Trent Hunsaker
Imagine
attending a professional conference featuring presentations from the utmost
experts in your field. Now imagine the final keynote speaker telling the
audience of peers and cohorts that everything he or she knows about your field
of study is worthless and that it’s a giant step forward for your profession.
This
exact scenario took place in July of 2012 when comedian Patton Oswalt told the
audience of the Just For Laughs Montreal Comedy Festival. Oswalt’s keynote
speech is a perfect example of critical rhetoric as defined by Raymie McKerrow
(Borchers, 189). I will analyze the critical practice Oswalt uses in his
rhetoric, in which he describes the change of hegemony in the comedy community;
his address is a critical response to the well-established rhetoric dictated by
the producers and executives of the community. This shift in power is brought
on by the counterpublic-sphere of comedians reaching audiences without the use
of “gatekeepers.” (Oswalt, 2012)
First,
let me quickly touch base on critical rhetoric or critical practice to which it
is sometimes referred. Raymire McKerrow describes, “In practice, a critical
rhetoric seeks to unmask or demystify the discourse of power” (Borchers, 189).
McKerrow has even established four features that define critical rhetoric. I
will show how these features are present in the Just For Laughs keynote
address.
Patton
Oswalt’s address is divided into two letters. One letter is addressed to
“comedian in 2012,” and the other letter is addressed to “gatekeepers in
broadcast and cable executive offices, focus groups, record labels, development
departments, agencies and management companies” (Oswalt). The traditional model
of comedy has been “a highly dependent and hierarchical culture” (Bayne, 2011).
The comedian-producer hegemony has been dominated by the control of the control
of distribution. As Timothy Borchers explains in his book Rhetorical Theory, “One form of oppression is through rigid control
over information.” (181) In this section of his book on rhetoric, culture, and
power, he explains that by controlling the distribution of knowledge, one group
can usurp authority over another. Comedians – content generators – have been
dependent on “gatekeepers” to disseminate scripts, films, books, recordings,
etc. As Antonio Gramsci explains, the ruling class uses rhetoric to exert its
influence of values and beliefs to the subordinate class, making the values of
the ruling class seem like “common sense” to the subordinate class (Borchers
181).
This
is the rhetoric that was accepted when Patton Oswalt first became a comedian,
plus one more key figure in the equation. In his address, he explained that the
rhetoric to succeed as a comedian hinged on getting on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. That was the only way to
be recognized as having value to the gatekeepers.
… the way you made it in comedy was very clear,
simple straightforward. You went on Carson, you killed, you got called over to
the couch, and the next day you had your sitcom and your mansion, and you’re
made. Just ask Drew Carey and Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres.
Going on, Oswalt
explains that after Johnny Carson’s last Tonight
Show, many established comedians, which had used the credentials of the Tonight Show to launch their careers,
could no longer succeed in the changed culture.
After this point, there were only
the media executives that stood between the information created by the
comedians and the public sphere. However, the comedians have been kept apart
from the public sphere by the controlled delivery of the countersphere’s
knowledge to the public. In describing George Herbert Mead’s views on universe
of discourse, Borchers simply explained, “… everyone who speaks the same
language shares in a universe of discourse … people who share more particular
meanings for words are said to share a universe of discourse” (127). Rhetoric,
created by the countersphere (the comedians), is in the same language as the
public sphere. That is what makes good comedic material, being relatable to a
large group across many socio-economic and cultural barriers. The bottle neck
of information is what has kept the two spheres separate.
Making it in the rhetoric of the
post Carson comedian culture then hinged on “luck” and “being given”
opportunities by the gatekeepers (Oswalt). Nearing the end of his letter to
“Comedian in 2012,” Oswalt professes, “The days about luck and being given are
about to end. They’re about to go away.”
As mentioned earlier, McKerrow laid
out distinct features of critical rhetoric. I would now like to shift focus to
the second letter of Oswalt’s, the one addressed to “gatekeepers in braodacst
and cable executive offices,” et. all. It is in this second letter that we can
find the features described by McKerrow which qualify Oswalt’s address as
critical rhetoric.
McKerrow’s first criterion for
critical rhetoric is a “critical spirit” (Borchers 189). Borchers explains that
it is deals with “power, ideology, and rhetoric” (189). Oswalt shows his
concern with all three of these details in the opening sentences of the second
letter. He uses what Richard Weaver would deem “terms of repulsion” or “devil
terms” satirically to establish the inverse of power: “I’m not going to call
you ‘the enemy’ or ‘the man’” (Oswalt). He even goes as far as to ironically
misalign himself with other critical rhetors, “If I tried to strike a Ché
Guevara pose, you would be correct in point out that the dramatic under light
on my face was being reflected up from my swimming pool.”
