After a rough night at Topaz a couple of weeks ago and a piss-poor experience at another event, I was pretty relieved that last night’s Topaz crowd was lively and actually interested in laughing at comedy.  (Seriously, who goes to a comedy show when they don’t feel like laughing at anything? That’s like going to lunch when you’re not hungry.) 

That reminds me… What do y’all think about comedians who tell a lot of jokes about their girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse or whatever?  Not romantic-partner-as-topic, because all you’ve got is your point of view on life to make jokes about, but more like, romantic-partner-as-butt-of-fat/ugly/stupid-jokes.

On one hand, I’m intellectually aware (and you should be too) that the only thing you can assume about why a comic is telling a joke is that he/she thinks it is funny. It may not be their actual opinion, the event they described may not have happened, and the person they’re talking about may be a caricature, or may not even exist.  For example, Phyllis Diller told jokes for years about her husband “Fang,” but Fang was a fictional character who did not directly correspond to any of her husbands.  We’re pursuing laughs, not truth, people. (Which is not to say that laughs aren’t an effective way of exposing truth, but that’s a topic for another day.)

On the other hand, many is the time when I’ve been watching a comedian and thinking, “Damn, I’m glad I’m not the girlfriend he’s talking about,” or “Wow, what’s it like being married to her?”  Like when I was at the aforementioned-shitty event where the emcee did 10 minutes of “my girlfriend so fat” jokes. 

For what it’s worth, I stick to a policy of not telling any jokes about my husband that he can’t laugh at.  I will routinely stand up in the living room and test new material out on him.  He understands that I might embellish a bit for comic effect, and I won’t poke at any sore points. 

So that’s what works for us. I’m curious about what other people think, though. (With of course all the usual caveats about how comedians aren’t obliged to write what I, personally think is funny, any more than I am obliged to think that what they write is funny, blah blah.)