Yawp Mag ISSUE 17- POLITICAL COMEDY

NOV 2013 ISSUE 17 political comedy SEAN BEDLAM ROD QUANTOCK COURTENEY TOBY HALLIGAN STELLA YOUNG HOCKING

PHOTO Jim Lee Table of Contents Interviews Features 4 PROFILE: Freedom of Speech 18 by Eric Lampaert Sean Bedlam by Beau Fitzpatrick To Laugh or To Think 20 6 Stella Young by Alan Driscoll by Steph Gray Political Correctness 24 8 FEATURE INTERVIEW: in Comedy Rod Quantock by Stef Jaric by Steph Gray Side E!ects of 28 12 Toby Halligan Political Humour by Steph Gray by Stef Jaric To Understand Political 32 Comedy: Go to the Source Material by Shayne Hunter In Praise of Political Humour 34 by Je! Hewitt

EDITOR’S NOTES Political Comedy Edition Everyone at YAWP apologises. Alright? Do you forgive us? We missed a month. It’s not an omen, it’s not the !rst chapter of decline and fall. We all had exams. Ok? Can we just put it behind us?... Can you stop looking at me/the magazine like that? With that out of the way, I want to give over a big thank you to Steph Gray, Tamara Issa, Jen Van Ewyk and Jonathan Soo Ho for their e\"orts in the editing suite (the o#ce) this past couple of months. YAWP is really interested in !lming as many of the interviews as humanly possible and we want to extend our gratitude to all the comics who made the trek out to Northcote to give us their time and insights for this really cool edition. There are more links for your enjoyment in this issue. We hope you enjoy them. If you have any feedback on how the magazine is progressing or what you’d like to see in future, get in touch with us at: [email protected] This issue is purely devoted to POLITICAL COMEDY. When pressed, our interviewees will admit to identifying, somewhat, as political comedians in some way, shape or form. The one thing that stood out to us in this process, however is that everyone is political in their own particular way. Everyone has their ‘thing’ that they are passionate about. And they use humour to give us permission to think about social justice issues. At times, comics fear that political humour, if not crafted with care, can come across as preachy. Hence why sometimes it is not taken up by people who believe that comedy is solely to make people laugh. And certainly, if demands are put on the audience to make them think deeply, it can stir up resentment for anyone who attends comedy to forget about the outside world. But as they say, Comedy is the last bastion of free speech. This explains why it is pretty inevitable that comedy rooms become fertile ground for radical and liberal ideas for us to laugh at and ruminate on. Enjoy the issue. bEAU FITZPATRICK @beau!tzpatrick

INTERVIEWS photo by: marcus n ewman

TOBY HALLIGAN BY STEPH GRAY is going to get a reaction from most people. Political comedy tends to be predominantly left wing. What do you think of that? More educated people tend to be left wing. Whereas people who are right wing, often have ¿QDQFLDO LQFHQWLYH LQ WKH HFR- nomic system as it presently stands and they don’t want it to change very much. Or they tend to be people who are afraid, people who are afraid of Asians or Muslims or gay people or women having more Is political comedy some- comedy stories are inevitably rights. They who don’t nec- thing that comes naturally, just made up, with an ele- essarily have a huge under- or is it something you have ment of truth to them. But that standing of the world, or their to work towards? means you’ve gotta work all of lives are a bit out of control, so that stuff out yourself. they might be afraid of things It’s funny because at Political that are going to change and Asylum, people kind of show With political comedy, you’ve potentially hurt them. Even up, and they’re inevitably really got someone like Tony Abbott though, in the long run, they’re good comics and they’re like and you know what his views not going to have the impact ‘oh man, I don’t know how to are on a particular subject and that they think they’re going to write a political joke, what am then it’s actually very analyti- have. I gonna do?’ and they’re great FDO 7KH RWKHU EHQH¿W RI ZULW- comics with funny insights. ing political comedy is you’ve There are very few comics usually got a pretty good idea who are genuinely just out Because it’s anchored in a of where most people stand there to make people laugh. I theme and a subject, a lot of and what they’re going to think almost all comics will say the component parts for a joke think about a particular thing that’s their primary motivation, are already present. When it and you can play off that. You but I think most people would comes to writing more general know that with most crowds, also like to talk about things FRPHG\ WKDW LVQ¶W VSHFL¿F WR offering commentary on Tony and make people think about a certain area, you’ve gotta Abbott’s strange behavior; his things. It’s only really the pure come up with all of that stuff interactions with women, or his pub comics that seem to have yourself. A lot of the details in weirdness with his daughters,

