"... when we peel off the mask. Today, we’re front-stage in so many ways and across so many platforms that it’s utterly exhausting. We perform the just-right kind of politics. (See my latest tweet about the latest outrage!) We perform our perfect vacations and Tuesday night cocktails. (Look at my Instagram, and note that you, dear follower, were not invited to those cocktails!) We perform our brilliant professional identities, networking and hustling during hours once devoted to relaxation. Built into any front-stage setting is the expectation that we’ll project happiness, confidence, success. Depression is, by definition, a backstage emotion. It’s private, idiosyncratic, isolating. Those comedians who’ve elected to discuss it are still giving performances, ultimately, working off careful scripts and landing their punch lines; they aren’t climbing onstage and actually being depressed for us.... 'I think people are sick of everyone promoting their best selves,' Gulman, 49, told me... 'I mean, comedians were always self-deprecating, but even Rodney Dangerfield’s self-deprecation was so clearly a lie. He’s saying he doesn’t get any respect, but he’s hosting an HBO show. Everyone admired him, was in awe of him.'"
From
"Comedian Hospitalized for Depression. Hilarity Ensues./Gary Gulman is showing us how to bring our inner selves out into the open" by Jennifer Senior (NYT).
From the comments over there:
Gulman says that Rodney Dangerfield's self-deprecating "no respect" act was "so clearly a lie," because he was so successful. Really? I wrote some jokes for Rodney, and knew him a bit. Rodney's self-deprecation was anything but a lie. He felt lousy about himself, and was clinically depressed his entire life. Should he have talked about his deep depression onstage? Perhaps, but it was a different time. Or perhaps his "no respect" act was a bit too subtle for Mr. Gulman. Because despite his public success, that's the way Rodney really saw himself, and in his way, worked it out onstage and turned it into making millions of people happy. RIP, Rodney. We miss you.
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25 comments:
The NYT commenter makes a good point. Stop the presses.
When Gulman says Rodney Dangerfield was admired by everyone, that's true but it doesn't address how Dangerfield felt inside about himself. Ultimately depression or the lack of it doesn't come from outside; it originates from within.
Be Best! or be gone.
Whoa, that was harsh.
It sounds like Goffman's Frame Analysis. He doesn't take the position that there's a real self that it hides though. Just different frames.
Shorter Wilbur: Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside..
http://michellemalkin.com/2019/11/15/america-first-the-torch-is-being-passed/
"Behind closed doors, the Soros/SPLC left cackles about the grand hoodwinking of America and the success of the demographic Reconquista. In public, they attack any truth-tellers as conspiracists peddling the Great Replacement Theory – like the Soros hitmen of Media Matters who likened me to the Tree of Life synagogue shooter in September for exposing the financiers behind demographic disaster. It isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s conspiracy fact.
Who cares what the Media Matters monkeys say? I don’t. But you know who does? Conservatism Inc, the Right’s subsidiary of Open Borders Inc filled with smug and complacent coastal elites who tremble at Soros/SPLAC’s defamatory labels and who thirstily seek the approbation of leftists who will always hate them."
Nobody writes well about stuff that isn’t deeply important to them psychologically.
Trump is of course ON STAGE. Uniquely Without front and back .
It's called integrated personality?
Like I said: Any excuse to dress up in those Handmaid’s Tale outfits!
I think this is an interesting observation. The world today is geared towards the extroverts, someone that thrives on attention. The introvert has to find a way to live in the world that fulfills their need for privacy. Success for these two groups of people looks very different and might not even be understood from the outside
if it weren't for Rodney, we Never would have had This dialog:
Diane: Actually, I'd like to join you, but I have class tonight.
Thornton Melon: Oh. How 'bout tomorrow night?
Diane: I have class then, too.
Thornton Melon: I'll tell you what, then. Why don't you call me some time when you have no class?
And THEN, where would we be?
More neurotic douchbaggery from the women of the NYT. If you live long enough, you come to understand that great achievement in any field of endeavor comes from somewhere and comes at a great price. It's just arithmetic. Your time and energy goes here and not there. Why did you spend it that way? There's the pathos, right there.
So don't "perform." Just be who you are, all the time. If you think that's not good enough, work on improving the real you, not a fake persona. Learn not to care what other people think, because in truth, they don't think much about you at all. You only matter to the people who love you, and even they don't care as much as you think they do. It's how we're wired, and it's not going to change.
It is not enough to have depression, you must now have depression worthy of the NYT's seal of approval.
In the old days, that acknowledgement came AFTER the suicide.
I am Laslo.
Gulman (who is very funny) isn't taking a shot at Rodney not being depressed. The lie was that Dangerfield did indeed have respect. He may not have seen it that way, but he was one of the most respected comedians of the time.
He felt lousy about himself, and was clinically depressed his entire life.
So he missed a lot of shows because it wasn't worth getting out of bed and when he did show up he mumbled or cried while thinking about death?
I doubt it.
This is what depression looks like
One of the last things my son posted to social media before he took his own life.
I'm glad he's getting help, but it's a bit narcissistic to assume that all of society has the same problems you do.
This guy's revelation is nothing new.
Everyone has different "personas" for different circumstances. You act according to the stage that you are on. The outer face you present at work. At the family Thanksgiving. How you act at the grocery store, hotel, doctors office. The face you wear at a cocktail party. With your friends. so on and so on.
There is an inner you of course. That one you can let out with your good friends, close family, spouse. Even then you still have layers that you let go or hide depending on the circumstances. Sexy time? Taking care of business time? Just sitting and chilling with music.
If you don't FILTER yourself, you come across as crazy, unhinged, out of control. It is hard to be filtered all the time. This is why it is so important to have that person or persons where you can be YOU without such hard work of deciding which role to play.
Added, since I am having a hard time editing on this platform.....if you are indeed depressed as the inner you. It is really really important to have someone that you can show and share that depression with. Someone who accepts you and is then able to help you.
Pretending, hiding, putting on the happy persona, just makes it even worse.
A new version of "All the world's a stage..." and" The play is the thing." I guess Will Shakespeare's copyright expired.
The writer is correct that we now react to perfect acting as if it is not worth our time. Give us that old fashioned true sincerity.
Interestingly, many actors try to become each character they play, and call doing that "method acting." It is similar to primal hunters' method of first conjuring up and submitting themselves to the Spirit of the animal to be hunted, so that they could think like that animal they had to track and kill.
The problem/depression comes later when they try to get out of the character or the spirit of an animal that they gave themselves over to.
Alas, remember when what someone did "when nobody was looking" told you about the person's character?
My understanding is that comedians spend a lot of nights sitting around in clubs talking with each other. There's usually one guy - an it usually is a guy, though that's probably changing - who is sort of the "leader." He's more successful, more in vogue. He's done late night talk shows. Maybe he's woke and with it, a Richard Belzer type with a subscription to the Nation who can't stop talking about conspiracies and what "the Man" is up to.
If you're a young, up and coming (or down and going) comedian you may look up to and even idolize the leader, but it doesn't take much insight to recognize that he's probably as unhappy and frustrated and self-loathing as everybody else. That's where comedy comes from. Yes, I feel for Gulman. I hope he gets help. Maybe that will start when he gets some insight.
I used to start my day at rodney.com while he was alive. Bust-a-gut laughter with his take on the human condition. R.I.P. Rodney.
Wilbur's early comment says it well.
I miss Rodney too. He was funny, and like many funny people, the heartache was just below the surface. Which is true of many of us, except that he was funny.
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