Humiliation in the arts, ranked.

Is stand-up comedy the most humiliating art form of all?

A certain amount of shame is healthy for the practicing artist. Too little shame, and they risk making something that is so out of touch, so self serving or worse, just plain bad, that none of their friends and family have the heart to tell them so. Too much shame and they risk censoring themselves and making no art at all. Really this is why so much bad art exists. Bad art may be bad, but it still gets made and will always beat no art at all. This is an important lesson in the symbiotic and important relationship between the arts and humiliation - like two koi fish circling each other in a pond. Often those with good taste have the most shame whereas those with bad taste have poor taste and produce at rates we wish they wouldn’t. 

It's been discussed before, but humiliation is an important ingredient in stand-up. It's the only art form where practicing takes place in public. Comedians don’t have closed door studios, rehearsals or private places to polish their material. It all happens in the metaphorical town square. Which means every new joke or idea fails miserably in front of both the artist and audience (and somewhat addictively vice versa). When you’ve been doing stand-up long enough, eventually you stop feeling humiliated all together…Ok, not true - it never really goes away. But you become friends with the feeling. This is why comedians can be such inexcusable egotistical psychos. I think secretly they have this chip on their shoulder because ballerinas and sculptors and poets only have to show their work when it's perfected, whereas comedians need constant judgment to not just perform but practice. Their hearts grow weary and so they sulk and grunt like a workhorse who’s stall is right beside the prize winning stallion. 

I think we’re all familiar with the feeling of watching a performance that is bad. It's what makes the audition episodes of American Idol so popular. Your ears and cheeks get hot and personally I want to cover my face like I’m watching Paranormal Activity. It is delicious horror.  There is a physiological response to watching someone embarrass themselves. I believe this is how some people experience all stand-up, just by nature and no matter the quality. This brings me to my main questions - does that make it the most humiliating art form in all of The Arts?

While I’m not denying this thesis, there are absolutely other contenders. For context, me being a comedian, my window for what is considered art may be wider than most. For starters, there’s burlesque. I think the only thing that might be more embarrassing than asking audiences to consider you funny is asking audiences to consider you sexy. Comedians have a bit of an easier time winning over audiences, whereas burlesque performers…I’m not really sure how you win over an audience. They’re either there to enjoy your Vaudillian whiles or they aren’t. And I have to imagine finishing a strip tease to a lukewarm audience has to be tough. Strippers have the benefit of being raunchy and titillating. Thanks to music videos, recent media and their general confidence, strippers are also stunningly cool. Burlesque is like taking all the evocative, interesting  parts of stripping and putting a bloomer pantie over top of it. Yes, Dita Von Tease is a stunning maverick. But she’s Dita Von Tease. Isn’t everyone else in comparison just sort of spinning a tassel around their tit?

Being a poet in 2022 is synonymous with being unemployed, however there is an old world quality to it that makes it superior to stand up certainly. Poets have always been poets - labouring over quill and ink - comedians were born from less romantic means (a lot of comedy shows happen in strip mall bars and grills, for example). So unfortunately poets have us beat.

DJ’s bear a sort of similarity to us in the realm of humiliation - “Everyone is a DJ” is a funny phrase you’ll hear DJ’s say with an eyeroll or make memes about, and comedians say the same of their craft with similar disdain. DJ’s and comedians know there is embarrassment in planting your flag in a crowded market (see: podcasting). However, like stripping, comedy is completely smoked out by the undeniable cool factor of nightlife. DJ’s are popular, often conventionally attractive party planners and everyone wants “on the list”. Comedy show tickets are usually plentiful and free out of desperation. 

Writer’s play an interesting role in the humiliation food chain because they are sort of like Aces in a card game: they can either play high or low. Everyone is a writer in that everyone wants to be writing more, which sort of cheapens the writing currency. Sure, there are true writers, if only we could find the ones that were actually writing. However those that do write, and do so for a living, have more or less captured the white stag of the arts. Don’t tell them that though, because they will scoff in your face and tell you they haven’t had a proper adult conversation in weeks - especially if they have kids and are working on a novel they now hate.

Thanks to TikTok, old world craftsmanship is getting a horny rebrand by conventionally attractive 20 somethings. The internet is now filled with shirtless pottery makers, hypebeast rug makers with EP’s and young at-home chefs with sparkly boy next door charm. Do you know what comedians have? Crowd work videos. Videos in which we make a group of three in a bachelorette party from New Hampshire snort their mimosas. On top of that, no one ever has ever looked hot while doing stand up. It is a vile art form practiced under fluorescent lights in front of a wall that is often fashioned to look like a back alley on purpose.  We can’t look good and practice our art form. We just look sweaty and mostly dead-eyed.

When an artist becomes successful, I have to imagine the humiliation begins to fall away. Poetry in your notebook might seem cringe when someone finds it, but it's no longer cringe when you’re performing it for a packed auditorium. Although even that’s not true. I’ve cringed at all kinds of popular performances! Just watch the Emmys try to produce an awards show for God’s sake! Fame and success can’t hide us from humiliation, but being really good at something is probably a soothing balm for any kind of artist. 

Is stand-up the most humiliating art form? Maybe, but in tech terms it's more of a feature than a bug. I want to wrap this up in a way that doesn’t sound like a quote from a coaster from Home Sense but maybe that’s just more shying away from humiliation. Be really good at whatever you do. Sometimes when I’m struggling to feel good about my art, I remind myself how confident hack comedians are and that gives me the boost I need to go to another open mic. If anything, remember to have the taste of a good artist and the confidence of a bad one.