Abstract
YouTube and Internet culture have changed expressions of comedy, especially on television. Some forms of TV entertainment content emphasise shock value, resulting in a satirical strain of comedy that stresses absurdity. Such a trend may be observed in The Eric Andre Show (2012–) and Nathan for You (2013–2017), two US comedy TV series which satirise an Internet style of filmmaking while simultaneously critiquing the culture that created it. This article examines these shows for how extreme methods support or detract from their perceived effect, and whether or not such satirical tactics are valid as a way of bringing about change.
During an interview promoting her new clothing lines, model/actress Lauren Conrad is horrified when the interviewer spontaneously vomits onto his desk and then proceeds to slurp it up while questioning her. Conrad immediately terminates the interview and vacates the premises. What she doesn’t know is that the puke and the interview setting are fake, designed to provoke a response in her as a part of the late-night satire programme, The Eric Andre Show (3:2) (2012–)
Hollywood souvenir shop L.A. Fame is facing financial difficulty until the intervention of a young entrepreneur. He reinvigorates their business by using the store as a location to film, The Web, starring Johnny Depp. Bystanders are recruited as movie extras, playing customers scripted to purchase souvenirs. For the purposes of quickly getting through filming, acquisitions are paid for with people’s own money. When extras demand refunds, the producers introduce them to Depp and offer to have their souvenirs signed, thus rendering them unreturnable. The entrepreneur who developed this plan is a student at one of Canada’s top business schools (with really good grades), but is now associated with the Comedy Central network, and this scheme—which happened with real people and starred a Johnny Depp impersonator—was featured his show, Nathan for You (2:2) (2013–2017).
Both of these events actually took place and involved real members of the public who were unaware of the ruse in which they were unintentionally participating. The reactions recorded on camera were real—from Conrad’s hasty exit to the hesitation of bystanders simultaneously excited and not, to have their souvenirs signed by Johnny Depp while having to spend substantial amounts of their own money. There is nothing new in engaging an unknowing public for the purpose of comedy on television. As early as the 1940s Candid Camera (1948–2014) was doing just this, establishing a legacy that continued and evolved with shows like Crank Yankers (2002–2019) and Punk’d (2003–2007). And while it may be argued that some of the sketches featured in these shows pushed boundaries of good taste and acceptability, the popularity of the programmes and eventual transparency of the joke to their victims counteracted the impact of the prank. Bringing the tricked individual into the fold to laugh along with the perpetrators told the audience, however outlandish the hoax: everything turned out alright and it was fine to laugh.
This is not the case in the examples cited here. Instead, the lack of transparency is essential to the joke—it seems funnier to both viewers and the host Eric Andre if Lauren Conrad never knew the show on which she appeared was fake, and that Andre’s vomit was actually oatmeal (King, 2016). When Conrad sat down, she assumed it was for the same kind of interview she always gave, not recognising she had stepped into Eric Andre’s bizarre satire. Like Nathan for You’s satire of cultural obsessions with cameras and fame, Andre’s is predicated on capturing the public’s reaction to an unprecedented level of situational absurdity that is never actually resolved. The joke hangs on a lack of resolution, as audiences are entertained and stressed by watching situations escalate to unexpected levels of cringe-inducing discomfort.
The question thus emerges: what led to this transition in the form and substance of this type of pseudo-reality comedy television? These series exemplify a new extreme in satirical absurdity on television; and while the results are entertaining, they raise a litany of ethical and philosophical questions. What are these pieces of media trying to accomplish, and do they have any degree of success in doing so? And perhaps more importantly, what are the ethical boundaries and limitations to this type of content? This article interrogates these questions first by looking at the media landscape that has given rise to these kinds of programmes, and then in turning to an understanding of satire and parody to illustrate the purpose of such humour. Next, we look to examples from these series in order to understand their individual brands of satire. Finally, we assess the effectiveness of the philosophical outlook of each as a potential strategy for engaging and communicating with audiences to affect social change.
Humour and YouTube culture
The influence of the Internet has drastically altered the form, function and content of broadcast entertainment. YouTube, in particular, has changed the way audiences perceive creativity. The video-sharing platform has become an artefact of a developing culture; Kevin Allocca, YouTube’s Head of Culture and Trends, explains: ‘Analysing YouTube gives us a better understanding of who we are and what we’re becoming’ (2018: xiv). This understanding may be extended to how viewers watch and interact with broadcast comedy shows. Sketch comedy series like Saturday Night Live (1975–) have indeed found great success in uploading sketches online, as have talk shows like The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (2014–) and Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2003–). More and more, viewers are engaging with content online rather than when it is initially televised (Helmore, 2015).
