LIMITS and LAUGHTER the Comedy of Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman
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LIMITS AND LAUGHTER The Comedy of Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman Von der Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften der Universität Duisburg-Essen zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Dr. phil. genehmigte Dissertation vorgelegt von Victoria Beyer aus Mülheim an der Ruhr 1. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Jens-Martin Gurr 2. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Josef Raab Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 06. August 2007 1 h j Acknowledgements This study was submitted as a doctoral thesis to the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Duisburg-Essen in October 2006 and defended in August 2007. The original version has been shortened and slightly modified. After quite a few years of working on this thesis, I would like to express my gratitude to a number of people. I am aware of the contributions made by Prof. Dr. Jens-Martin Gurr who examined this thesis as my supervisor. Most of his comments were incisive and always constructive. I must also thank my co-supervisor Prof. Dr. Josef Raab for his cooperation and advice. Dr. Klaus W. Vowe (†) encouraged me to dwell upon the subject of stand-up comedy. His lectures in general and especially his seminars on biographical pictures were a source of inspiration and his great sense of humor will always be remembered. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Siegfried Jüttner. He accepted me as his assistant and gave me the opportunity to be part of one of his projects. It is partly due to this job that I was able to complete my doctoral thesis within two years. I am especially thankful to my friends, who have always been patient and helpful and who have encouraged and supported me throughout the years. I would especially like to thank Anne Sophie Brandt for proofreading this study and Birthe Küpper for her constant friendship and support. I am deeply grateful to Jan-Henrik Witthaus, who has so much inspired my thinking for the past years. Without his encouragement and invaluable advice I would never have completed this study. Most importantly, I would like to thank my parents. It is through their support and care that I have made it through all the steps to reach this point in my life. I could not have done it without them. Victoria Beyer May 2008 2 Table of Contents Introduction 5 1 A THEORIES OF HUMOR 16 1.1 Superiority Theories 19 1.2 Incongruity Theories 26 1.3 Relief Theories 27 1.4 The Context of the Comic 34 B LENNY BRUCE 1. Lenny Bruce – An Introduction 37 2. “He didn‟t step over the line just to step over the line. There was method to his madness.” – Lenny Bruce‟s Strategies of Humor 42 2.1 Lenny Bruce on First Impression 43 2.2 The Psychological Content of Lenny Bruce‟s Humor 48 2.2.1 Obscenity 49 a.) „To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb‟ 49 b.) „Las Vegas Tits and Ass‟ 53 2.2.2. Racism 55 2.2.3. Religion 58 2.3 Conclusion: Lenny Bruce‟s Strategies of Humor 61 3. “Alive Lenny was a problem. Dead he‟s a property.” – The Early Reception of Lenny Bruce 62 3.1 The Early Years 62 3.2 Lenny Bruce and the Law 67 3.3 The Posthumous Rise to Fame 72 4. Lenny – A Film Analysis 78 4.1 Lenny – the Love Story 80 4.2. Pseudo-Documentary Aspects in the Biopic Lenny 96 4.3. Conclusion: Love Story and Pseudo-Documentary 116 3 – Manipulation of Sympathy and Possible Effects 5. “Moviemakers prefer myth-making to truth-telling” – The Reception of the Biopic Lenny 118 6. “Lenny set the all-time high standard for an entertainer observing and dissecting his own society and culture” – The Legacy of Lenny Bruce 125 C ANDY KAUFMAN 1. Andy Kaufman – An Introduction 130 2. “He wanted to make audiences work – to rethink the obvious” – Andy Kaufman‟s Strategies of Humor 137 2.1 Foreign Man Turns into Elvis Presley 138 2.2 „Andy Kaufman‟ Turns into Foreign Man 147 2.3 Lip-Synching the Mighty Mouse Theme Song 149 2.4 Tony Clifton 150 2.5 Andy the Wrestler 156 2.6 Conclusion: Andy Kaufman‟s Strategies of Humor 158 3. “Andy Kaufman Fills Stage With Parade of Odd Characters” – The Contemporary Reception of Andy Kaufman 160 4. Man on the Moon – A Film Analysis 172 4.1 The Film “by” Andy Kaufman Introducing 176 the Film about Andy Kaufman 4.2 The Film about Andy Kaufman – A Concept in its Infancy 178 4.3 Staged Confusion 181 4.4 Behind the Scenes 183 4.5 Tony Clifton 185 4.6 Wrestling with his Audiences 193 4.7 The Fall and Rise of Andy Kaufman 198 5. “A movie nearly as ambiguous as Kaufman himself” – The Reception of Man on the Moon 204 4 6. The “[…] avatar of confrontational comedy” – The Legacy of Andy Kaufman 208 Conclusion 215 Appendix 219 1. To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb 219 2. Las Vegas Tits and Ass 220 3. Are There Any Niggers Here Tonight? 