Fight of Fools

Fools without the Audience

Can comedy change politics?

“Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?” - King Lear’s Fool, to King Lear

People talk about what a goldmine the current state of politics is for comedy,
but maybe it’s not all so rosy for the comedians. Take King Lear’s Fool for
example. Though he never stopped joking, he for one wasn’t too happy with his
lot during his day’s political upheavals. To the suggestion that his jokes smack
too much of reality, he complains that “lords and great men will not let me”
stick to foolery: if what he says comes out tasting too rawly familiar, it’s the
fault of those politicians “snatching” at his thunder, commandeering his
material. He’s a victim of competition—of, say, the free market.

Unsurprisingly for someone named a fool by his own Fool, King Lear calls his
wisely witty jester a “mongrel”. It is perhaps this latter slur with its suggestion
of impure mixture that might best describe our era’s late night comedians, who
have definitively embraced the realm of news satire, a genre that today ranges
from rather amazing rants to nearly verbatim reenactments of events still fresh
in video and print; and, in addition, they have begun to blur the line between
satirist and activist.

But if we have gotten used to political comedy, the rise in its tone is rather
recent. Stephen Colbert used to make it easy to have it both ways by acting as
his victim, but no more. A crop of new jokesters—Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah,
John Oliver—make mincemeat of any veneer of bipartisanship, and they . And
more recently Michelle Wolf has caused a brouhaha that hardly paid credit to
the least funny part of her set: “Flint still doesn’t have clean water.”

Why has this last part been buried in a perfect smokey eye? All anyone wanted
to talk about was insult and the limits of a punchline. [Is Lear’s madness a
logical conclusion to his sanity, the realization of the truth: the man gives him
his madness.? ]

Comedy is often a tool of the weak, the underdog, the underrepresented.

Presumably Jews invented stand up comedy. Comedy that rails against the
establishment doesn’t generally touch it.

Why didn’t Alec Baldwin do to Trump what Tina Fey did to Sarah Palin--that
is, make him unelectable? The more important question is, had Palin been
elected, along with McCain, would Fey’s portrayal have done anything to
placate the damage Palin might have wrought as our number two? Campaigns
are performance; governance is a delicately violent lacework of consequences.
Will we tire of Baldwin’s take, or, more insidiously, get used to it? How many
times can a punchlines be repeated? Many has been the claim that comedy does
nothing more than convince us of our own superiority. It’s possible humor does
nothing at all but reassure us. It’s another name for smugness.

2010 — trump was up against

Maybe we can ask what type of humor we want, and who is the audience.

Why does the fool keep following Lear? He spends two days hiding from him;
then decides to go…he also calls his loyal attendant Kent a fool and that
shouldn’t stick with him

“ When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine

again. I
     would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.
          That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
            And follows but for form,
          Will pack when it begins to rain
            And leave thee in the storm.
          But I will tarry; the fool will stay,”
“          And let the wise man fly.
          The knave turns fool that runs away;
            The fool no knave, perdy.
  Kent. Where learn'd you this, fool?
  Fool. Not i' th' stocks, fool.”

Gen.
“who labours to outjest
     His heart-struck injuries.”

Lear feels affection for his Fool, partially because he is one of the few people he
can yet command, (head pat on TV shows)

The Fool is also someone worse off than him

but if their aim is to be serious, why do they still insist on being funny? Will people stop
watching if they’re not? Will we reach    continuum where suddenly more and more laughter is
gone and it becomes pure news again?

Maybe Masha Gessen is right to say that Wolf gives us a way forward

The difference is that King Lear gives up his power; Trump holds his own. But a king is
absolute, a president can’t be, so if our president is a fool, then we can only hope that the others
aren’t.

Trump used to look at SNL and find it bad because he was seeing a lesser mirror; now he doesn’t
watch it at all.

The most foolish thing

Kent: “. [To the Fool] Come, help to bear thy

master.
     Thou must not stay behind.”

Excerpt From: William Shakespeare. “The Tragedy of King Lear.” iBooks.

DOES THE FOOL GET HANGED?

DOES THE FOOL ONLY CONVINCE HIM OF HIS MADNESS?

Lear
“When we are born, we cry that we are come
     To this great stage of fools”
Does this mean that we are all fools?
“  Lear. No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even
     The natural fool of fortune.”

