My problem with Chris Rock (who belongs with Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia in the category of Comics I Don't Think are Funny) is that he too often fails to base his shtick on accurate or meaningful observations. It's just dumb shtick, and he'll say anything (no matter how pointless) to get a laugh. It's all about his hacky delivery rhythms -- Catskills via Brooklyn. What he says hardly matters as long as he sounds like he's being funny. He could be speaking Ancient Greek and he hits you so hard you'd still know exactly where you're supposed to laugh, whether it's funny or not.
Take the following, from his "SNL" appearance to promote his already-vanished movie, "I Think I Love My Wife." Most of his jokes are older than John McCain (and in the '80s these same jokes were told about Reagan and in the '90s about Bob Dole). His stuff about Giuliani being good in a crisis is fine, but the pit bull analogy is stretched to the point of desperation.
Then Rock sets up the race for the Democratic nomination: "Everybody's saying the same thing: Hillary or Obama? A black man or a white woman? It's so hard to make up my mind! Like it's a suffering contest. And even if it was, how can you compare the suffering of a white woman to the suffering of a black man?" I don't know, Chris. How can you? And who's making the comparison? Well, Rock is: "I mean, white women burned their bras. Black men were burned alive!" Lame set-up, phony-outrageous non-sequitur punchline. That's Rock in a nutshell. (This might have been funny, in a Colbert-esque way, if Rock had been in character as Nat X. Does Rock know the difference? If not, what's the point? Is anybody saying Hillary is more oppressed than Obama? It might have worked if Rock had cited an example that he could riff on.)
The line about nobody hating white women as much as white women do is pretty good. Women are certainly Hillary's main problem. And the crack about how blacks would elect Halle Berry for half a term was kind of clever, but the audience was still laughing at the idea that black voters would elect OJ.
I'd love to know what would happen if someone else -- say, Joseph Biden or Hillary or Obama -- were to toss off this line: "Is America ready for a black president? I say: Why not? We just had a retarded one!" Hey, folks: What the hell -- even black politicians are better than retarded ones, right? I wish I could say that Rock is an articulate comedian. Or an insightful one. Or a funny one. But I don't think he is. Does anyone want to explain if/why they think this monologue is funny?
All I know about comedians is who makes me laugh and Chris Rock never did. I am always a little surprised everytime I hear people describe how brilliant he is. I never found anything too special about him. How did he get this reputation about being this generation's greatest comic?
The monologue isn't funny because it's on SNL. I have a theory that all creativity and talent are usually supressed by Lorn Michaels from all cast members (or in this case former cast members) for the duration of their employment. The amount of great comedic and sometimes dramatic work that Will Ferrell has done since SNL is shocking, mostly because outside a few stretched cowbell-related laughs on SNL, he was largely mediocre.
Chris Rock's standup specials are always funny to me. There he does have time to riff on things and go in strange directions, and though it does usually come back to the same "black people are different than white people", "being married presents comedic challenges", and a certain amount of soap-box rhetoric disguised as humor, I admire his form because of it's ridigness. He presents a thesis "It's alright because it's all white," does a joke, gives an example, repeats the thesis, and continues. His film work is atrocious, and everything outside of his standup usually as bad.
Lumping him in with D*** C*** and C***** M***** is just mean though. Mean and wrong.
This monologue is terrible. Rock wasn't very funny as a regular on SNL in the early nineties but he seemed to improve after that. I thought his stand-up work for HBO was coloured with truly amusing insights into relationships both romantic and otherwise. Here he seems to revert to old form or perhaps, HBO is the only place where Rock didn't bomb. His one-time oscar hosting gig was dreadful especially the monologue which was so flat I felt uncomfortable watching it. As for the cinema, the only film of his I like is Nurse Betty and I kind of wish he wasn't in it.