Humour on YouTube is not limited to the forms and structure of the broadcast world. Videos of any sort, on any topic, of any length may be uploaded, shared and enjoyed by anyone at any time. The rules for comedy on YouTube may be summarised as follows: anything goes, no matter how miniscule, insipid or strange (within YouTube’s content guidelines). It is also important to note the existence of a remarkably wide audience for this type of content—by which we mean any type of content. A YouTube channel dedicated to crushing different objects with a hydraulic press, for example, has amassed 1.8 million subscribers and nearly 15 million views on its most popular video (Hydraulic Press Channel, n.d.); a video featuring a high-pitched and demented voice narrating as a Jelly Belly rat gummy candy is removed from its packaging using surgical implements has nearly 12 million views (runforthecube, 2014); and creator Bill Wurtz’s channel combines stream of consciousness prose with animation and music to produce a litany of truly random videos, which has accumulated 2.3 million subscribers, with 41million views for his top video (bill wurtz, n.d.).
With even obscure and absurd video content receiving huge numbers of views and subscribers, it is no surprise that mainstream content creators have adapted the formulas and trends of YouTube culture. Not only are clips and segments explicitly adapted for online distribution, but mainstream broadcast shows and creators address the developments of YouTube culture both explicitly and implicitly in terms of format and content. For instance, the online popularity of clips from late night television shows inform the absurd satire of The Eric Andre Show, to be explored below.
Additionally, the phenomenon of individuals becoming famous explicitly because of their YouTube channels and online personas has bred a new kind of ‘micro-celebrity’ famous for almost no reason whatsoever (Senft, 2008). This kind of fame is, in part, built on the ethos of the ‘YouTuber’ as a relatable, average person, which gives the appearance that their level of fame is attainable by anyone, a mindset particularly prevalent amongst teenagers (Pittman, 2015). Sometimes these figures are made famous through intentional means such as vlogs, but at other times they are a type of accidental celebrity, where a seemingly insignificant piece of media sparks something in viewers and becomes a shared cultural phenomenon. These instances suggest that fame can be easily acquired whenever a camera is present. This impression is combined with the belief that a camera provides a form of validity to a project or cause--i.e. why would anyone go to all this effort for a non-legitimate operation?
In the series examined below, both these phenomena are exploited for entertainment. The belief that fame is always nearly attainable combined with the perceived legitimacy of a camera allows these media to push what someone will do or believe far beyond the bounds of normal behaviour, which, ironically, makes for compelling content that is often shared online. This creates a strange, vicious circle: YouTube as a phenomenon changes the game of acceptability in content, which pushes broadcast media in new directions that, in turn, make it perfect for being distributed on YouTube.
Satire and parody
Interestingly, YouTube is where viewers can peruse the antecedents for this type of satirical, parodic comedy. Comedians and characters such as Norman Gunston, Dennis Pennis, Chris Morris and Alan Partridge took comedy out of the safe space of television or theatre and put it into the real world, often interacting with real people and real celebrities, some of whom were not in on the joke. Their comedy is sometimes predicated on drawing a reaction from an unknowing participant, but more often than not positions the comedian as the butt of the joke, as when celebrities functionally become foils to showcase the one-liner talents of the comedian. The overarching goal is light-hearted entertainment, not necessarily critique.
This goal is reversed in more modern expressions, highlighting an important distinction between parody and satire which becomes relevant when considering the work of Andre and Fielder. At the level of form, The Eric Andre Show and Nathan For You are positioned as satirical and parodic. Eric Andre explicitly parodies late-night talk shows to satirise their superficiality and inanity. Likewise, Nathan Fielder parodies the genre of self-help (a la Undercover Boss (2009–)) to satirise US culture’s obsession with fame and being on camera. Understanding the distinction between satire and parody helps articulate the levels at which these series operate, the nuance of their aims and the moral problems that they exemplify.
