, part 1).

Like Bergson, Wertheim uses the example of passengers in a railway carriage to reflect upon the social nature of humour. In line with Bergson, Wertheim's meta-joke can be read as a critique of abstract incongruity theories of humour. A joke, Wertheim demonstrates, is not an abstract representation - like a number - which can be distracted from its social context. Humour is embedded in social relationships. If a joke would be an abstract representation, or a relationship between ideas, each of the passengers would have been able to tell a joke, with the same effect. However, this is not true: the third passenger, who is a stranger, is not able to make the others laugh. The other two passengers, by contrast, have been friends for a long time, and share a sense of humour: they have been telling each other jokes for many years. The two men are thus very right when they point out that their fellow passenger is not very good at telling jokes: this is not because he lacks the technical skills - maybe he does - but rather because of the specific social relationship between these men. The third man does not belong to a group of friends - he is an outsider, and this makes that his sudden attempt at humour may not be perceived as a funny contribution to the conversation, but rather as an intrusion. This man is not in the position to make a joke, and his attempt may be perceived as rude, as threatening, or as simply unfunny.

48 With his example, Bergson emphasizes that laughter is "always the laughter of a group", and thus that laughter is social and shared. However, he also directs attention to the one who does not belong to the group. Wertheim further problematizes this position of the outsider. Whereas Bergson argues that those who fall outside the group have "no desire" to laugh, Wertheim stages a situation in which the outsider does have the desire to laugh, in the sense that he tries to become part of the conversation by making a joke himself, but is not accepted by his fellow travellers. Wertheim's meta-joke in this way points to the necessary consequence of Bergson's remark that laughter is "always the laughter of a group", which is that laughter can also be used to mark social boundaries, and thus also to exclude others.22 However, unlike Bergson, Wertheim seems not to be mainly interested in the social functions of humour. Rather, his meta-joke is embedded in the structure of the cabaret performance, and thereby draws attention to the humorous strategies used by Wertheim as a comedian. To see how this works out, it is first of all important to recognize that the type of joke that Wertheim is telling us here is quite unusual within the context of the cabaret performance. It is the type of joke for which the Dutch use the term mop, and which probably best translates as 'canned joke'. A mop, in the words of Giselinde Kuipers, is a "short humorous story, ending in a punch line, which the teller usually does not claim to have invented himself" (Good Humor 2). Whereas the seemingly spontaneous jokes presented by Dutch comedians seem to emerge from the comedian's own experiences and observations, the mop, as emphasized by Kuipers, is explicitly not of one's own invention. Furthermore, it is very explicitly a humorous construction, easily recognizable by its standardized form ("Three men walk into a bar…", "Three passengers are sitting in a train…") However, Wertheim integrates this joke in the structure of the cabaret performance. Wertheim often steps out of the joke to comment upon its construction. As we have seen in Chapter 1, this stepping-in- and-out is a typical element of the cabaret performance. As Jacques Klöters and Hilde Scholten (among others) have emphasized, comedians may sometimes play roles, but we always see the comedian behind the role. Furthermore, comedians often step out of their role and become 'themselves' again. Likewise, comedians often tell stories, but may often step out of the stories they are telling to comment upon them. This is precisely what Wertheim is doing in the opening sequence of his performance: just like the comedian who emphasizes that the role that he is playing is 'just' a role, and who often steps out of the role to comment

22 The idea that humour can be used to mark social boundaries is theorized in the work of Giselinde Kuipers (Good Humor).

49 upon it, Wertheim's joke is very obviously a construction, and Wertheim often steps out of this joke to comment upon it. According to Klöters, when comedians play a role, they do not wholly disappear into the role, but rather use 'words' to create a stage persona, and also to reflect upon the behaviour of the characters they are portraying: their "taalgebruik is meestal satirisch bedoeld" ("Even samenvatten" 38). Stepping-in-and-out of role can thus be used as a critical strategy. Comedians create a distinction between themselves and the roles they are playing, and use humour to critically reflect upon the behaviour of the characters they are portraying. Wertheim also seems to do this. In his asides to the joke, Wertheim specifically comments upon the behaviour of the third passenger. Wertheim says:

Ze [de drie passagiers] horen niet bij elkaar trouwens, vind ik wel belangrijk om er even bij te zeggen. Ik zeg steeds: '3 mannen', dan denk je: 'O, die kennen elkaar', nee, 2 kennen elkaar, die derde is er gewoon BIJ gaan zitten! Dat kan, maar…soms heb je dat, zit je rustig in de coupé, denk je: 'O, dit wordt een leuk ritje met z'n tweeën' en dan komt er iemand en die gaat dan naast je zitten! Dat je denkt: joh, d'r is overal plek! Nou, zo iemand is het. Die derde, ja. Dus. Ja, ik wil niet te veel op de mop vooruitlopen, maar je zult straks merken dat die ene gast zich ook nog gewoon met die andere twee gaat bemoeien, dat je denkt: 'Joh, doe dat nou niet!'

