Jim Gaffigan: Why is Self-Deprecation Funny? | Big Think

Jim Gaffigan: Why is Self-Deprecation Funny?

New videos DAILY

Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Male privilege is a pretty simple concept. It’s based around one simple fact: historically speaking, white men have a had an easier time just being. Louis C.K. explained it best: "I could get in a time machine, and go to any time, and it would be awesome when I get there. That is exclusively a white privilege."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JIM GAFFIGAN :

Jim Gaffigan is a Grammy nominated comedian, New York Times best-selling author, top touring performer, and multi-platinum-selling father of five. He recently wrapped the first season of his semi-fictitious television show, The Jim Gaffigan Show, which TV Land picked up for a second season and premieres two episodes on Sunday, June 19th at 10/9c. The series, lauded by The Los Angeles Times as “Fun and Funny,” and People Magazine as “One of Summer TV’s bright spots,” was developed by Peter Tolan along with Gaffigan and his wife, Jeannie, who both also serve as executive producers and showrunners. The single-camera comedy co-stars Ashley Williams, Michael Ian Black, and Adam Goldberg and revolves around one man’s struggle to balance fatherhood, stand-up comedy and an insatiable appetite. With multiple projects in motion, Gaffigan is currently preparing to travel the country in a tour bus with his family on behalf of his Fully Dressed arena and theater tour which begins July 7th.

Gaffigan’s fourth special ("Beyond the Pale," 2006; "King Baby," 2009; "Mr. Universe," 2012),"Obsessed" premiered on Comedy Central in 2014 and the DVD/CD was released soon after by Comedy Central Records. "Obsessed" premiered at #1 on iTunes which marked the fifth time Gaffigan reached the Top 25 Comedy category on iTunes. The album also earned a nomination for "Best Comedy Album of the Year" at the 2015 Grammy Awards.

In 2013, Jim’s first book, Dad Is Fat, was released by Crown Publishing and debuted at #5 on The New York Times Bestseller’s List and remained on the list for 17 weeks.  His second book, Food: A Love Story, was released in the fall of 2014 and debuted at #3 on The New York Times Bestseller’s List.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT:

Jim Gaffigan: The appeal of the self-effacing comedy is – I don’t think that it is the defacing of oneself. I think it is the appeal of humility which I think we’ really kind of grappling for. But I think it’s all in doses. I think that similar to pop songs and music being more popular of a certain flavor at a certain time. Supposedly there’s a study that during horrible economic periods songs that are most hopeful are more popular and then during economic booms the more dark nirvana type music is more popular. I don’t know if that’s true. I read that a million years back. But I think, so I think identification in this human experience is a very appealing thing and I think that surprise moment which is very similar to laughter. It’s this moment of acknowledgement and a moment of being out of control and maybe a glimpse into ourselves is really important. And an insight into ourselves.

I realized that there is a certain victimization complex that I have that I probably had all my life. And again compared to African Americans or women or people in the LGBT community it’s nothing. But like being the whitest white guy was a burden. And in a way maybe we’re all – we all have a victimization complex. And we kind of illustrate that in hopefully a very humorous way through these episodes. And it’s interesting to write and create something and then edit it and see it in its entirety that what is your sensibility, what is your point of view because I have always known that my comedy was self-effacing and observational. But I didn’t realize some of the psychology behind it. And even when you write jokes, when I write jokes I’ll get to, you know, there’s different lines that humor and sarcasm is like liberty. It’s ever expanding and moving. But the line of self-effacing just as the line of irreverence is always moving. So someone just getting on stage and saying I’m ugly is not funny. But it could be funny, you know, self-awareness is a pretty compelling attribute among other human beings and I think that that self-awareness is something that it’s very similar to observational humor. It’s an insight to humanity. So me going on stage and saying I know I’m a pale guy who’s out of shape I think puts people at ease because there are so many of us including myself that do not have this self-awareness, that fix. Because we all think that we’re in a movie about our lives, right.