As forms of humour, satire and parody are similar in their common aim to defamiliarise viewers or readers through humour, though differ in the actual forms in which they manifest. Though parody and satire do not have one specific purpose, they generally serve the following functions: parody is most commonly known for its emphasis on mimicking the style of a legitimate type or genre (e.g. melodrama), such that it may be considered an internal or communal activity predicated on a shared understanding of textual forms; satire, on the other hand, tends to be more inherently mocking in its attitude, and specifically targets an outside audience (Jensen, 2013: 289). As Jonathan Gray notes, ‘while parody attacks form, and ideology through form, satire attacks ideology directly’ (Gray, 2006: 135). There is often, however, a slippage between the two concepts, as they support each other in accomplishing humorous aims.
Parodies may be seen as a kind of ‘subversive speech’ that use formal similarities to undermine the textual authority of the parodied object (Kumar and Combe, 2015). By directly imitating the form or style of a text, parody comments on it in some fashion. Sometimes, though, audiences may not understand the text as parody, and misunderstand it as supporting a stance it is, in fact, trying to critique (Ellis, 2017).
There are similar dangers associated with satire, though its form makes it less likely to be misidentified as a serious expression of a particular view. More pointed than parody, satire uses irony as a critical tactic. Satirical messages use extreme exaggeration or minimisation to cue audiences to interpret the satirical message as ironic (Fife, 2016: 326). Parody sometimes seeks to fly under the radar; satire wants to be noticed. This is evident in Neil Vidmar and Milton Rokeach’s classic study of Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) in All in the Family (1971–1979). While audience biases resulted in misidentifying the target of the satire, viewers nonetheless recognised the series as satirical (1974: 38).
An important consequence of this misidentification is how it transforms satire’s moral function. While some scholars see satire as inherently amoral, Ruben Quintero notes that the satirist inherently writes ‘with a sense of moral vocation and with a concern for the public interest’ (2007: 1). Because satire is intimately tied to critique, the form implicitly privileges one view over another to make moral statements. Noteworthy, though, is that some see satire as limited by its inability to offer constructive solutions to the problems it seeks to address (Fife, 2016: 329). Because satire needs an object to critique, it is predicated on the deconstruction of ideas rather than the construction of particular action steps. At best, satire functions to build communities of people who ‘get’ the joke or are ‘in’ on the critique (Day, 2011: 188–189).
Some key questions arise when we consider satirical products that are marketed or considered purely as entertainment. The most obvious form of contemporary satire in America is found in the satirical news show, with The Colbert Report (2005–2014) and The Daily Show (1996–), for instance, drawing renewed media and scholarly attention to the role of satire in the public sphere (Williams and Delli Carpini, 2011). Other artefacts like Chappelle’s Show (2003–2006) or South Park (1997–) have performed satire as more explicit entertainment but have always done so with an acknowledged critical edge that undermines their status as pure entertainment (Haggins, 2009; Thompson, 2009). But in The Eric Andre Show and Nathan for You the satire is held below the surface, never made explicit as a part of the series’ ethos or marketing. Neither is traditionally recognised as inherently satirical in public; if anything, they are merely characterised as absurd entertainment. They are, however, decidedly satirical, critiquing specific trends within Internet and celebrity culture. The Eric Andre Show satirises celebrity culture through exposing the banality and superficiality of the late-night talk show format which centres on celebrity guests. And Nathan for You critiques cultural emphases on becoming famous, by pushing the limits of what people will accept and participate in when cameras are present because of the transparency camera provides. In so doing, these series raise questions of satire in a manner where the satirical basis is never clearly articulated. Can satire be used purely for entertainments sake? Or does its inherently critical edge problematise any such claims to innocence? The following analysis evaluates these shows in terms of their critiques of contemporary culture, and what this style of critique as entertainment offers to viewers.
Satire and parody as entertainment?
The Eric Andre Show
The Eric Andre Show satirises the contemporary fascination with celebrities in parodying and satirising the late-night talk show format. The show approaches this critique through an anarchistic, nihilistic outlook. Because satire inherently carries a moral function, and Andre’s nihilistic take on US celebrity culture is promoted and distributed as entertainment, the show raises questions the effectiveness of satire as a subgenre of comedy and entertainment (Gray et al., 2009: 8).
From the opening monologues to celebrity guests, from man-on-the-street segments to musical guests and occasional games, Andre’s show mimics late-night talk shows while introducing a unique, absurdist twist on the genre. Airing on cable network Adult Swim, the series is predicated on the guest not knowing that the show is satire, with the overall aesthetic and design of a low-budget talk show giving the prank an air of legitimacy. After lulling them into a false sense of security, Andre ‘tortures’ the guest for several hours, with the final aired interview comprising the best moments (Team Coco, 2016). The structure of the show is parodic, but the content is satirical and borderline nihilistic. Nothing makes sense, nor is it supposed to, even for the show’s viewers. The critique that Andre levels at the talk show format and its content—including the celebrities themselves—is that nothing matters. This critique extends to the viewers of Andre’s own show, almost asking why anyone even watches this show.