As we have seen, Wertheim uses a strategy here that is quite common in Dutch cabaret, a strategy that counts as 'critical': he steps out of the story that he was telling to criticize the behaviour of the character that he has portrayed. However, Wertheim also questions this critical strategy by explicitly mirroring the behaviour of the two passengers in his meta-joke. Wertheim's attitude is quite similar to that of the passengers figuring in his joke: like the two passengers who make it very clear to the third passenger that he behaves inappropriately by trying to mingle in a conservation among strangers, Wertheim explicitly denounces the behaviour of this passenger ("Joh, doe dat nou niet!"). He uses humour to appeal to a dominant norm about how to behave in a train (one is not taking a place next to another passenger when there are seats enough, and one does also not try to mingle with strangers when these strangers share a moment of laughter). So by explicitly mirroring the behaviour of the passengers in his meta-joke, a joke that pointed towards the use of humour as a means of social exclusion, Wertheim questions a common strategy in Dutch cabaret which is seen as 'critical'. Wertheim thus questions the dominant understanding of Dutch cabaret as critical and rebellious.

50 Wertheim steps out of his role, or doesn't he? As Klöters has demonstrated, the strategy of stepping-in-and-out of roles also works to highlight the authenticity of the comedian ("Even samenvatten"). This is also what happens in Wertheim's performance: the standardized joke about two passengers on a train, which is very obviously a construction, contrasts sharply with Wertheim's personal comments upon this joke, which seem to unfold spontaneously. In the asides to the joke, Wertheim seems to be 'himself'. He does not play a role, but directly addresses the audience and presents this audience with personal observations. After the opening sequence, Wertheim continues within the same style: he begins to tell the audience about his personal life, about touring as a comedian, babysitting, shopping, etc. With his personal observations, his direct audience address, and the lack of any straightforward characterization, Wertheim seems to be precisely the 'authentic' comedian portrayed by Jacques Klöters (and others) in Chapter 1. However, in the middle of the performance, something unusual happens. Wertheim suddenly stops talking and takes one step back from the microphone. At this moment, a recording of Wertheim's voice continues the story that Wertheim was telling live. Wertheim steps back from the microphone again, takes a chair, and sits down at the front of the stage. He listens to the voice-over for just a while, but soon unplugs the cord of the microphone and silences the voice-over. What follows is a commentary upon the story as if this was someone else's story instead of his own. On one level, this seemingly unusual moment is not so unusual after all. As Klöters and others have observed, comedians often play with the boundaries between self and role, real and fiction. They play different roles, step in and out of these roles, and comment upon the roles they are playing. However, in a regular cabaret performance, the audience is, to some extent at least, able to distinguish between the comedian 'him or herself' and the roles played by the comedian: we are not surprised at all when the comedian steps out of his or her role and begins to comment upon it. We know perfectly well that the comedian plays different characters; if the comedian steps out of the role, this does not lead to confusion, but rather confirms what we already thought. However, when Wertheim steps back from the microphone, and begins to comment upon his own story as if it was told by someone else, this leads to confusion. It does not confirm our ideas about Wertheim's performance, but rather confuses us about what we have been looking at: was Wertheim, in the first part of the performance, not 'truly' himself? Was he playing a role?

51 At first inspection, Wertheim seems to 'unmask' the comedian: by revealing his seemingly authentic performance to be 'just' an act, Wertheim could be said to unmask the comedian as an actor, and to unmask cabaret as make-believe or deceit - in other words, to unmask cabaret as 'mere' theatre. Yet the confusion created by Wertheim's performance does not simply result from the fact that Wertheim undermines the 'illusion' of authenticity. If Wertheim would have stepped out of his role, only to reveal the 'true' person behind the role, this moment would not have been such a confusing moment after all. Rather, what makes this moment of 'transformation' into such a confusing moment is that Wertheim does not seem to transform at all, or at least not in the way we expect him to: there are no apparent differences between Wertheim playing the comedian and Wertheim commenting upon playing the comedian. Wertheim still directly addresses the audience, still presents us with personal stories and observations, and continues with critical commentary and sarcastic, often cynical, jokes. It is because of this strange continuity, I would suggest, that Wertheim's performance resists interpretations in terms of role-playing. Talking about role-playing only further confuses the matter. It presents us with many questions to which we cannot so easily provide an answer. For example: is Wertheim playing a role in the first part of the performance, or is he 'truly' himself? And what happens at the moment that Wertheim steps back from the microphone and begins to comment upon his performance? Does Wertheim here 'step out' of his role? But how then is it possible that the 'true' Wertheim so closely resembles the role? Or does Wertheim immediately step into a new role? But how, then, do we account for the fact that Wertheim does not seem to be playing a role at all, but rather seems to be 'just' himself?