the sole goal of making people up, you tend to talk about became legal in Tasmania laugh. Even some comics I homosexuality from other peo- when I was twelve. So it was know who go to rougher rooms ple’s perspectives, rather than becoming acceptable literally or footy clubs and kill in those your own. Is that a conscious as I was growing up. But that rooms, I think in general want decision? didn’t necessarily mean that to make people think about it was acceptable as it is now, things and they are interested I think it’s true that I don’t do when I was growing up. No in ideas. as much personal experience one in my year group came comedy as some other come- out. I knew of no gay people What makes good fodder for dians, which isn’t necessary a when I was at school. I don’t political comedy? conscious choice. I guess I’m know that that would be true just a bit more private in that now. I don’t know that that Everything, really. It often way. I think ultimately if you would have even been true tends to be comedy about want to really succeed as a IRU VRPHRQH HYHQ ¿YH \HDUV identity. Like it’s about being comedian, you’ve gotta be will- younger than me. And so I gay, being a female comedi- ing to open up. People need to don’t think it’s something that an, linking that stuff to politics feel like they can get to know I’m used to talking about in EULHÀ\ EXW DFWXDOO\ RIIHULQJ D you, exactly who you are and the same way, like I think it’s personal narrative about amus- the only way you can do that still an area where people feel ing, or even serious experienc- is to talk about every part of there’s a bit of shame associat- es, and making them funny. your life. Well, not every part of ed with it. I’m quite comfortable That provides people with a your life. You don’t have to talk talking about it, but I just feel perspective on fuckwit sexism, about pooing. But you need like some people around me or people’s homophobia, or to be willing to tap into every react in certain ways, so I don’t racism. It can really be any- resource you can potentially particularly want to get into it thing, depending on how you have. for its own sake. see the world. If you see the world through the right prism, When I came out, I was nine- WKHQ D ORW RI WKLQJV ¿W LQWR WKH teen or twenty. I think when political sphere. I was going through uni, it was all becoming much more I’ve noticed that in your stand- acceptable. Homosexuality

Rod qu antock a Melbourne institution illustration: Steph Gray

Rod Quantock has been described a national comic sports star took it cer or something and it’s all in by The Age newspaper as ‘a liv- over. I was just looking the other that same basket,” Quantock ex- ing Melbourne treasure’ and upon way, I didn’t believe people would plains, revealing some insight into meeting him, it’s no surprise as to do that. So I’ve got those interests, his passion for bringing climate why he was given this moniker. but things just really piss me off change to the forefront of Austra- Passionately pissed off and ever and it really begins, I guess, with lia’s consciousness. the gentleman, Quantock talked the impact it has on people.” with YAWP about his long career He believes people get their view in comedy, his passion about in- He laments that, “government of what’s real in the world from a forming Australia about climate can be very destructive to peo- cursory glimpse at a newspaper change and the challenges of po- ple’s lives, it can equally be very or television news and spend too litical comedy. creative for them, but it’s govern- much time concerned with “what ments in the end that create an happened to Lance Franklin or to Quantock believes that political environment where the environ- Justin Bieber”. “Even if it’s ABC comedy comes naturally to him, ment itself can become a product news,” he says, “it’s international “because it comes out of what for people to exploit.” He recalls news, it’s national news, it’s local you’re interested in.” He has had that, then years ago, he decided news, it’s sport and it’s the weath- a long career in the Melbourne to take it upon himself to devote er and then that’s it. comedy scene, at one stage even his career in comedy to inform- hosting a comedy football grand ing people about climate change, You don’t understand it and it’s all ¿QDO HYHQW RQ WKH UDGLR VWDWLRQ “and the more I told people about treated the same. It all gets the RRR. “I thought, well I like football it, the less people wanted to listen. same amount of attention. You get DQG WKH JUDQG ¿QDO¶V FRPLQJ XS And suddenly I found that nobody the fact that America’s been spy- and the only commentary you can wants to listen at all and I don’t get ing on the French has come out. get is either the channel 7 com- much work. So anyway, I’ll be a Now for the next three or four days mentary or the ABC, why don’t we martyr”. here in Australia, that’ll get a bit of GR D FRPHG\ JUDQG ¿QDO\"´ play, but in a month, you ask peo- “When somebody tells that there’s ple about it and it’s gone. And they He organised that and gathered every chance that by the end of don’t think about it in terms of well, together some comedians togeth- this century, eighty percent of all what are the Americans doing to er to do the broadcast, which was life on this planet could be extinct, PH\" :KDW DUH WKH &KLQHVH OLVWHQ- a great success. He noticed how- it seems to me you should sit up LQJ WR\"´ ever, that the next year he wasn’t and listen. But that just goes in invited to be part of it and “some- with the warning that if you eat one who then went on to become carrots, you’ll develop some can-