Every late-night talk show begins with a joke-filled monologue performed by the host. This routine functions to build a rapport with the audience and set the tone for the show. These segments are typically filled with commentary on the latest news events, with deference towards celebrity gossip, viral phenomena and cultural oddities (Toplyn, 2014). The tone of the opening monologue and interview segments brand the show in a particular vein of comedy. Typical network talk shows such as those hosted by Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon are relatively liberal in their perspectives but tame in their delivery. Because these shows are a product of the same networks and companies that are often producing much of the culture that they are commenting on or critiquing, their jabs can only go so far.
Andre’s interpretation of the talk-show monologue is one where the host is decidedly unfunny. Though not filmed in front of an actual audience, the sound effects accompanying the opening monologue are always pitiful in their appreciation of Andre’s jokes. Additionally, his co-host, Hannibal Buress, often derides Andre’s comedic ability, heckling him throughout the segment. One withering example is when Burress asks Andre after a failed joke: ‘You for real think that those words you just said should be on television?’ Andre takes on edgy humour in one opening known as ‘This Ain’t Your Mama’s Monologue,’ where he plays a bass guitar while wearing a strait jacket with the music industry’s ‘Parental Advisory Explicit Content’ sticker over his mouth. He tells unfunny and mildly offensive jokes and repeatedly reminds Hannibal that this ‘ain’t your mama’s monologue’ (1: 8), satirising the notion that most talk show monologues are tame in order to please older, more easily offended crowds. Andre also leans heavily into the notion that talk shows use their platform to further a political agenda. One monologue, for example, opens with his initial refusal to ‘get into it’ (politics) before he immediately rescinds the promise and launches into an extended and overtly right-wing political rant.
Each of the above starts out as an overt parody of a particular comedic trope of late-night talk shows before advancing beyond the realm of expectation as a way of making its satire explicit: the ‘This Ain’t Your Mama’s Monologue’ segment ends with Andre spontaneously contracting diphtheria as an ostensibly moral judgement on his bass playing; the political rant ends with him taking ‘the fastest road to God’s house’—in this case is a gun concealed in a Bible used by Andre to commit suicide. Recognisable as a monologue maybe, this is where any similarity between a typical monologue and Andre’s bizarre versions end.
In addition to the series’ opening monologues, the celebrity interview segment is the most obvious parallel between a traditional late-night talk show and Andre’s version of it. As mentioned, Andre shoots with his guests for an extended period of time before editing the interview into a few minutes for the final show. This approach pushes the show’s incoherence to another level. Beyond the Lauren Conrad interview, another notable example includes hiding little people representing himself and guest Jillian Michaels underneath the desk, only to reveal them partway through the interview and have them repeat verbatim what he and Michaels are saying for rest of the conversation (4: 5). The impact of this incoherence is significant when compared to the common talk show trope of interviews allowing the audience to get to know the celebrity through humorous anecdotes, while affording the celebrity time to promote their latest project. Neither of these features occur during Andre’s interviews. While he occasionally asks questions as banal as ‘What do you think?’ to typically bewildered-seeming guests, most of the segment is dedicated to pushing the celebrity into unexpected directions as they try to bring the interview back to some semblance of normality. Such a return is never forthcoming, however. In addition to the onscreen antics recognisable for their absurdity, Andre is known for keeping his studio at an unreasonably high temperature (something many of his guests mention), and even refusing to cut his fingernails, wear deodorant or brush his hair, thus making the entire interview experience miserable for those forced to be around him (Conner, 2016). These interviews follow the same structure as Andre’s monologues, beginning as overt parody and escalating to satirical absurdity, pushing the celebrity figure and their cultivated persona through the refusal to use the form which promotes a positive image of the celebrity. The show thus derives its ostensible entertainment value from the humour of seeing these famous figures denied a sense of normality, and from the tension of never knowing just how far Andre is going to push things. While Andre’s tactic encourages the audience to question the established superficiality of the talk show, it also consistently undermines itself by refusing to suggest anything more meaningful beyond asking how outlandish the situation can become.