Dissecting visuality I propose to switch attention from the aspect of role-playing to the idea of authenticity. Wertheim, I would suggest, poses questions about our perception of comedians as 'authentic' or 'truly themselves'. How do we recognize the authenticity of the comedian, and upon which presuppositions is this understanding of authenticity actually based? To explore these questions, I will turn to the theory of visuality presented by theatre scholar Maaike Bleeker. This theory provides some analytical tools with which Wertheim's performance can be further unraveled. In her book Visuality in the Theatre: The Locus of Looking (2008), Bleeker argues that visuality is all too often understood as 'just looking' at what is 'there to be seen'. Bleeker argues against this object-immanent approach to visuality. According to Bleeker, visuality is

52 not a fixed object, rather it is an event or a process that is culturally and historically conditioned. What we see always depends upon a subjective point of view, and this point of view is specified by culture and history (1-2). Our implication in the event of visuality poses a challenge to the binary opposition between subject and object. For if we are always already implied in what we see, the opposition between a subject 'just looking' and an object 'over there' becomes blurred. Dissecting an object means to break this object apart. According to Bleeker, the object of visuality can be divided into three parts, or three subject positions: a subject seeing, a subject seen, and a subject of vision. The subject of vision is not the actual spectator (the subject seeing), but rather a position implied within the address that the spectacle (the subject seen) presents to the spectator. It is a subject position that mediates within the relationship between the subject seeing and the subject seen. The actual spectator may or may not identify with this subject position. According to Bleeker, visuality 'happens' in the interaction between these three subjects of vision. So it is not just at a subject 'just looking' at what is 'there to be seen', but rather about how a spectator responds to the address presented by the object (9-10). Bleeker's analysis of visuality in terms of an interaction between three subjects of vision also enables her to critically reflect upon traditional understandings of authenticity, and the strong opposition between authenticity and theatricality. In her paper "Theatre of/or Truth" (2007), Bleeker reflects upon this problematic opposition. The concept of authenticity, Bleeker explains, often refers to an immanent truth. The term theatricality, on the other hand, often refers to a lack, to the lack of authenticity or truth. Theatricality is often used to refer to falseness, to deceit, and to make-believe. To escape from this binary opposition between authenticity and theatricality, Bleeker introduces a third term: absorption. She takes this concept from Michael Fried's classical study Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (1980). Bleeker presents an analysis of Fried's text. She points in particular to Fried's conceptual distinction between absorption and theatricality. Within his discussion of late eighteenth- century French painting, Fried uses the concept of absorption to refer to a series of strategies used by painters to convince a spectator of the truthfulness of the represented scene. Drawing upon the work of art critics like Diderot, Fried argues that late eighteenth-century paintings were only considered truthful or authentic when they did not too obviously respond to the point of view of their spectator, but rather 'absorbed' this point of view within the represented scene. By absorbing the point of view of the spectator, the work made the spectator forget that he was looking at a painting. The painted scene seemed to be independent of any point of

53 view, and thus it seemed to be authentic and truthful. When paintings too obviously responded to the point of view of their spectator, the works lost their credibility and were denounced by the critics as 'theatrical', i.e. as inauthentic, unnatural and fake. Bleeker uses Fried's conceptual distinction between absorption and theatricality to re- articulate the concepts of authenticity and theatricality. She writes:

The implication of Fried's observations is that theatricality is not the result of whether something is or is not 'theatre,' but that theatricality denotes the inability to be convincingly 'truthful.' In order for an event to appear truthful, the point of view implied within that event must remain invisible, or at least not be too obvious. Address your audience in a manner that acknowledges the subjective point of view from whence this audience sees you (including the presuppositions, assumptions, expectations and desires characteristic of this point of view). The better you are able to absorb this perspective, i.e. the more you respond to the desires, assumptions etc., the more convincing your audience will find your performance (n.pag).

What Bleeker suggests here is that authenticity is not a quality of an object, but rather a rhetorical effect produced in the interaction between spectacle and spectator. What she also suggests is that strategies of absorption can be used to produce authenticity as an effect. The same applies to theatricality: theatricality is not a quality, but an effect. Theatricality, in the eighteenth-century discourses analyzed by Fried, refers to failure: the failure to be convincingly truthful. This failure is the consequence of an inability to conceal the subjective point of view implied in the representation. However, as Bleeker argues, Fried's account allows for a more positive articulation of theatricality as well. For if authenticity is understood as a way of concealing the relationship between spectacle and spectator, exposing this relationship may lead to a critical awareness of the way in which the spectacle always implies a subjective perspective, even if this subjective perspective is concealed. Bleeker speaks of "a possibility given in Fried but not made explicit by him" ("Theatre", n.pag.). In "Theatre" as well as in Visuality, Bleeker provides many examples of theatre makers who use theatricality as a critical strategy. This "retheatricalization" (Visuality 7) of theatre is to be understood against the backdrop of a long history of anti-theatricality, both in philosophy and in theatre practice.23 In Visuality, Bleeker explains that:

Typically, from Diderot to deconstruction, the history of staging the relationship between the one seeing and what is seen in the theatre is marked by anti-theatricality. The staged character of the theatrical event makes it by definition antithetic to

23 See also Jonas Barish' classical book The Antitheatrical Prejudice, in which he has argued that a prejudice against theatre and the theatrical has deeply permeated the thinking of the West.