Can this recent change also change politics? Not this politics. It’s usual ability
to create shame and tell truths in an engaging way are over (what keeps the king
from getting rid of the joker? He is also his friend?) The only people who can
change Trump are his friends, and Fox and Friends are not going to laugh about
any of this soon. Because politicized comedy is really only there for those who
want to listen to it (statistics?) Our President cares not about shame, and comedy
has only fanned his flames (seth meyers)  
It’s unfortunate, because so much of the biting comedy--satire, actually--is
really, really good, funny, and incisive. It’s a pity its only audience is the
people.

Comedy and satire are for the people; when they have a say, it can affect outcomes. The only
hope is that 2018 elections get shifted…

The comedian’s helplessness is our own: we, the masses, can laugh, but if the
echoes reach the White House, the order coming out to deport, imprison, …
cannot do a thing. This new brand of comedy, which gets darker by the day,
might reach us, but it won’t touch the upper echelons.

Trump used to tweet about SNL.

Trump is no Lear, yet. But who is Donald Trump’s Fool? Certainly no one we
would consider a fool--Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Ben
Carson. These people take themselves too seriously, and could use their own
jesters.

Could it be our comedians? The man is no king, and no king could his accent
resemble, but the accoutrements of his life do suggest without much exercise of
the imagination an ego worthy of a monarch: a golden home, successive wives,
monuments in the name of the beloved...Ours is for the most part no longer a
world of divine right and hereditary ascension, the withering Crown become
touristic, symbolic, and escapist, but as evidenced by our cults, mobile and
gargantuan, to past presidents--from George Washington in our hands daily, to
Reagan’s plane on the stage of the RNC debates--we have never abandoned the
rush towards hagiography, even when the saint is not yet dead, as if to touch the
relic before it sits in the closed off reliquary. Power is one solution to the
problem of mortality, and it is those perhaps most concerned with death who
most seek its opposite. Is not our President in excellent health and living his
most impressionable years?
In theory at least, power and popularity are sacrosanct bedmates, and if you buy
in to this, you might lie about the size of the audience to your coronation while
contemplating a military parade. You might even try to make your name
synonymous with your country plus an added adjective to give it credence:
Make America Great Again.

Trump’s rallies are nothing if not...

The difference is that Lear defends his Fool. Maybe this was his error. Lear
fares no better for sticking by his witty friend. Maybe he should have chucked
the fool and not his daughter. As for Trump himself, he’s got no fool, but plenty
of Ivanka.
Who is the bigger fool?

Trump is more dangerous than Lear because he actually has power, has no one
telling him he’s wrong, and no deceit...yet.

This type of comedy gets a lot of viewership. Even the Times has a
roundup...and people find one as good as the other.

But Lear dies; we, the audience don’t, and the fool knows it.

then, speaking of Lear himself, she huffs that “old fools are babes again”. When
King Lear suspects the Fool of calling him a fool, who answers somewhat
humorlessly that “all thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born
with”.

Feste - Twelfth Night

Puck - Midsummer’s Night
The Fool - King Lear

Inauguration as coronation
Trump’s apartment as palace
“Trump Palace Condominiums”

“Golden throne” — toilet

King Lear:
GONERIL
Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

Goneril: Old fools are babes again; and must be used

With cheques as flatterie
King Lear: Dinner, ho, dinner! Where's my knave? my fool?...How now!
where's that mongrel?...Why came not the slave back to me when I called him.

Knight:  your highness is not entertained with that

ceremonious affection as you were wont

King Lear: How now, my pretty knave! how dost thou?

Fool: Why, for taking one's part that's out of favour:

nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits,
thou'lt catch cold shortly: there, take my coxcomb:
why, this fellow has banished two on's daughters,
and did the third a blessing against his will; if
thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.
How now, nuncle! Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters!
KING LEAR
Why, my boy?
Fool
If I gave them all my living, I'ld keep my coxcombs
myself. There's mine; beg another of thy daughters.
KING LEAR
Take heed, sirrah; the whip
Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped
out, when Lady the brach may stand by the fire and stink.
KING LEAR
A pestilent gall to me!
Fool
Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.
KING LEAR
Do.
Fool
Mark it, nuncle:
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score.
KENT
This is nothing, fool.
Fool
Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you
gave me nothing for't. Can you make no use of
nothing, nuncle?