After viewing several of the stand-up presentations, I've noticed a trend: almost all of the comedians made their way into film or television. A few weeks ago, I blogged about Seth Rogen's persona on film; it's always the same, and, to me, it's boring because it's repetitive and no longer endearing. I made the comparison with stand-up comedians who succeed by relying on the consistency of their personas; ultimately, I theorized that it works on stage but not on film. However, I'm beginning to rethink my stance.
The David Spade presentation, for example, pointed out that he plays one of three personas on screen (and also pointed out that Tommy Boy and Black Sheep are the same film). I couldn't help thinking of Adam Sandler in this way, too. Besides general context (a school vs. a golf course), there's not much difference between Sandler's characters and plot in Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison. Wanda Sykes also carries her persona from stand up to film roles and to a favorite TV role of mine--as herself on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Jerry Seinfeld is another comedian who carries both film and stage genres equally well while maintaining the same "character." Thus far, as the presenter mentioned, Eddie Izzard is the only one who takes a dyamic departure from stage to film...
Therefore, I take back my generalization from the previous blog, and I will re-articulate some things. 1) Characters played by comedians can still be funny--regardless of how repetitive their roles may seem. 2) There's a caveat: those characters need to be unique to that comedian. 3) Seth Rogen's "loveable chubby pothead" character can be played by other people. (Take Superbad, for instance. The younger chubby character--developed, not surprisingly, by Rogen--was played by Jonah Hill, another "loveable chubby pothead.") 4) Because Rogen's roles are both replaceable and repetitive, there's a lack of both novelty and actor necessity (ie, we've GOT to have Rogen in this role.)
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I think you could easily add Jim Carrey to your list, because most of his performances are the same character in different situations...
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of these comedians' success in film (despite playing the same character over and over) comes from the audience already knowing what they are going to get, and liking this, they buy the tickets to see it. (Going ways back to the beginning of the semester, I think we discussed this very phenomenon in light of Chaplin's success with his "Little Tramp" persona).
I agree about Rogen's replaceability and have been wondering lately what affect his weight loss will have on his career. A lot of his characters are self-conscious about their weight or use their weight to make gross physical comedy. He's lost a lot of weight and is now just unattractive. A chubby guy at least has some charm. He's unattractive but not unattractive enough to be funny, a la McLovin or that creepy, creepy skinny guy DJ Qualls.
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