54 modernist notions of authenticity and truth, thus condemning the theatre to presentational strategies that, in order to convince as true and authentic, have to be aimed at obscuring or erasing the traces of its own condition of being staged. When this relational character of the theatrical event does become visible, it can only appear as failure (3, italics in original).

To re-think theatricality as a critical strategy, Bleeker provides a new definition of the concept which emphasizes theatricality as an effect. Theatricality, as she argues in "Theatre", can be conceived of as "a communicative affect emerging from the interaction between spectators and what they see". It refers, she continues, "to the uncanny moment when the distinction between reality and fiction ceases to be self-evident. Not because what is real is unmasked as false, nor because anything goes and the distinction has become meaningless, but rather because we are confronted with the assumptions at work in how we make our distinction between the two." (n.pag.). According to Bleeker, theatricality does not unmask the seemingly authentic as inauthentic or false. Doing this would be nothing more than to sustain the binary opposition between authentic and theatrical, true and false. Nor does theatricality abolish the distinction between authenticity and theatricality. Rather, it makes us aware of our own subjective involvement in what we see. It demonstrates that we, as spectators, are actively involved in the construction of authenticity, and that both authenticity and theatricality are the product of cultural interaction.

The 'authentic' comedian Bleeker is not the first author who has used theatricality as a critical term. Within the late twentieth century, the concept of theatricality achieved critical currency in the humanities and social sciences as a term to point to the 'staged' character of both artistic performances and social events (Burns, Davis and Postlewait, Féral). The term has become associated with ideas of self-reflexivity and critical spectatorship, and has thus lost some of its more pejorative connotations. However, as Bleeker emphasizes, calling attention to the fact that something (whether a theatre performance, a political event, or otherwise) is 'staged' does not necessarily lead to critical spectatorship. In "Theatre", Bleeker has argued that theatricality can be used to deconstruct authenticity, but also to generate new authenticity effects. Bleeker points here to the 'Brechtian' model of theatricality. The theatre of Brecht, as Bleeker points out, does not acknowledge the "inherent theatricality of reality", but rather presents the theatre as something that has to be "undone, deconstructed, or left behind". Used in this way, theatricality works as "a protective mechanism safeguarding the illusion (or at least the

55 possibility) of the real existing elsewhere. A mechanism that directs attention away from how truth, or what is real, is produced within the theatre that is our reality, and how we as viewers are involved in producing it." (n.pag., italics in original) In Dutch cabaret performances, theatricality often seems to work in precisely this way. To make this clear, I propose to return shortly to Jacques Klöters's essay on authenticity discussed in chapter 1 ("Even"). In this essay, Klöters has pointed to this aspect of theatricality in Dutch cabaret: Dutch comedians, he writes, often draw attention to the theatrical condition of their act. They do so, first of all, by directly addressing the audience, thus emphasizing the here-and-now of theatrical communication. Furthermore, comedians often reflect upon the theatrical condition of role-playing, not only by constantly showing the performer behind the role, but also by stepping out of the role once in a while to comment upon the portrayed character. Interestingly, when Klöters explains the role of authenticity in Dutch cabaret, he points to exactly the same strategies as those involved in the production of theatricality: comedians are 'authentic' because they do not hide behind a fourth wall but directly address the audience, and because they are present 'as themselves', even when they are playing a role. Read through Bleeker's analysis of theatricality, the implication of Klöters's text is that theatricality does not necessarily undermine, but might also confirm the idea that comedians are 'truly themselves' on stage. By revealing the cabaret performance to be 'theatre', comedians may, paradoxically, produce a new authenticity effect. By doing this, comedians may present themselves as authentic performers who do not hide behind a role, but rather directly address the audience as 'themselves'. The element of role-playing works here to construct a binary opposition between self and role, between authentic comedian and fictive persona, and thus to reconfirm the idea that the comedian is 'authentic'. By revealing that the story that he told us in the first part of the performance was made up, and did not reflect his personal opinion, Wertheim can also be said to create a moment of theatricality. However, Wertheim does not set up an opposition between true and false, self and role. Rather, he problematizes the idea of authenticity by creating a confusing moment in which we cannot distinguish anymore between person and persona, self and role, true and false. This confusion, I argued, results from the fact that there are no apparent differences between Wertheim playing the comedian and Wertheim commenting upon playing the comedian. Rather than his performance, what changes is our perception of this performance. When Wertheim steps back from the microphone and begins to comment upon the first part of the performance, our perception of the first part of the performance changes. By changing our perception of the performance, Wertheim is able to make us aware of our active involvement

56 in the construction of authenticity. He confronts us with our assumptions about what comedy is, and what a comedian does. Wertheim demonstrates that we could initially see him as 'authentic' because he affirmed conventional ideas about what it means to be authentic as a comedian. We could see Wertheim as authentic because he did not very obviously play a role, directly addressed the audience, presented his material as relying upon personal experiences and observations, etc. Thus, Wertheim does not unmask the seemingly authentic comedian as inauthentic or false by revealing the 'true' person behind the role. He rather demonstrates that authenticity is a construction, and that the audience is actively involved in this process of constructing the comedian. In this sense, Wertheim can be said to create a moment of theatricality in the sense of Bleeker, a moment at which "the distinction between reality and fiction ceases to be self- evident" and at which "we are confronted with the assumptions at work in how we make our distinction between the two" (Bleeker qtd above).

