1. Okay, I tried to resist but can't help it. A few quick thoughts on Joan Rivers & 1950s "sick" or "new wave" comedy.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
2. Because Rivers has been around seemingly forever we forget her specific roots. She emerged as a comedian in 1950s & 1960s, part of a wave
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Replying to @HeerJeet
3. The "sick" or New Wave comedians of era (Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Phyllis Diller) were defined against earlier vaudeville aesthetic.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
4. With vaudeville, the humor was in the joke, the gag. With "sick" comedians humor was in the persona, the onstage neurotic enacting unease
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Replying to @HeerJeet
5. "Sick" comedians only make sense in context of conformist 1950s America, where admitting unhappiness & anger was subversive.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
6. The pivotal figure was of course Lenny Bruce. Like everyone else in her cohort, Rivers was blown away by Bruce & took courage from him.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
7. Rivers's audacious meanness was surely a reaction to certain "good girl" ideals of feminine behavior.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
8. Like a lot of 1950s rebels, Rivers ultimately wasn't able to do much with her anger beyond express it.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
9. Interesting tension between Rivers the rebel & the Rivers who gave in to social conventions (the WASPized stage name, plastic surgery)
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Replying to @HeerJeet
10. Perhaps the tragedy is that Rivers the rule-breaker ended up using her comedy to guard borders of status quo (via comments on fashion)
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11. @JamesWolcott take on Joan Rivers is congruent with mine but of course expressed with much more brio & wit: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2014/09/joan-rivers …
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Replying to @HeerJeet
12. I'm going to quote a bit from
@JamesWolcott's Rivers piece, because it's perfect.3 replies 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @HeerJeet
13. "I'm not going to pretend that I was a big fan of Rivers' comedy, apart from her early days."
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