Francis Yamamoto – Awkwardness, Problems with Batuman and The Eric Andre Show

Whilst I certainly agree that we are, as the readings of this week seem too be claiming, in a certain ‘age of awkwardness’, as argued by Kotsko, Nagi and Batuman. But it is perhaps with Kotsko and the latter’s arguments which I may have problems with – although this is mostly due to their particular use of examples which I find to be somewhat an over-estimation of the implications of awkwardness. Batuman’s example of Taylor Swift’s Shake it off music video as a conscious thought reflective of America’s dark connection with slavery, in my view, may be an over-explained reason for the residual awkwardness stemming from the video – she may be over-reaching in this instance, trying to find something that isn’t there, or something that doesn’t particularly help in developing the concept. Further, whilst I agree with Kotsco’s sentiment of socio-historical events influencing the arts and media, giving us a frame within reality in which we can inhabit a world of awkwardness, where ‘the leader of the free world’ is himself a ‘zany’ character, I cannot necessarily be satisfied with the going narrative of George W. Bush being metaphysically linked to our appetite for awkwardness – whilst he may have been a small part of the larger contextual developments at hand leading us to awkwardness, and I may be completely wrong with this, but this seems like a largely American-influenced view. Couldn’t the shift in the 70s to more realistic depictions of violence alongside the steady rise of neorealism within film be a bigger influence on the rise of a style of comedy which accentuates the often ‘awkward’ or ‘zany’ moments of everyday life?

Aside from these complications, on the other hand, what struck me as an essential working part to this idea of awkwardness, reflected by Kotsko and Batuman, is the idea that the humour in these cases rises from an audience’s relatability in these cases – people are largely influenced to laugh in situations which seem familiar to us, as a kind of empathetic form of laughter. This makes me think of too many examples of awkward humour in film/tv, but the best example I’d thought of came from The Eric Andre Show – even though this show may be also a fine example of absurdist comedy. The show in general encompasses a hilariously psychotic take on the talk-show, where all rules of the form are viciously broken – but this clip in particular exemplifies the potential for grossly over-emphasised awkwardness produced from making celebrities feel outside of their element, robbing them of the usual reverence which they are treated with.