Ridiculing Facebook By playing with and undermining the authenticity of the comedian, Wertheim emphasizes authenticity as a rhetorical effect emanating from the interaction between comedian and spectator. Authenticity is used by the comedian to engage with the perspective of the spectator, and to influence how this spectator looks at the comedian. Within an explicit reflection upon the story told by the voice-over, Wertheim demonstrates that authenticity can also be used to affect the way in which audiences perceive humour. He presents a reflection upon a rhetorical strategy that comedians may use to draw attention away from the conservative implications of humour, and to present themselves as critical and rebellious. Let me explain this by taking a closer look at Wertheim's Facebook story, and his reflection upon this story. When the voice-over comes in, Wertheim is just giving his opinion about Facebook. The voice-over continues Wertheim's Facebook story. Facebook, as we hear the voice-over say, is believed to be a 'social' network, but is actually a place for people who are very lonely. After Wertheim has shut down the voice-over, he begins to comment upon the Facebook story:

Gaat nog een poosje door, maar is wel duidelijk, toch? Komt erop neer dat Facebook stom is, dat is eigenlijk de samenvatting van het hele stuk. Werkt altijd, als je op 't podium een beetje boos wil doen, dan moet je gewoon iets nieuws nemen, waarvan je weet dat 2/3 van het publiek het nog niet doet en 1/3 van het publiek het vol overgave doet, en dan ga je gewoon zeggen: 'Dat is stom, dat is stom, dat is stom!' En dan voel

57 je op een gegeven moment die 2/3 denken: o gelukkig, wij zijn niet met onze tijd meegegaan, en die gaan dan heel hard lachen. En die anderen: òòòòòh! Nou, voor je het weet ben je een kwartier verder.

What Wertheim reveals here is that the Facebook story is not just a funny story. It is not just about a comedian who tries to make us laugh. Rather, the comedian uses a particular strategy to make it seem as if he is very "angry" about something, even though he may actually not be angry at all. I propose to read Wertheim's reflection upon this humorous strategy through Maaike Bleeker's theory of visuality. This theory is helpful in articulating how this strategy works. According to Wertheim, if the comedian wants to present himself as 'angry', the first thing he has to do is to pick a subject about which there is no consensus yet, e.g. an upcoming technology like Facebook. 1/3 of the audience is already familiar with this technology; it is positive about it or already uses it. 2/3 of the audience is negative, or has not yet decided what to think of it. By ridiculing this subject, the comedian is able to make it seem as if he is very angry about this subject. When read through Bleeker, what Wertheim can be said to demonstrate here is that humour, and more specifically ridicule, is used within the Facebook example as a means to construct authenticity, and thereby to mask the conservative implications of humour. Wertheim's analysis of the Facebook story recalls Bleeker's observation that if one manages to absorb the perspective of one's spectator, this spectator will perceive you as more 'authentic'. The comedian joking about Facebook seems to do precisely this: by ridiculing something that 2/3 of the audience dislikes, he appeals to the majority's anxieties and prejudices about the new. However, to construct authenticity, the comedian cannot simply affirm the ideas and anxieties of the majority. For, as Bleeker suggests, strategies of absorption only work when a performer appeals to the ideas an desires of his or her audience in a not too obvious way. This is why the comedian has to choose a subject that a small part of the audience is very fond of, or at least takes for granted. By doing this, the comedian is able to confirm the ideas, presuppositions, and desires of the audience, but without doing this so obviously that he loses his authenticity. Thus, by ridiculing something that 2/3 of the audience does not like while 1/3 of the audience likes it, the comedian in Wertheim's example is able to appeal to the ideas, presuppositions and desires of the majority, but still be conceived as a 'critical' comedian, as someone who does not merely say what the audience wants to hear, but is truly angry and critical about something that many people seem to like or to take for granted. So although the Facebook story has actually quite conservative implications - because it works by appealing to

58 the prejudices, anxieties and presuppositions of the majority - Wertheim demonstrates that it is precisely by responding to these prejudices, anxieties and presuppositions that the performer is able to present himself as angry and critical, and thereby to create an 'authentic' moment of critical comedy. Ridicule is used here, as Wertheim demonstrates, to create a moment of authenticity, and thereby to draw attention away from the conservative implications of a form of humour that actually confirms the prejudices, anxieties and ideas of a particular cultural audience.