When discussing political comedy, he When it comes to fellow comedians doing suggests that comedy is about having Political Asylum, he shares their distaste “in something in common with your all of that about the stupidity and the cruel- audience, and “I think if you look at ty, the dishonesty and the greed that runs the really big names in comedy the world”. He believes if you’re young here or anywhere in the world, and have a long future ahead of you, they’re not talking about really \RX VKRXOG JHW LQYROYHG DQG ¿JKW IRU deep, complex issues. something better. “Most people think They’re talking about football today is better than yesterday and here, they’re talking about, I tomorrow will be better than today dunno, Masterchef. They’re and think that politics is for talking about all that stuff you somebody else. “ can read in MX magazine.” MX, Quantock suggests, is a perfect example of the top end of comedy and the subject matter they deal with. Most of the people he knows that do political comedy in Melbourne (and he knows most of them), struggle. The more specialised the genre of comedy, the narrower their scope. His life experiences have added to his desire to bring about change through his comedy, “I was doing fundraising concerts for the Franklin Dam back in the seventies and opposing the freeway here in Melbourne back then as well. The Vietnam War that I was called up for made me rather conscious of the power of government, but then I saw, particularly when Jeff Kennett got into power, how extremely right wing, large L Liberals can wreck the lives of thousands of people”. Quantock admits that he knows people who are more active than he is, who aren’t comedians, “who don’t have a public SUR¿OH ZKR MXVW JHW really pissed off and they spend every spare moment they have trying to make the world a better place” and he admires this greatly.

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stella young \HV ,¶P ¿QH , ZDV MXVW WKLQNLQJ what an inspiration you are and you’ve made me feel like an idiot’. And I was like ‘correct!’ I saw you in Political Asylum this year at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and I liked how everyone had very different acts. I guess that’s something that people think is going to be a challenge with political comedy is that we all have to make jokes about the dumb things What’s the link between that we should be fucking that politicians are doing at the political correctness and lampooning. Not calling people moment, but there’s a whole political comedy? names or using disability or range of different ways to be homosexuality as a pejorative, political and we don’t all tell the I like to make fun of political that’s not political correctness. same jokes. correctness. I guess that’s a That’s just not being a dick. point I make in my political Your material is comedy, is that we’re all a little I once had a woman literally slip predominantly about social bit too PC, we’re a little bit too off her chair laughing because change, what does that mean uncomfortable with things and I was doing this bit that I do to you? I think we’ve gone way too far where I say ‘there are so many with some stuff. People say normal people here tonight Well I guess it’s not necessarily language around disability is and I just want to say it’s so about social change, but that is political correctness, that we heartwarming. I just think you what drives my comedy. I had shouldn’t say ‘retard’. And it’s people are so brave. So great a conversation with a fellow like, well no, I kinda think that’s to see you on your outings” disabled comedian in the UK human decency. It’s political and it kinda goes on like that last year. It was an amazing correctness that primary for a little while and the end of gig, it was at the Soho theatre schools call dice ‘number the joke is ‘what’s the word I’m and we were all disabled cubes’ because dice is what looking for? Inspirational!’ and comedians on the bill, which they’re called in casinos and that’s when she slipped half was incredible. It was such an that encourages gambling. off her chair and I had to ask if amazing experience to perform That’s political correctness she was ok. And she said ‘yes, in a completely crop crowd.

