"Unquestionably, standup comedy is and has always been an art form"
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Berman’s “Unquestionably” is doing the heavy lifting. It’s not just emphasis; it’s a preemptive jab at every club owner, TV booker, and polite dinner guest who’s ever treated stand-up as disposable noise between the cocktails. By declaring the argument settled, he exposes the insecurity that made the argument necessary in the first place: comedy has often been forced to audition for legitimacy in a way painting, theater, or jazz rarely are.
The line also smuggles in a historical claim. Berman came up when stand-up was sliding from vaudeville’s broad archetypes into something more personal and literate. His own “inside monologue” style helped make the comedian a character-artist, not just a joke-delivery system. So “always been” is partly a defense of lineage: today’s confessional, narrative, and political stand-up didn’t spring from nowhere; it has roots, craft, and a canon, even if it lived for decades in smoky rooms rather than museums.
There’s subtextual pride here, but also labor politics. Calling stand-up an art form demands we see the invisible work: writing, editing, timing, persona-building, the ruthless feedback loop of live failure. It’s a refusal of the idea that if something makes people laugh, it must be easy, unserious, or merely commercial. Berman isn’t romanticizing comedians as tortured geniuses; he’s insisting the medium’s constraints are exactly what make it art.
The line also smuggles in a historical claim. Berman came up when stand-up was sliding from vaudeville’s broad archetypes into something more personal and literate. His own “inside monologue” style helped make the comedian a character-artist, not just a joke-delivery system. So “always been” is partly a defense of lineage: today’s confessional, narrative, and political stand-up didn’t spring from nowhere; it has roots, craft, and a canon, even if it lived for decades in smoky rooms rather than museums.
There’s subtextual pride here, but also labor politics. Calling stand-up an art form demands we see the invisible work: writing, editing, timing, persona-building, the ruthless feedback loop of live failure. It’s a refusal of the idea that if something makes people laugh, it must be easy, unserious, or merely commercial. Berman isn’t romanticizing comedians as tortured geniuses; he’s insisting the medium’s constraints are exactly what make it art.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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