Re-thinking Dutch cabaret Wertheim ends his analysis of the Facebook strategy with the remark that he did not invent that strategy himself: "I did not invent this," Wertheim says, "this is an old trick". Wertheim continues to explain that he learned this "trick" from the Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek, who already used this strategy within the 1990s. He thus frames his critique of the Facebook story as a critique of Dutch cabaret as cultural tradition, and of the artistic strategies used by comedians who are part of this tradition. Wertheim continues by presenting a critical reflection upon the strategies used by two comedians from the Dutch cabaret tradition: the already mentioned Youp van 't Hek, and Toon Hermans. To understand Wertheim's discussion of these two comedians, it is needed to provide some background information, and especially to look shortly at the reception of the work of these comedians. The work of Youp van 't Hek was already shortly discussed in Chapter 1. Van 't Hek is a very popular Dutch comedian who began his career in the early 1970s and became famous in the early 1980s. From the early 1980s up till today, van 't Hek makes large theatre tours with his own solo performances. Van 't Hek is generally seen as critical and progressive (Hanenberg and Verhallen 195 ff). Toon Hermans belongs to the generation preceding van 't Hek. He made his first solo performances in the mid-1950s and continued to make solo performances until 1997, three years before his death in 2000. He is often credited for inventing the 'one-man-show': he was the first Dutch comedian who presented solo performances, and did not perform as part of a larger ensemble (Zalm). The comedy of Hermans differs greatly from the comedy of van 't Hek. Whereas van 't Hek jokes about topical political and social issues, Hermans presented a mix of visual humour, cheerful songs and clownesque sketches. He presented what he himself called "typisch menselijke humor" (qtd in Ibo 518), which was not bound to any political or social context (or so it seemed).

59 Wertheim uses the examples of van 't Hek and Hermans precisely because of these strong differences. He uses these examples to make a point about the limits of social and political engagement. As Wertheim explains, van 't Hek's explicit social commentary is often not quite original. Van 't Hek too often says what we already know. He is critical about things that his audience is already critical about. This presents a limit to van 't Hek's engagement. But this does not mean that comedians should turn their back to society. This is not a solution, and it can even be dangerous. This is what Wertheim demonstrates with the example of Hermans. But what Wertheim also demonstrates is that both the supposedly critical comedy of van 't Hek and the supposedly politically 'neutral' comedy of Hermans have strong conservative implications. To theorize these conservative implications, I propose to read Wertheim's discussion of van 't Hek and Hermans through Bleeker's concepts of absorption and authenticity. Doing so helps me to 're-think' the Dutch cabaret tradition: to point to the conservative implications of humour within this tradition, and also to point to the continuity between the work of two comedians who have traditionally been seen as wholly different. Wertheim's discussion of van 't Hek focuses upon a specific example from van 't Hek's work: the example of Youp van 't Hek ridiculing the mobile phone at the time that hardly anybody had one, a moment at which most people were sceptic about the mobile phone and the idea that this new technology promoted, i.e. the idea that everyone should be able to reach everyone anywhere and anytime. Wertheim comments:

MICHA: Ik weet nog...eehm...dat ik dat voor het eerst zag, dat eehm...dat een cabaretier iets nieuws stom vond,dat was eehm..dat was op televisie, op televisie was dat - ik had nog helemaal niet het idee dat ik dat zelf ooit zou doen - maar was eehm...een conference van eehm...toen waren er net mobiele telefoons. En die waren toen nog heel duur en een paar mensen hadden d'r één, hè, die hadden het geld ervoor en die vonden dat handig, maar de meeste mensen dachten: Hmmja, kan ik toch niet betalen. En eehm...nou hoe heet 'ie, met de bretels? AUDIENCE: Youp van 't Hek! MICHA: Youp van 't Hek? Zou kunnen. Ik eehm...ja, maar nee, u kent 'm. Eehm...nee maar dat was heel lang geleden, dus 't kan. Eehm...en op een gegeven moment eeehm...zegt 'ie...ehm eehm zegt ie tegen de zaal [geaffecteerd accent]: 'Je weet wel, zo'n klootzak met een mobiele telefoon!' Die hele zaal: 'Hahaha, dat zijn wij niet!' Paar mensen: 'Ooooh volgens mij heb 'ie het over ons!' Nou, kat in 't bakkie. 't Gekke was, als je erover nadenkt, eehm... vijf jaar later kan je zo'n grap niet meer maken dus, want dan heeft iedereen... Op een gegeven moment had iedereen een

60 mobiele telefoon, als je dan zegt: 'Je weet wel, zo'n klootzak met een mobiele telefoon', dan kijkt de zaal je aan: Maar we hebben toch allemaal een mobiele telefoon? Dus dat zie je altijd verschuiven steeds, stapje voor stapje.

