The Redeeming and Liberating Power of Literature – Part 2

At the end of Part 1, I said good literature is art with minimum trickery in terms of its core meaning and human significance.

Let me give an example to compare and contrast.

Standup comedy, for example, is notorious for completely avoiding that issue of honesty. Although we always laugh at what we instinctively recognize to be very true and thus appreciate the comedian for giving voice to what we usually do not have the courage to say out aloud in the open, in terms of its overall intention, standup comedy seeks to grab us, make us laugh, and then leave us exhausted with that one-two punch. It is powerful because it always catches us off-guard but there is no healing, no redemption in its aftermath. Like the morning of a loveless one night stand, it leaves us emptier than before.

Craig Ferguson, a standup talk-show host that I admire and laugh with, revealed the weak-underbelly of comedy for comedy's sake one unforgettable night in February 2007 by refusing to make Britney Spears the butt of his jokes.

"She's still a baby who needs help for god's sake" was his explanation for not heaping up on a young woman in the midst of a serious breakdown; someone who clearly needs immediate care and attention instead of sharp humiliating jokes at her expense.

At that point he rose above the muck of heartless standup and elevated both himself and his art to a redeeming, heads-up orbit of maturity. At that level he helped us free ourselves from all the vicious mixture of love-and-hate that we harbor towards all celebrities. Ferguson on that unforgettable night used his comedy to see us inside our worst mirrors and thus helped us to heal our incessant need for laughter-as-tranquilizer, even if it demeans another human being crying for help.

In such rare instances, even comedy of course can become as liberating as good literature. But those moments are unfortunately very rare in standup. We usually end up tricked into a belly full of laughter by a master trickster and we howl like a tractor trailer passing over a road kill. Who cares what happens to the poor sucker who dared to stand in front of the laughter train?! Romans had their gladiators. We have our standups.

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