I said to him once I came she was cackling and nearly Yeah I mean I think it is ok to offstage, ‘oh I just want to move falling off her chair. That kind of joke about that stuff. I don’t here so that I can have a crip stuff is really good. Because I do ¿QG WKH VKRUW VWDWXUHG KXPRXU community in comedy, which I a lot of making fun of people’s in Austin Powers particularly don’t have here’. And he was prejudices, I think that changes amusing and I think it’s saying, ‘you’re nuts. You can’t a lot of people’s minds as well. because the short people move over here. Look at all of aren’t driving it. There’s this us trying to do a very similar I’ve actually noticed this whole thing about dwarf thing over here. You’re the only happening a lot with midget entertainment at the moment one doing it over there.’ jokes, like in the late 90s, DIWHU D JX\ ZDV VHW RQ ¿UH E\ early 2000s, someone would a St Kilda footy player. He said, ‘if it’s the art of comedy tell a story, like I once heard that drives you, then come over this brilliant female comic who The St Kilda footy club hired here, because the audiences I greatly admire tell this story these dwarf entertainers to are more receptive and more about going to get a Brazillian come along to their Mad ready for disabled people on wax and then the punchline of Monday party and to come the scene. But if it’s actually the story was that the person and be short in their presence, the social change that drives doing the Brazillian…. WAS A which is weird. What is it about you and changing people’s MIDGET. And that’s what made short people that makes us attitudes and changing people’s the story funny? And I was like, inherently funny? I think it’s assumptions, stay in Australia.’ ‘I don’t really get it’. Like that’s such a strange attitude. And really lame and lazy. Really, anyway, when this guy wasn’t And I had to think about what really, really lazy. funny enough or entertaining my goal is with doing comedy HQRXJK WKH\ VHW KLP RQ ¿UH and it is that ability to challenge This seems kind of simplistic, Which is obviously completely people’s assumptions, but do you think that maybe wrong. changing people’s minds, and when Austin Powers came making them laugh, of course. I out and put Mini Me front and was doing a gig the other night centre it sort of became ok to ZKHUH WKLV ZRPDQ ZDV PRUWL¿HG joke about it, when it really that I was even onstage, she wasn’t? was really uncomfortable. By the end of my ten-minute set,

FEATURES photo by: marcus n ewman

To Understand Political Humour Go to the Source Material Jesus! I know I blacked out a little bit after that fourth shot of Jägermeister last night, but I don’t remem- ber... I know we went through the Wendy’s drive-thru to get one of them “Freschetta” sandwiches that looked so alluring on the commercial, but then we ordered it and realized we had no money, and we had to ditch out before the second window, and those douchebags in line behind us with the bass music probably got our order and we laughed about that. But I don’t remember savin’ the French. At all! I went through the last ten calls on my cell phone and there’s nothin’ incoming or outgoing to the French, lookin’ for muscle on a project! I checked my pants, there’s no mud stains on the knees from where we were garroting Krauts in the trenches at Verdun. I think “we” didn’t do anything but watch sports bloop- ers while we got hammered. I think “we” should shut the fuck up!” Here Doug Stanhope highlights the logical fallacies made by those who identify with the nation they were born into. “You take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.” A good example of this is sports. People will often identify with the team from their nation and feel good if the person from their country wins. They get a sense of pride even though they have as little to do with the winner as they do with any of the other contestants from the other countries. “And the Americans’ll go “Fuck the French! Fuck the French, if we hadn’t had saved their ass in two world wars, they’d be speakin’ German right now.” And you go, “Oh, was that us?” Was that me and you Tommy, we saved the French? …. Think “we” didn’t do anything but watch sports bloopers while we got hammered. I think “we” should shut the fuck XS ´ 'RXJ ¿QLVKHV WKH ELW E\ GHEXQNLQJ WKH FRPPRQ tendency to become emotional involved in things Doug Stanhope - ‘No Refunds’: “Nationalism does that happened generations ago to other people that nothing but teach you how to hate people that you belonged to their “label” and using that to justify never met. And all of a sudden you take pride in resentment to another “label”. Doug Stanhope’s bit accomplishments you had no part in whatsoever, here is of important social value to society because and you brag about and the Americans’ll go “Fuck it mocks and helps us understand the dumbness of the French! Fuck the French, if we hadn’t had saved group identity that often leads to wars, which in the their ass in two world wars, they’d be speakin’ age of nuclear weapons may be the cause of extinc- German right now!” And you go, “Oh, was that us?” tion of the human race… Was that me and you Tommy, we saved the French?

consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather.” The observations in Bill Hick’s bit are slightly deeper than observations about aeroplane food. Let’s ex- amine what is meant here by, “We are all one con- sciousness experiencing itself subjectively”. This isn’t just some feel good hippi-newagey-bull-shit, this is the point of view held by many famous physicists like Einstein. From the point of view of known physics, the happenings inside the human head are not inde- pendent from the external environment. This moment is the only outcome from the origins of the universe, the big bang, and we are part of a direct follow of particles interacting with each other to produce this moment. Self is not disconnected from a much larger mesh of reality that also predetermines the aware- ness within other people’s heads. “We are all one consciousness”. The concept of “self” and “freewill” western does not hold up to scientif- ic analyses. This profound observation juxtaposition to the kind of mundane statements the news usually covers, “Here is Tom with the weather,” produces the punch line. Hicks also highlights how certain altered Bill Hicks – ‘Relentless’: “You never see a good drug states of consciousness brought on by drugs like story on the news? Never, news is meant to be ob- LSD can have profoundly eye opening affects that jective, but every drug story is negative… I’d like to are positive and transforming. The scientist that dis- hear a positive LSD drug story, “Today a young man covered DNA was actually on LSD at the time. For on acid realized that all matter is merely energy con- further proof of the potential of mind altering drugs densed to a slow vibration, that we are all one on the brain for the better just listen to the music of the Beatles before and after they started taking hal- lucinogens. I double dare you to Take acid and think about true nature of self...