What Wertheim demonstrates here is that van 't Hek's humour initially seems to be rebellious: he seems to be critical about consumer society, and critical about new trends and technologies embraced by the masses. However, van 't Hek is not really against the norm: rather than the norm, he ridicules the not-yet-established norm. Read through Bleeker, we could say that van 't Hek, by ridiculing the not-yet-established norm, is able to absorb the perspective of a culturally and historically embedded spectator, and thereby to make himself appear as more 'authentic' and 'truthful'. He confirms the majority's anxieties about the new while at the same time ridiculing the ideas of a minority and thereby presenting himself as truly angry and critical about a social norm. Read in parallel to the Facebook example discussed earlier, we could say that van 't Hek uses a strategy of authenticity to present himself as critical and rebellious, and thereby also to draw attention away from the conservative implications of his humour. What Wertheim also demonstrates within his discussion of van 't Hek is that the strategies used by van 't Hek are bound to a particular cultural and historical moment. Van 't Hek was able to joke about the mobile phone at the time that this was still a new technology and that many people were skeptical about it. When the cultural moment changed, and everyone had a mobile phone, the comedian could not joke about it anymore: if he did, he would not be perceived as 'authentic' anymore because he did not adequately respond to the perspective of a culturally and historically specific spectator. Wertheim continues his discussion by exploring an alternative strategy, as exemplified within the work of comedian Toon Hermans. Hermans did not use humour as a way of commenting upon political and social issues, like van 't Hek, he just wanted to make the audience laugh. Wertheim puts it even stronger: Hermans actively made the audience forget about the world outside. Wertheim demonstrates this within a discussion of a photo of Hermans during a performance in 1943:

In Carré, als je daar bent moet je maar 'ns in de foyer kijken, daar hangt een hele grote foto, levensgroot, van een jonge Toon Hermans, maar dus echt in de bloei van z'n leven, foto uit 1943. Ik liep daarlangs en ik denk opeens: wacht, dat is een jonge Toon Hermans en ik werd erin gezogen. Omdat ik opeens dacht: toen was 'ie dus al in staat om een zaal op z'n kop te zetten. Voor de televisie, mensen wisten niet eens wat ze overkwam. In m'n gedachten zat ik al in de zaal te kijken naar Toon hè. Daar had ik bij willen zijn, die jonge Toon Hermans...wat onzin is, in '43 was ik nog lang niet

61 geboren, maar 't deed me toch...ik dacht: 'k zou d'r toch wel heel graag bij willen zijn. Eehm...dan had...sowieso, in 1943, al was ik geboren, in 1943 mochten Joden allang Carré niet meer in! Dus de kans dát ik naar binnen was...dat was onzin, die hele gedachte is onzin. Nee, maar voor alle duidelijkheid, stond gewoon een duidelijk bordje ook hoor: 'Voor Joden verboden'. Dus dan moet je niet zeggen: 'Ja, dat geldt voor mij niet, ik hou heel erg van cabaret!' 'Hoezo? Je bent toch...' 'Ja, nee, da's ook wel waar.' En regels zijn regels, dat is...zou ook een beetje gek zijn, dat je dan met een ster op eehm...naar Carré gaat en dan ga je in de zaal zitten met een ster, dat kan natuurlijk niet! Er is maar één ster en dat is Toon en die staat op het podium, klaar! [...] Lekker met z'n allen in Carré lachen om onzin hè...en wat er in de buitenwereld aan de hand is, ken ons wat schelen, toch?

What Wertheim does here is using his own cultural perspective to pose critical questions about a historical performance. By making explicit his own sense of displacement when imagining himself as part of an historical audience that he, as a Jew, could never have been part of, Wertheim is able to expose the cultural perspective implied within Hermans's performance, and also to point to the conservative implications of this perspective. With his ironic comments upon the Jew being excluded from this comedy night ("Er is maar één ster en dat is Toon en die staat op het podium, klaar!"), Wertheim points to the troubling political implications of Hermans's seemingly non-political humour. Even though there were happening terrible things in the world outside, Hermans did not talk about politics. By doing so, he silently affirmed the totalitarian regime under which he performed. Wertheim's example raises the question how it is possible for these conservative implications to remain invisible. This question leads us back again to Bleeker's discussion of authenticity and absorption. According to Bleeker, strategies of absorption can be used to make the cultural perspective implied by one's performance invisible, and thereby to constitute oneself as 'authentic' and 'truthful'. What Wertheim's example demonstrates is that Hermans, precisely by not referring to politics or to particular cultural groups, but rather by joking about things that all people, whatever their cultural or political background, should recognize, was able to absorb the spectator, and thereby to make the cultural perspective implied within the performance invisible. In this way, Hermans was able to make this perspective appear as 'authentic' and 'truthful', and to mask the conservative implications of what seems to be an innocent form of humour.