The second qualification for
critical rhetoric is that it “… attempts to demystify sources of power in
society by revealing the ways that rhetoric conceals its relationship to
knowledge and power” (Borchers, 189). Oswalt first takes on the task of
demystifying the old rhetoric by giving multipleexamples of new rhetoric that
works, and turns the old style upside down. He particularly singles out the
very successful Louis C.K, “… all of us comedians are watching Louis CK
revolutionize sitcoms and comedy recordings and live tours.”
Oswalt evokes what Susanne Langer
described as presentational rhetoric (Borchers, 128), as he held up his iPhone
and explained that because of that device, which is almost a dogmatic symbol in
today’s popular culture, comedians now wield much of the power that the
executives hold:
In my hand right now I’m holding more filmmaking
technology than Orsen Welles had when he filmed Citizen Kane. I’m holding almost the same amount of cinematography,
post-editing, sound editing, and broadcast capabilities as you have at your TV
network. In a couple of years it’s going to be fucking equal.
Peeking behind
the curtain, comedians now see the Wizards of Oz and their fancy machines, to
be less significant. Oswalt unmasks their power in a very real way with a very
simple symbol.
Another way that Oswalt demystifies
the discourse of the media executive’s power is through comparison. He explains
that self-produced content isn’t any better or any worse than the executive
produced content, “There are sitcoms now on the Internet, some of them are
brilliant, some of them are ‘meh,’ some of them fuckin’ suck. At about the same
ration that things are brilliant and ‘meh’ and suck on your network.” This is a
quantitative way that he shows the equality of discourse between the two
groups.
Critique in the vein of critical
rhetoric “is not detached and impersonal,” says McKerrow (Borchers, 189).
Oswalt’s entire letter is speaking from personal experience. In six pages of
text, Oswalt uses the pronoun ‘I’ 35 times. He particularly owns part of the
problem directly attaching himself to the rhetoric he is critiquing, “I am as
much to blame for my uneasiness and realization of late that I’m part of the
problem, that I’m half asleep and more than half complacent.” Oswalt even
expresses gratitude for the work that media executives have “given” him, thus
positioning himself as a mediator between the two groups and personalizing the
problem.
Lastly, McKerrow explains that
critical rhetoric must offer suggestions in the redistribution of power and
actions for the future to change the rhetoric being critiqued (Borchers, 189).
The last-two pages of Oswalts address acts as a map for media executives to be
successful in the new rhetoric that he has shown, “If we work with you in the
future, it’s going to be because we like your product and your choices and your
commitment to pushing boundaries and ability to protect the new and difficult.”
However, Patton Oswalt’s message is
not entirely negative. He lays out a “deal” for the gatekeepers which contains
positive actions for them that benefit both groups. He encourages executives to
become fans of the content that they distribute and produce and to be excited
about having “… the most top heaved with young talent wave of comedians that
this industry [has] ever had…” He continues and explains that his letter is not
a threat, but moreover an offer to reach across the table in a symbiotic
relationship.
Rhetoric can be used as a means of
oppression, even if the oppression is unintentional. According to Rosteck,
rhetoric is “…the way we understand our own identity” (Borchers, 8). Patton
Oswalt’s keynote address, delivered in June of 2012, was a critical response to
the long accepted rhetoric of how comedians saw themselves in their careers. As
rhetoric being a means of communication, Oswalt finished his address as
satirically and ironically as he began, leaving conversation open with the
gatekeepers, saying, “If you think that we’re somehow going to turn on you
later … let me tell you one thing … Criticism is nothing to us” (Oswalt, 2012).
Works
Cited
Bayne, Gregory. You Have No Business Being In The Business.
Filmmaker - The Magazine of Independent
Film, August 2, 2011 < http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/08/
you-have-no-business-being-in-this-business/>
Borchers, Timothy. Rhetorical Theory An Introduction. Long Grove: Waveland Press Inc.,
2006. Print
Oswalt, Patton.
"All of the Comedians in the Room";
"All of the Gatekeepers." Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. Montreal, CAN, July 25, 2012. Keynote
Address. <http://thecomicscomic.com/2012/07/27/patton-oswalts-letters-to-both-sides-his- keynote-address-at-montreals-just-for-laughs-2012/>
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