Andre’s ‘Man-on-the-Street’ segments are—in spite of everything that has already been referenced—his most absurd accomplishments. Instances here include Andre staging the kidnapping of a child, pretending to parachute and then crashing into an ongoing focus group in an attempt to acquire sponsorship from Sprite, and wearing a dog cone and bodysuit with pieces of the cereal Froot Loops glued to it onto the subway, before pouring cereal and milk into the cone and inviting fellow subway riders to ‘eat from him,’ as his body is ‘their communion.’ Typical ‘Man-on-the-street’ segments in talk shows derive humour from setting up members of the public to be laughed at, though the public is usually at least somewhat aware of what is happening because they are voluntarily appearing on television, actively pursuing even a self-deprecating moment in the spotlight. Andre’s segments are the inverse of this formula, denying participants knowledge of their involvement in his schemes. His segments are louder and more intrusive, and comment on the viewer in keeping with the show’s nihilistic tendencies. While Andre’s monologues and interview segments satirise our fascination with what is ultimately a vapid celebrity culture, his other segments are almost entirely devoid of sense and structure, implicating the viewer as complicit in the construction of something that is entirely pointless and perhaps even detrimental to the participants and the viewers themselves, even as the segments and the show as a whole are positioned as absurdist entertainment.
At times, The Eric Andre Show makes clear its intentions in skewering and commenting on the state of contemporary comedy and the cultural obsession with celebrity. In another one of Andre’s monologues, dubbed ‘The Meta Monologue,’ he approaches the microphone and proceeds to say, ‘Words, words, words, words, words, words, punchline.’ In the background, co-host Hannibal laughs, and when Andre repeats the phrase he laughs again and comments, ‘You did it! You broke comedy down to its bare essentials!’ Andre continues as the faux-audience roars with laughter, and the segment slides into an absurdist skit featuring magician Penn Jillette joining in the cacophony by breaking into a distillation of his own public persona, with, ‘Magic, magic, magic, magic, magic, magic, atheism!’ (4: 5). Moments like these are acutely self-aware and even obvious to viewers in terms of what Andre is critiquing. Other segments, however, obscure their aims. The overall tone of Andre’s programme is one of intense nihilism towards the subject matter it is parodying and satirising, masked as pure entertainment. But by choosing these extreme methods, the show effectively cannibalises itself, becoming a part of the problem it seeks to highlight.
Nathan for You
While Eric Andre’s satire is brazenly absurd, the setups and gags in Nathan for You are subtler if no less extreme and ethically dubious, even as the show aims to promote a veneer of reality and legitimacy in its antics. Whereas The Eric Andre Show thrives on extremes, Nathan for You underplays its satire and foregrounds its parodic elements. The show pushes the boundaries of what is socially acceptable or even practical in certain situations, with Nathan Fielder often going to uncomfortable lengths to prove rather simplistic points. This buries the show’s moral critiques beneath its entertaining surface, even as the show’s premise and execution inherently raise moral quandaries. Given that the show is predicated on exploring moral issues, its downplaying of its own moral stance raises questions regarding the effectivity of its critique.
The basic premise of Nathan for You is that its host, Nathan Fielder, is a consultant who works closely with small businesses and helps them revamp their marketing to gain new customers, parodying other shows that legitimately try to do the very thing. Fielder’s methods, though, are decidedly unconventional. Examples include: hiring a mall Santa to work during the summer to reduce costs for holiday photographs (1: 2); creating the world’s most difficult rebate system by forcing customers at a gas station to hike up a mountain and camp overnight to redeem their rebate (1: 4); and trying to scare participants in a haunted house so badly that they sue its operators so Fielder can brand it the ‘World’s Scariest Haunted House’ (1: 5). Fielder’s show ultimately highlights the lengths to which someone will go or accept when a camera is present, and the degree to which he abuses that for the sake of his show. In the episode mentioned in the introduction, Fielder does not stop with his Johnny Depp impersonator signing souvenirs to prevent people from returning their items. A retired judge points out that unless the movie Fielder is pretending to make, The Web, gets released, the ‘extras’ conned into buying souvenirs could sue him for fraud. This necessitates the hasty production of a movie and then the creation of a festival where Fielder’s slapdash film competes against a video that he is sure he can beat for the festival’s top award (the video is a 90-second clip called ‘Me Farting on Command’), which he arranges to be judged by a bona fide industry insider, in this case the second-unit script supervisor from Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Crayton Smith. The extreme lengths that Fielder goes to pushes his show beyond a parody of reality TV and into the realm of the satirical. In so doing, this undermines the show’s ostensible presentation of itself as merely a comedic enterprise. As the ruse continues, heightening the absurdity of Fielder’s efforts calls into question the entire premise of helping the souvenir shop in the first place, and implicates participants in questioning the validity and forms of the reality TV genre as a whole.
