So a couple of weeks ago, my Best Reader and I happened to watch a few minutes of the The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor televised ceremony. Not this year’s, but a rerun of the 2005 show, with Steve Martin. We hadn’t been paying attention to the award, after the first two or three years, and we had a nice conversation about who we might nominate for such an award. It turns out that two of the people we mentioned over the course of the conversation have already been given the award. So, hey, we’re good at this.
So, Gentle Reader, who would you nominate for a Mark Twain Prize for American Humor? The criteria are not made explicit, but in addition to American-osityagenessation, I would think you would have to take into account peak value, career value, influence, range and any historical or contextual factors. There is also, presumably, some value to giving the award some years to persons who aren’t straight white men (without entirely ignoring the straight white men who deserve the thing). It’s not so easy as all that.
Elaine May comes to mind, as then does Mike Nichols. Jules Feiffer? Garrison Keillor? Nora Ephron? Bill Cosby? Christopher Guest? Harry Shearer? Michael McKean? David Zucker? Jerry Zucker? Wally Shawn? It’s hard to avoid giving it to Woody Allen, eventually. Dave Barry must be in line. I’d nominate Molly Ivins, but I don’t know that there’s a really good argument for jumping her in front of any of the others. Do you put Harold Stern on the list? Don Imus? Al Franken? Matt Groening? Scott Adams?
Are there any novelists you would nominate? That’s where I might think you might come up with lots of female candidates, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
I don’t, by the way, mean that Women Aren’t Funny (as Al Franken memorably explained, adding that sometimes it’s phrased “Dames aren’t funny” or “Broads aren’t funny” or “If you want to get some laughs out there, for Gd’s sake use a guy”—also a man dressed in women’s clothing is funny, but a woman in man’s clothes just looks like a dyke) (seriously, I think Al Franken is close to the top of my nomination list), because of course the institutional sexism and worse that indisputably existed in, say, the sixties and seventies, prevented all but the most extraordinary of women from becoming successful performing comics, and Lily Tomlin got the award already, and Madeline Kahn, Gilda Radner and Erma Bombeck are dead. Jane Curtin is still alive; I would think she’s on the list, somewhere. I’d certainly put her higher than Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray or Chevy Chase. The women I’d keep my eye on have not (I think) had long enough careers to get the award yet, although if (for instance) Margaret Cho dies young, before getting one, it’ll be a conspicuous absence. And I personally will not nominate Sandra Berhard, who I don’t find funny, but that’s just me. And is Phyllis Diller still technically alive?
Wait a minute, what about Penny Marshall? Successful comic actress, director and producer, yes? Are they waiting for one more hit film?
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.