Jim, it probably wasn't really that funny, but I just wanted to give you credit for attempting to critique Rock's performance based on its actual humor/entertainment value--rather than for how closely it followed (follows?) your personal political views about Bush, Hillary, etc. (Not to assume it did, but that's a moot point anyway. Everyone's partisan about something, even squishy centrists like me.)
You probably already have and I'm too dense to remember it, but have you recently posted anything wholeheartedly addressing what could be called 300 Syndrome?, i.e., how much political, social and/or economic POVs influence audiences as to the value of a performer, publication, artwork, entertainment, what have you, regardless of his/her/its objective worth (if such a thing can even be determined). Most classic examples: how about a triple-feature of Birth of a Nation, Triumph of the Will, and Fahrenheit 9/11, anyone?
I also agree wholeheartedly that Rock's shtick above could have improved if it was portrayed as delivered by Nat X. The character of Nat was brilliant as it was, IIRC, a spoof of a spoof--a caricature of Rush Limbaugh's vision of a black nationalist. Cut to the chase: Rock's end result was a skewering of both left-wing and right-wing racial views, and for me, that's entertainment baby!: Equal opportunity thwacking. To say nothing of the fact that Nat was truly funny.
This was not funny. Even the delivery was awful, stumbling and stuttering...but Chris Rock has been funny in the past. He had one great standup performance. I can't recall the name of the album but it included "tossed salad man" and the bit about the media holding up people at ATMs among other things. It was very funny. Since then...I'll say he needs to stop acting in his own movies. Look at the show he's producing, "Everybody Hates Chris", it's really quite good. The man cannot act, and he seems to have lost the ability to perform. On a recent actor's studio he came off very smart, very insightful, but it's no longer showing in his comedy. When Spielberg kept asking him why he isn't directing, Rock should have inferred from that that he should be "only directing.
ah, analyzing humor. always a smart thing to do.
I'm of the mindset that Chris Rock is hilarious on stage and terrible on film. Unfortunately, I didn't find this stage performance funny at all. When he tries to get semi-serious or when he tries to get political (as Mencia does), it becomes unfunny and unoriginal.
And you're right, a lot of his stand-up is all about delivery. I'm willing to admit that. His jokes are sometimes lame, but man, the way he sounds when he says it! That's why I'm willing to listen to his stand-up when I'm flipping channels, but I'd never buy the DVD. I call him funny, but never a "great comic."
(I must disagree with you on Dane Cook, at least if you put him with Chris Rock in the assessment that they fail to base their schtick on accurate and meaningful things. I think Cook has a knack for basing his comedy on things I've personally found to be accurate, the only problem being that they're not meaningful at all [which, in some ways, is the whole point, and is sometimes why it's funny. We laugh because this guy analyzes the same inane things we do, but he acts serious about them])
Sorry man, I thought that was pretty damn funny. I think some of your criticisms, while I can see where they are coming from, could really be said about any comedian if you wanted to try hard enough to find criticisms. His line about Anna Nicole Smith and Farrakhan was quite hysterical, I thought. Yes, he stretched the premise of the oppression of blacks vs. white women ... I agree. And in fact, 10 years ago, it also made me pause about Chris Rock. But I came to just find him funny because so much else hits the spot.
Peyton Manning is funnier than Chris Rock (on that night, anyway) . . . who woulda thunk it?
IMO Rock is inconsistent, but doesn't deserve to be lumped in with hacks like Cook and Mencia (who has potential but piffles it in stupid, easy laughs). Just seeing him on talk shows sometimes and @ the Oscars it's very clear that he's a quick wit, though his "political" material has never been great.
I used to wonder what the big deal with Rock was, too, until I saw Bring the Pain and Bigger and Blacker.
I think, like the generation of comedians who came up to the mainstream alongside Seinfeld (Maher, Stewart, Miller) that Rock relies too much on glib pop culture cracks and "what is the deal". What I really admired about seeing his more formal stand-up routine is that there was a clear narrative line to all his jokes. I also hate comedians who try too hard to push the punchline or coerce you into agreeing that whatever observation they're making is true by their aggressive delivery. But Rock's on-stage persona is just that -- a harangued wreck, and it blends in with his choice of material, which in the two specials that I saw dealt a lot with the mundanities of everyday life for a black man. That clear narrative line makes me like him more than I liked the other guys' schtick.