221 4. Religions Inc. 222 5. Sequence Graph: Lenny 224 6. Sequence Description: Lenny 225 7. Sequence Graph: Man on the Moon 228 8. Sequence Description: Man on the Moon 229 Discography 233 Filmography 233 Bibliography 233 Web-Sources 240 5 Introduction The stunning self-characterizations of both Lenny Bruce (1926-1966) and Andy Kaufman (1949-1984) show their ambivalence towards stand-up comedy in general and towards their own performances in particular. Bruce is frequently quoted as having said “I‟m not a comedian, I‟m Lenny Bruce”1, and Kaufman insisted “I am not a comic, I have never told a joke in my life”2 and “I‟m not into comedy. I think comedy is the most unfunny thing there is.”3 Understandably, there is much debate as to whether Bruce should be considered a critic rather than a comedian, and whether Kaufman should be considered a comedian at all.4 In this study, based upon the implicit understanding that a comedian‟s critical viewpoint depends upon the use of specific comical means, it will be proven that it is essential to evaluate both Bruce and Kaufman as comedians. Bruce and Kaufman‟s main comical means, which they used to convey criticism, have to be identified first. Then, the comedians‟ contemporary reception can be understood. Furthermore, the identification of comical means employed to convey criticism reveals that the work of the comedians in question remains relevant today and for decades to come. Finally, in acknowledgment of Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman‟s achievements, they are recognized as pioneers of stand-up comedy within postmodern society. Both comedians, who put the cat among the pigeons in the late 1950‟s and early 1960‟s (Bruce) and in the late 1970‟s and early 1980‟s (Kaufman), undermined established conventions of comedy with their new and threatening material. Both emerged from the security of underground clubs and used the public stage or the media to reach a mass audience. Bruce‟s performances were radically critical and focused on social injustice, racism, and political and religious hypocrisy. He chose so-called taboo- topics as his central themes and his public use of vulgar language landed him in jail several times throughout his career. Kaufman‟s entirely different material – it was neither clearly political nor obviously socio-critical – hardly fit any categorization. The 1 R. K. L. Collins/ D. M. Skover: The Trials of Lenny Bruce. The Fall and Rise of an American Icon. Naperville: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2002, 23. 2 Andy Kaufman. The Midnight Special. Sony Music Entertainment, 2000 [1981], Interview with Andy Kaufman. 3 S. Allen: Funny People. New York: Stein And Day, 1984, 161. 4 Steve Allen in the above book states that “[…] the standard concept of funny is not always relevant to Andy‟s performances” (164). Even the most recent study on Kaufman by Florian Keller begins with the statement “this is not a study about how Andy Kaufman may have transcended, or undermined, the rhetoric of comedy.” F. Keller: Andy Kaufman. Wrestling with the American Dream. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005, preface vii. Studies on Lenny Bruce will be introduced and briefly summarized in the course of this introduction. 6 appearance of several different characters was typical of his act: make-believe losers like Foreign Man, Tony Clifton, an obnoxious and greasy lounge singer who insulted his audiences, and a misogynist wrestler. Although obviously using entirely different approaches, both comedians subverted established conventions of the entertainment scene to a great extent and shocked American audiences to the point of disgust. The analogy pointed out by Gerald Nachman further clarifies the kinship between these seemingly so different comedians: Bruce and Kaufman share the willingness to test the audiences‟ patience and their moral and psychological endurance by pondering the questions “How long will they (or I) go? Will they jump through any hoop for me? What can I do that will totally alienate them?”5 However, it is important to understand that both comedians put their audiences to the test in order to convey social criticism. Their early and „tragic‟ deaths initiated posthumous careers which culminated in the labeling „icons of popular culture‟. The posthumous recognition and admiration of the two entertainers, who were denied performance (Bruce) or voted off television shows (Kaufman) during their lifetimes, led to popular film biographies, namely Bob Fosse‟s Lenny (1974) and Milos Forman‟s Man on the Moon (1999).6 One could say that the biopics formed an important – if not the most important and enduring – part of their reception.