But the show’s presentation never makes its satirical edge explicit, instead dryly adhering to its reality TV format and so calling into question the ethics of satire and entertainment. The episode’s initial premise introduces several ethical questions related to forcing ‘extras’ to buy souvenirs with their own money, but then proceeds further to push the boundaries of acceptable legality by lying to them about meeting Johnny Depp and establishing a rigged film festival. While Fielder strives to make this particular promotion more legally sound, he actually manages to stretch what audiences might consider to be ethically acceptable. The lengths Fielder goes to in order to legitimise his operation are extensive but only necessitated by the initial buy-in of the bystanders clamouring to be in the movie. After all, why would a camera crew set up outside a souvenir shop in Los Angeles unless they were making a real movie?
The basic question of the camera’s legitimising power is something that Fielder exploits time and time again, positioning his show as a satire on the cultural obsession with fame and instant celebrity. Fielder’s cameras and the stated premise of the show disarm the business owners and other participants by positioning them as ‘special’ in some way—otherwise why would they be asked to be on this show? Participants are not made aware of Fielder’s status as a comedian, but rather see him as a legitimate consultant seeking to help them (which he would argue he is actually doing). The lure of the spotlight predisposes participants to go along with Fielder’s shenanigans even as they spiral beyond the realm of comfort for most of the people involved. What Fielder seems to be saying with his elaborate schemes is that fame has a cost, and what he seems to be interested in doing is finding out just how much people are willing to pay to achieve it (Teti, 2015).
A prime example that illustrates the essence of Nathan for You is the episode ‘The Hero,’ where Fielder sets out to see if he can turn an ordinary person into a ‘national hero’ (3: 8). This is accomplished by Fielder spending 9 months learning to walk a tightrope while running a search in the Los Angeles area for a person for his experiment, someone who is clearly struggling and not living up to their potential in life. Finding a suitable candidate in arcade worker Corey Calderwood, Fielder literally takes over his life with consent but without his knowledge. Fielder studies Calderwood’s mannerisms and speech patterns and has him attend a fake physical where Fielder obtains a digital scan of Calderwood’s face to create a latex mask to wear in order to assume Calderwood’s identity. Next, Calderwood is flown by helicopter to a remote trailer in the desert, where he is left without any way of contacting the outside world for 2 weeks. During that time, Fielder assumes Calderwood’s identity and promotes his participation in a death-defying tightrope walk between two buildings in downtown Los Angeles to raise funds for breast cancer research. This promotion involves taking part in a L.A. radio show, and Calderwood’s face appearing in newspaper ads and on billboards. In addition to promoting his larger stunt, Fielder takes it upon himself to improve Calderwood’s personal life by setting up an OK Cupid account and finding a date. Fielder goes along in the Calderwood mask and costume and arranges for the girl to attend the fundraising event, and even gets her consent for a kiss following the completion of the stunt. Fielder even deceives Calderwood’s own grandparents, reassuring them, using a megaphone across the street from their hotel, that ‘he’ is fine and fully prepared for the death-defying feat. At the end of 2 weeks, Fielder brings Calderwood back to L.A. and informs him of what is going on: after Fielder successfully completes the tightrope walk while wearing the Calderwood costume, he will enter a tent in which he and Calderwood will switch places so that the Calderwood who emerges before the cheering crowd and the waiting girl will be the real Calderwood, and not Fielder.
The stunt goes exactly as Fielder plans: the two of them make the switch in the tent, and the real Calderwood comes out the other side. He kisses the girl that Fielder had dated, and then proceeds to give a speech on behalf of the cancer charity before presenting them with a cheque for $5,000. His speech, which Fielder had written, is heavy on inspirational themes and emphasises that anyone, no matter how ordinary, can be a hero. From the wide-ranging deception, and the complicity of Calderwood and others in the fabrication, the absurdity of this gimmick rightly calls into question whether the show is fake, or whether or not the subjects are ‘in’ on the joke in any way. As unlikely as it may seem, reports from Fielder, his network, and his producers indicate that participants are screened to ensure that they are fully unaware of the show’s status as comedy and what they are getting themselves into (Lear, 2017).
