Good look at the new Farley biography. Of interest to me were the disparate reactions from SNL people to the Farley-Swayze Chippendales sketch.
“F—-ing lame, weak bullshit. I can’t believe anyone liked it enough to put it on the show. F—- that sketch. He never should have done it.”
Bob Odenkirk (friend, SNL writer)“There’s no turn there. There’s no comic twist to it. It’s just f—-ing mean. A more mentally together Chris Farley wouldn’t have done it, but Chris wanted so much to be liked … As funny as that sketch was, and as many accolades as he got for it, it’s one of the things that killed him. It really is. Something happened right then.”
Chris Rock“I’d say it’s one of the funniest sketches in the history of the show.”
Robert Smigel (comedian, writer)
I laughed harder at that sketch than all but two or three SNL sketches I’ve ever seen, but I can sympathize with Rock’s point. It’s really funny, but the core premise is, “Chris Farley is way too fat to be a stripper.” That is different from “Vanity is the Death of Comedy”; there’s looking silly or ugly for a character, and then there’s making your own body a punchline. Initially it’s a defense mechanism - making fun of your own shortcomings before someone else can - but it is difficult not to start believing your own self-deprecating rhetoric after a while.
Yesterday, I talked to another comic about our shared discomfort with our reliance on self-mocking comedy in our acts - I’m too fat, he’s got a girl’s name, we’re both single, etc. That’s been a staple of my performing since my musical theater days:
Choreographer: And at the end, the girls will all fall into the guys’ arms.
Director: Hold on. What if we switch partners here, and put Sean with the tallest girl in the cast…
Choreographer: …And then Sean falls into HER arms.
Director: Because he’s so short!
Choreographer: He’s the height of a girl!
Director: In fact, you can say Sean becomes a girl here.
Choreographer: He is completely emasculated right now.
Director: It’s gonna be hilarious.
The solution? Focusing more of my comedic energy on making fun of early 90s rappers.
(Related: Patrick Swayze Renews His Wedding Vows)