Steven Hughes: “I’m not particularly worried about the fact that recently, the two most powerful nations have illegally invaded a mid-eastern country under false pretense so that they could steal it’s natural re- sources and build permanent military bases to start PRUH WKUHDWV RI FRQÀLFW VR LW FRXOG LPSOHPHQW D WKLUG world war to create a planetary fascist police state. No it’s secondary smoke that I am worried about!!!” Steven Hughes sarcastically reveals how the emo- tional placements held by the public on issues, are often misaligned. People react with great emotion to issues like second hand smoke or to celebrity sex scandals, than they do to the war crimes that con- stituted the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in the deaths of over half a million civilians. Sociologists have actually found that the human mind ¿QGV LW KDUG WR HPSDWKL]H ZLWK WKH GHDWKV RI WKRX- VDQGV RU PLOOLRQV RI SHRSOH DQG WKDW WKH PLQG ¿QGV it much easier to empathize with the suffering of just one person. For example when an oil tanker recently FDXJKW ¿UH WKH FUHZ OHIW LW EXUQLQJ ZLWK WKHLU SHW GRJ on board. News of the dog left behind was reported and millions of dollars were raised to save it. Literally thousands of concerned people donated to save this poor dog even though within a 10 mile radius of the accident, there would probably be several more dogs that need saving. The human mind that evolved to be adapted to the stone age, has serious trouble emo- tionally processing the vast complexity of the modern global society. Steven Hughes comedy serves as a warning. It is not at all an extreme thing for him to talk about the possibility of a third world war if we are so emotional out of tune that we have no relation- ship to the wars of aggression done in our name, lets emotionally retune lest we ourselves become second hand smoke...

Marc Maron – “Is there any indication we shouldn’t be depressed? Are you living on the same planet that I am? Do you ever think that depression might be the reasonable human response to the crap we’re going through as a species, meant to propel us into the next evolutionary step or, at least, into taking some differ- ent course of action, so that we might survive? Do you ever think that maybe it’s the happy people that are really screwed up in the head?” Maron suggests that depression is sometimes the natural response to our society. Modern society views depression as an illness, something to be cured rath- er than perhaps realising that working 9 to 5 full time in a meaningless job, with your colleague’s cease- less discussion of the latest reality TV, may be the ill- ness and your “depression” or “frustration” is actually the cure. Marc Maron’s bit is a great example of political com- edy as it relates the internal emotional relm, with the sickness of society and attacks the tendency of peo- ple to “deny” reality in order to preserve a status of mindless happiness. One should wonder how many uprisings have been prevented in the western world by anti-depressants...

David Cross – “I don’t think Osama bin Laden sent those planes to attack us because he hated our free- dom. I think he did it because of our support for Israel, our ties with the Saudi family and our military bases in Saudi Arabia. You know why I think that? Because that’s what he fucking said! What are we a nation of six year olds? … If they really hated us for our free- dom then the Netherlands would be fucking dust! And everywhere else truly freer than us.” David Cross unscrambles the minds of his audience that had their brain mushed into blind patriotic goo after 9/11. The US media and administration con- tinued to feed the public convent a “feel good” lie; “they attacked us because they hated our freedom”. The majority of the western world failed to examine the motives of the terrorist attack, while David Cross points out it was the US government’s foreign policy that motivated 9/11. David does this by highlighting that countries, which enjoy more freedom than the United States, were not attacked; if it was really free- dom the terrorist hated then, “the Netherlands would be fucking dust”. David’s bit is important political com- edy as it is little understood that in the western world the US and the UK have systematically overthrown democratically elected governments in the develop- ing world to set up puppet dictatorships causing the suffering of countless millions of innocent people. If humanity is to survive, more artists and comedians should be like David Cross and cut through the bull- shit for the masses.

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