To be honest, though, I haven't seen a lot of stand-up and I'm mostly just going by impressions, so I may be off-base about what I'm able to appreciate from the little I've seen.
I agree with you Mr. Emerson wholeheartedly about Carlos Menica and Dane Cook (and am wondering why Andrew Dice Clay and Larry the Cable Guy are excluded from your list of unfunny comedians). When you say the bit about blacks being burned alive would have been funny in a colbert way if Chris Rock had been in character in Nat X I think you miss the point. Chris Rock knows what his image is in the public mind and it very closely resembles Nat X. We almost expect Rock to say something akin to that. I can understand you not liking his delivery because many of his jokes would be nothing without but he has had the courage to address racial and sexual issues in an honest way that we can laugh about. Mencia just uses stereotypes as the setup and the punchline.
Chris Rock's stand up is really funny. Everything else... not so much. The fact that you don't know how funny he can be, is far more troubling.
What is even worse about this, a lot of what he said was recycled from his talk show rounds. So, it wasn't even new material.
You are probably right about Rock. I always give him the benefit of the doubt because his first HBO stand up special 15 years ago was great. Some really smart material. I haven't liked his more recent standups, but know what he used to have in him.
And his Oscar hosting was terrible as well.
Just think, this was all in the promotion of a remake of an Eric Rohmer film.
There's something really strange about complaining that a comedians jokes are funny only because the delivery is good. I remember listening to Woody Allen talk about one of his first experiences doing stand-up. He had written all this great and clever material, was truly excited to perform, and received dead silence from the audience. He learned that a comedian has to have a character that the audience can relate to, has to have a delivery. I listen to Woody Allen and what saves even a lot of his jokes is the character or the way he delivers an unfunny bit. It still manages to make me laugh. A strange thing to complain about. In many cases a great comedian is a great manipulator, as far as I'm concerned.
JE: Phillip, I hope you don't think that's what I was saying. My point was that Rock's strenuous delivery assumes there's a joke, even when there isn't one. It's like the setup-punchline-retort rhythms of a sitcom on autopilot. He's like a lame Catskills comic -- supplying his own rim-shots. ("Black men got lynched!" Ba-dump-DUM!) All he's missing is the muted comedy trumpet telling you where the laugh is supposed to be: Whah-whah-whah-whaaaaah. He might be great if he were a better manipulator, but he's too obvious (and frivolous) to be a good one... as far as I'm concerned. He's Jackie Mason/Eddie Murphy Lite.
What?! White women never got lynched? Never got burned alive by the tens of thousands throughout Europe over the course of three centuries? Nothin' like that? Well, glad we're all so post-freakin'-feminist 'round here!
Sorry to get all bra-burning on you guys, but damn, sir.
"It's just dumb shtick, and he'll say anything (no matter how pointless) to get a laugh."
Really? And this coming from someone who gave the awful Talladega Nights 3.5 stars! Look, I'm not going to defend Chris Rock to the death, and he is often not very funny, but your analysis of this bit clearly indicates that his humor is simply not your style, and you are coming up with ad hoc justifications for that dislike.
JE: No, it's just that I know what I don't like about him and his forced delivery. I've asked others to tell me what they think IS funny about this bit.
Jim, then delivery has nothing to do with it in this instance. A lot of comedians use that moment, knowing their work is funny. That isn't what makes him funny or unfunny, because if what he was saying was at all funny then you wouldn't care that he took those sitcom beats - letting us know when it's okay to laugh.
