From a practical and business perspective, the two are very similar. Each week, both comedians and strippers call the clubs they work at, give their availabilities for the week ("avails"), and hope to get scheduled. Comedians and strippers also work the same hours - at night, busiest on weekends - essentially, when "normal" people are looking for entertainment - in similar environments, performing in dark rooms for patrons who are drunk or drinking. The clubs (both comedy clubs and strip clubs) make the majority of their money through alcohol sales, so both comedians and strippers are essentially conduits for these places to sell drinks (not that there is anything wrong with that!).
From a more philosophical perspective, the two also overlap. Both professions are about revealing yourself on stage. In the case of comedy, you get emotionally naked; in the case of stripping, physically. In both cases, you are exposed in a way "normal" people are not, pushing you out of the mainstream of what is acceptable in society.
You might also consider that both jobs involve doing something "normal" people do already (make others laugh, take your clothes off), which sometimes causes others to conclude that they can do what you do for a living without any of the training through which you have gone. These people don't realize how hard it is to do what you do - not only to just do it, but to do it well.
On the face of it, I think what seems like a glaring difference might also be a commonality. The comedian is fueled by honesty - he/she creates comedy by revealing the truth about the world and/or ourselves. The stripper, on the other hand, often hides behind a persona: he/she uses a fake name, wears a costume, partitions his/her "stripper self" from her "real self." I think, though, that a comedian is different onstage than offstage - the comedian is a larger version of himself on stage. You're not "you" but "YOU" - a distilled, magnified, highly focused rendering of who you are. I think a stripper does the same thing, highlighting the sexual and physical components of themselves in a focused reflection of their underlying selves. In both cases, the comedian and the stripper bring to focus important components of humanity that we often hide.
What do you think? Do you think this comparison holds? Do you think there are any other jobs with such similarities to comedy (comedians as doctors bringing truth medicine to the masses? comedians as firefighters saving society from the flames of self-destruction? comedians as mimes who talk?)?
2 comments:
When I see Rick Shapiro perform, I think it's pretty much what it'd be like if Iggy Pop did comedy. A hot mess, but you can't really turn away.
Hey, I was stumbling through the Internet and found this. I think the spectacle surrounding rock stars' and celebrities' personal lives sort of mimics the salacious thrill people get listening to very honest, self-deprecating, sometimes lewd stand-up (as most club stand-up tends to be). In some ways, the rock star/musician phenomenon is even weirder--we pay rock stars and musicians big bucks not just to entertain, but to BE the object of those salacious thrills. Still, though, stand-up is probably the most intimate of art forms - it's just talking, no real artifice except the bare bones of a persona. Stand-up has the soul-baring elements of the rock lifestyle without the glam and glitz.
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