However, Fielder does not merely celebrate what he and his team have accomplished. The end of the episode is a brazen critique that raises the episode into a satirical mode of examining the rush of entertainment that viewers have just experienced. Footage from a news show featuring an interview with the real Calderwood and moments of celebration with his new girlfriend, family and fans are intercut with footage of Fielder being helped out of the makeup and fat suit he wore to impersonate Calderwood. The music is sombre as Calderwood celebrates, and the final shot is of Calderwood smiling in the crowd before the camera racks focus to show Fielder down the block wearing black clothes and baseball hat; Fielder turns from the crowd and walks out of frame before the end credits roll. This sequence shifts the tone of the episode from one of tense deceit and ultimate celebration to one of contemplation. Fielder reminds us that Calderwood’s celebration is hollow: his accomplishment is actually Fielder’s, so what hundreds of people have borne witness to and celebrated is, in fact, a lie. The tone and exaggeration here emphasise that Fielder is saying something to viewers about what they have just seen. But what audiences are supposed to do with this, even what they could do with this, is never addressed.
Conclusion
Nathan Fielder does not describe himself as a subversive comedian. He always says that he is offering out of the box ideas to small businesses and never aims to make fun of his subjects (Teti, 2015). Likewise, Eric Andre does not see his show as anything important or critical, instead stating that the brand of comedy he works in simply does not matter or mean anything in particular (King, 2016). The problem with such statements is they evade a fundamental truth that these shows are inextricably tethered to philosophies that guide their production. Andre may see his show as meaningless, but its form implicitly articulates a nihilistic moral disposition that attempts to evade any sort of responsibility for its content. Fielder may see himself simply as a consultant, but his extreme methods suggest that such a statement downplays the moral weight of the situations he has created. If, as we have suggested, satirical means carry with them implicit moral and societal evaluations, then Andre and Fielder’s adoption of satirical methods raises questions regarding what their moral or societal stances are. That the moral quandaries formed from these shows remain unanswered highlights the importance of interrogating their effectiveness as objects of critique. Downplaying the importance of their shows does nothing to absolve the creators of their part in offering some form of moral lesson to their audiences. The question is how clear their actual critique is in relation to the humour-laden forms they adopt.
Satire has already been critiqued for its tendency to tear down ideas rather than construct new ones (Day, 2011: 188–189). How this problem is manifested differs depending on the type of satire. In The Eric Andre Show and Nathan for You, the critical messages offered to viewers are undercut by the fact that the series are primarily aiming to be—and succeed at being—pieces of entertainment in their own right. Audiences are pushed to laugh by the insanity and tension of what Andre and Fielder do but are never given time to ponder on what they see.
Fielder sometimes comes close to offering a respite from his persona, as evidenced in the ending of his season four finale, ‘Finding Frances’ (4:8). After befriending an escort on a long-winded journey to finding a professional Bill Gates impersonator’s long-lost love, Fielder sits with the young woman to have a conversation in the episode’s final moments. The couple hold hands and awkwardly make small talk until Fielder offers to shut the cameras off so that they could have a moment alone. In response to this the escort, Maci, says: ‘But isn’t that the whole point?’ When Fielder asks her what she means, she says that the reason he is there is to film something. Fielder does not respond right away, but instead glances around where they are sitting, briefly making eye contact with the camera in front of him, locking eyes with the audience as if to suggest someone has finally understood what he’s has been trying to do. Maci’s question goes to the heart of the phenomena that Fielder critiques: society’s obsession with fame, structures like YouTube that we have built to support the developments of such fame, the rise of new ‘micro-celebrities,’ and thus the lengths to which we will go to satisfy yearnings for fame in front of the inescapable gaze of the camera.
What Maci seems to ask is whether or not there is a point to anything if the camera is not rolling. Fielder’s glance to camera suggests that this is precisely what he wants his audience to ponder. That this singular moment of authenticity comes at the close of four preceding seasons of absurdist entertainment perhaps undercuts its impact. It implicates the audience; yet the implication may have come too late. This episode serves as the finale to the whole series, and so arguably stands as its final, definitive statement on its own content. It is appropriate in that it seems illustrative of our entire culture or cultural moment: four entire seasons passed before someone finally asked this question—what took us all so long?