62 Conclusion

Looking back: conservative implications In this thesis, I have drawn attention to the conservative implications of humour in Dutch cabaret in order to re-think a cabaret tradition that is generally perceived as critical, progressive and, sometimes also, explicitly left-wing. To theorize these conservative implications, I proposed to look at the strategies of humour that comedians use to engage with the ideas, norms and desires of their audiences. In the previous chapter, I have taken a performance by Micha Wertheim as my theoretical object to reflect upon the strategies of humour in the work of two prominent Dutch comedians: Toon Hermans and Youp van 't Hek. The examples of van 't Hek and Hermans help to re-think Dutch cabaret because they point to the strong conservative implications of humour, and also because they expose the continuity between the work of two comedians who are traditionally seen as wholly different. Taking Maaike Bleeker's theory of visuality as theoretical perspective, I argued that both Hermans and van 't Hek use humour to respond to the ideas, presuppositions and desires of a culturally and historically specific spectator. By doing so, I argued, these comedians are able to 'absorb' the cultural perspective of their spectator and thereby to make this perspective appear as 'authentic' and 'truthful', and to mask the strong conservative implications of their humour. The strategies of humour exposed here, I argued, are conservative because they work by confirming, rather than questioning, the ideas, presuppositions and desires of the spectator. My reading of Wertheim poses a challenge to dominant discourses on Dutch cabaret. In Chapter 1, I demonstrated that Dutch cabaret has a strong reputation as a critical and progressive form of comedy. Furthermore, I demonstrated that cabaret is generally understood in terms of authenticity and personal engagement. Wertheim, I demonstrated, destabilizes and questions this dominant view of cabaret. First, Wertheim questions the idea that cabaret is a critical and progressive form of comedy. He does this most explicitly within his discussion of Youp van 't Hek's criticism of the mobile phone. What Wertheim demonstrates here is that van 't Hek, by ridiculing an upcoming technology, is able to make it seem as if he is very critical, even though he actually confirms the dominant social perspective. Secondly, Wertheim questions common assumptions about authenticity and personal engagement. He does so most explicitly in his reflection upon the Facebook story. I have proposed not to interpret this moment in terms of an 'unmasking' of the comedian as 'inauthentic' and 'insincere'. Rather, Wertheim can be said to emphasize that authenticity is a construction. By doing so, his performance also problematizes the notion of 'personal engagement'. By

63 revealing that he did not really want to make a personal statement about Facebook, but was more interested in how he could be perceived as critical and rebellious, Wertheim demonstrates, not that comedians are 'insincere' or 'inauthentic', but rather that personal engagement is itself to be conceived of as a strategy of authenticity. Staging one's personal struggles with the world, Wertheim demonstrates, is not always critical; it can also be a means to absorb the spectator by telling about personal experiences that this spectator can relate to. In this way, staging one's personal struggles with the world might have quite conservative implications. My analysis of Wertheim's performance also further contributes to Michael Billig's reflection upon humour and ideology. Billig, as demonstrated in Chapter 2, criticizes common ideological assumptions about humour's positiveness. He argues that humour is generally understood as "good-natured" and "warm-hearted", and also as "rebellious", whereas the 'darker' side of humour, including the possible conservative implications of so-called 'rebellious' humour, is often ignored. What my analysis of Wertheim's performance, and especially the examples of Hermans and van 't Hek, can be said to demonstrate is that comedians play an active role as co-constructors of this ideology of positive humour. Van 't Hek, on the one hand, was discussed in this thesis as an example of a comedian whose humour has quite conservative implications, but who, by ridiculing the not-yet-established norms of the middle class, is able to frame his comedy as critical and rebellious. By doing this, van 't Hek can be said to actively contribute to an ideology of rebellious humour as criticized by Billig. Hermans, on the other hand, was demonstrated to frame his humour as innocent and non-political. By doing so, Hermans's comedy reinforces and co-constructs ideological assumptions about humour's good-naturedness and warm-heartedness.

Looking forward: new critical possibilities In this thesis, I have strongly emphasized the conservative aspect of Dutch cabaret. However, cabaret can also be very critical. In recent decades, some comedians have been experimenting with new forms of critical cabaret, trying to think beyond classical forms of engagement such as explicitly political engagement or personal engagement, while often playing with tradition as well as with the perspective of the spectator. Micha Wertheim is one of these comedians, but there are certainly more. I think that for future research it would be interesting to look at these new critical possibilities in Dutch cabaret, and to analyze the different ways in which criticism has been made productive by comedians, while keeping in mind the limits of social criticism as explored within this thesis.

64 I would like to conclude this thesis by mentioning three comedians who have experimented with new forms of critical comedy, and whose work deserves further research. First, a comedian who has radically distanced himself from classical forms of engagement is Hans Teeuwen. In the 1990s and the early 2000s, Teeuwen has experimented with new forms of transgressive humour. Teeuwen does not express opinions on political and social matters, nor does he display a strong personal engagement. Rather, he presents us with sadistic persona whose language is sexually abusive and violent. His comedy can probably best be described as a systematic crossing of moral boundaries. Another comedian who has experimented with new forms of engagement is the originally Flemish comedian Wim Helsen. Helsen has challenged traditional expectations of authenticity and social engagement by presenting confused persona not able to deal with 'normal' social situations. What makes Helsen's comedy very interesting is that, by adopting the perspective of a social outcast, he seems to be able to question and to destabilize norms and conventions that we usually take for granted. But there are also comedians whose experiments have been less radical, or whose work is usually not seen as 'critical' at all. A good example that falls within the last category is the comedy of Brigitte Kaandorp. At the beginning of the 1980s, Kaandorp was one of the first comedians who explicitly challenged the strong political engagement of her predecessors, and instead provided the audience with personal stories and observations. Although Kaandorp's work is often seen as representative of the 'nonsense cabaret' coming up in the 1980s (Hanenberg and Verhallen 169, 173-8), by presenting the audience with her experiences as a woman, a housewife and (from the mid-1990s onwards) as a mother, she has also been able to expose and to criticize dominant gender norms.

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