Unfortunately this little diatribe was neither written well and it was delivered worse (as I stated earlier with stuttering and stumbling like Jimmy from South Park), I will agree wholeheartedly with you on that...disappointing. But as we've seen here, some thought it was hilarious, and those little barum-bum moments went unnoticed to those.
I remember his HBO show, Chris Rock pacing back and forth like a tiger, a Cheshire grin stretched across his face. He knew the audience loved it. He paused for those moments, with all of his teeth showing like a great manipulator. And somehow, then, it all worked for me.
I think that Chris Rock is a pretty good comedian, and that he was great in that particular monologue. I don't see the outrage at all. The pit bull analogy isn't "stretched to desperation" its a common technique in stand-up comedy to take an analogy too far, to the point where both things end up being exactly the same. Its a simple exagerration, and most of your complaints about the monologue are about exagerrations, its like you've never heard a comedian before in your life. As for the suffering contest, an issue that certaintly gets hype is, regardless of the character of the person, whether or not we want the first white woman or black man. When people start talking about minorities as groups rather than an individuals it ALWAYS turns into a suffering contest. Rock's take on this is dead on. Frankly, I didn't understand your problem with his final joke ("We just had a retarded one"), as it wasn't articulated well. What the hell, indeed.
People who don't know anything about comedy should not over analyze it. Stand ups are supposed to exagerrate, take extreme viewpoints, be ridiculous. Its a way of holding up a mirror to the people that actually believe those things. Its been part of the artform from day 1.
Chris Rock is a hack. As someone mentioned, just look at his earlier work on SNL. His Nat X character would grind the show to a halt. In the hands of a better comedian it would have been a rich skit with a range of humor and nuance. Rock plays one note, and one note only. The angry black man. The reason he became such a success on HBO is he got better writers. Just watch him in ANY unscripted, interview type situation. He can do nothing but go into his angry black man rant. Then watch guys like Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Corolla, David Letterman, Damon Wayons etc. how they can take any comment or moment and open it up into something clever and funny. The pc minded media must have thought they were doing something to further the diminishing of racism when they labeled him, "Funniest Man Alive." Not by a long shot.
I agree with the earlier poster that Chris Rock is only truly funny in a stand-up environment. He is a decent dramatic actor (New Jack City), but he's a horrendous comedic actor. If you watch his classic HBO standups and still find him unfunny, then he's never going to be your cup of tea.
As for Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia, don't worry about them. Once they've shuffled off this mortal coil, they'll be spending an eternity being tortured by Satan as payment for their unholy pacts. Dane Cook's wish is already being corrupted - the devil's already played his first joke in the form of a little 'film' called "Employee of the Month". Carlos Mencia has been called out by Joe Rogan for his thieving ways, so if he's laughing all the way to the bank, it's going to be a lonely wait in the teller's line.
If there are any Dane Cook fans reading this, please enlighten me why he's funny. He's got a great stage presence, but his jokes are about as funny as a urinary tract infection.
Personally, I don't have anything against C.Rock, but you can't convince someone that something's funny if they don't find it funny.
About the way that Rock uses timing and voice inflection to point out the punch line: not to be a stickler but doesn't every single comedian in the history of the world do this? Not just the Poconos crew, but Cosby, Seinfeld and Carson as well? Even ones who subvert the traditional format of comedy (Wright, Hedberg and L. Bruce) had to create their own rules and measures of timing so the audience knows that it's "all right to laugh." Sorry to get bogged down on one tiny little point, but being that comedians spend years trying to master timing, you shouldn't get down on a comedian for succeeding.
Now a comedian who is so not funny that she shouldn't legally qualify as a comedian is Margaret Cho. Not only does she not succeed in being funny, she doesn't even seem to try. Not for the timing and not for the joke. She's dreadful.
Jon Stewart had a hilarious stand up called "Unleavened". I got all my news from him now. He said somany things in 1884 that are coming to fruitian now. Pleae let me know if there= is a copy. I cannot find i=t anywhere. Could have been HBO or Showime?
Thanks,
Mike