The problem with this perspective is that while Fielder’s intentions may be pure, the discourse surrounding the series and its fans does not dwell on any of these aspects. Instead, people only seem interested in talking about the extreme lengths to which Fielder goes in his various enterprises. This may be the societal issue Fielder is attempting to address, but the fact it endures indicates his aims have not been accomplished. Likewise, the conversation surrounding Andre’s satirical take on the late-night talk show is focused almost purely on shock value. Every interview Andre gives somehow comes back to the incident with Lauren Conrad, but not the critique he seems to be levelling at culture. This begs the question, then, of how effective satirical entertainment actually is as a vehicle for critiquing or bettering culture and society.
One problem in answering this question is that much of the research on satire and TV in culture today focuses on shows and people that are explicitly satirising politics and political culture. Thus, programmes like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report (two obvious favourites) garner a lot of attention because of the way that their satire inherently links their critique to ongoing discussions about the state and possibilities of the public sphere. With this in mind, several scholars argue that these programmes illustrate the capacity for satire, parody, and irony to assist in building communities of people who ‘get’ the joke and the criticism, and are thus equipped to take steps, discursive or otherwise, in correcting society’s problems. While acknowledging that satire in particular tears down more than it builds up, Amber Day calls parody and satire ‘methods of intruding into the public conversation’ (Day, 2011: 193), and Bruce A. Williams and Michael X. Delli Carpini emphasise the critical intentions of material like The Daily Show by stating that ‘while comedy is always central, it seems obvious that the show aims for more than a quick laugh’ (Williamd and Delli Carpini, 2011: 182). But these programmes have the advantage of being political in nature, such that their satire is inherently linked to policies, ideas, and people who are already and constantly under public discussion. Arguing that this satire can provoke communities to action, then, makes sense, because the issues being satirised are already clearly public issues that invite active consideration.
In contrast, programmes like The Eric Andre Show or Nathan for You do not have an explicit political connection to exploit in this manner—they are ostensibly innocent entertainment, even as the extremes of their form and content position them squarely in the satirical realm. Importantly, these specific programmes differ from other similar artefacts of satirical entertainment like South Park or Chappelle’s Show in that the targets of their satire are based in the world of entertainment and culture rather than in politics. Two important elements stem from this distinction. First, because the subject matter of Andre and Fielder’s shows is inherently less political and more intimately tied to the already ephemeral and distant world of entertainment, there is a less explicit connection for viewers between what their satire is saying about culture and entertainment and what audiences can do with this critique. Second, because the primary target of Andre and Fielder’s satire is entertainment, it is easier to lose the function of the satire in the entertaining form of the show. As such, using the argument from satirical political TV that satire can function to build communities of action around people being ‘in’ on the joke does not necessarily apply. Their critiques of contemporary culture and entertainment implicate the individual viewer’s decisions of what to watch and engage with; while there is always the opportunity to discuss these critiques and their implications with others, the only actions that can be taken are entirely individualised in terms of what shows to watch, or how to think about what the viewer is watching. But if this is the message, then using a purely entertainment-centred approach seems to fall short of supplying audiences with a useful outlet for enacting the lessons of a given critique. For instance, Andre’s show is easily reads as satirical critique on entertainment culture; but Andre’s unwillingness to do anything with his own critique or to hint at what he thinks could be done with it undermines its effectiveness and underscores the show’s nihilism in a resoundingly unproductive manner.
The overarching conclusion one must reach is that these satiric forms of entertainment are not the best methods of productively critiquing culture. Satirical forms of entertainment and reality TV seem only to reify the structures and issues to which they purport to address. In his exploration of satirical television in post-war culture, Ethan Thompson notes that ‘the parodic sensibility was not merely parasitic. By breaking with normal ways of making sense of television, parody could lead to new ways of making television’ (Thompson, 2010: 148). But even the new forms of television that emerged from these parodic sensibilities are successful and pleasurable, he argues, by creating a newfound sense of community around ‘getting’ the joke (Thompson, 2010: 150). Our analysis here indicates that satire on TV has continued to evolve and to explore new, extreme and absurd depths. But because the surrounding culture has changed, too, the expectation that audiences will ‘get’ the message and do something with it is no longer tenable. As such the discussion around satire in entertainment needs to consider and address the ways that such satire fails to provoke meaningful change and how it may inadvertently do even more damage itself.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
