прагматика и медиа дискурс / Mikhalkova_pragmatics_of_invective_some_corrections

an explicit parasocial relationship with the audience member in order to maximize receiver involvement (e. g., the “zoo” format for radio disk-jockeying, involving in-joking with listeners)” (Eshleman, Neuendorf 1989: 7). Likewise, the TV-series and sketch shows are built on the model of eavesdropping (the audience become witnesses of somebody’s shame), and stand-up shows – on the model of a direct communication, when the comedian talks to the audience from the stage.

On the whole, a broader definition of stand-up is very close to the Russian ‘estrada’: “В ХХ в. рождается эстрада — равноправное взаимодействие литературы, музыки, балета, театра, цирка; массовое зрелище с усиленным занимательно-развлекательным началом, обращенное к “пестрой” аудитории”40 (Борев 2002: 205). The Soviet Estrada fully corresponded to the descriptions of variety and vaudeville, take away the strong ideology of content. To be more precise, the genre of stand-up is close to the Russian “repriza” (a short funny performance), Estrada monologue (a stand-up routine) and Estrada miniature (a performance with verbal and bodily acting). But nowadays the term “stand-up” serves to describe funny routines and all kind of stand-up performances only in those programs, that were broadcasted in 2000s and with hosts and actors, that came to television within these years or do not cooperate with Evgeniy Petrosyan and the Theatre of Estrada Miniatures. The reason for this is that the term got into a broad use through a certain TV-show – “Comedy Club”, the hosts and comedians of which stand in an opposition to the mentioned theater and Evgeniy Petrosyan41, claiming that they represent a younger and more Westernized generation of Russian comedians.

It is common for the historians of the Russian mass media to draw a borderline between the Soviet and Post-perestroika television. In the USSR, TV was one of the major tools for ideological propaganda. The Soviet television never abused the function of entertainment, and the question of capitalizing stations and

40/An equal correspondence of literature, music, ballet, theater, circus: a mass entertainment that has an utterly amusing grounding, addressed for different kind of audience./

41A famous and authoritative producer of comedy shows in Russia; also a founder and a director of the Theatre of Estrada Miniatures (Moscow).

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forming mass consumer attitudes towards television, as a mass media product, never rose. On the other hand, the Soviet mass media never had a freedom of speech. Most programs had a social-political character, that penetrated even the entertaining genres, making it semi-official (the Russian word for this principle is

официоз).

It should be noted that in such narrow frames the Soviet television could not develop freely and throughout its history actively borrowed formats and genres from western TV. One of the most renowned sketch-shows of the Soviet times was

Кабачок тринадцать стульев “Bar of thirteen chairs” was created, using cartoons from Polish magazines – that is why its characters are addressed according to Polish ways: Pani (for women) and Pan (for men)42.

The TV-show that gave start to many comedians later in 1990s was Клуб веселых и находчивых “Club for the Merry and Quick-witted” (the Russian abbreviation for it is КВН). It started as an analogue of the Czech TV-program

Гадай, гадай, гадальщик “Guess It, Guess It, Guesser” in 1957 and was called

Вечер веселых вопросов “A Night of Funny Questions”43. In 1960s Alexander Maslyakov hosted it and he remains as its host until now. КВН was once closed for ideological reasons 1986 it was broadcasted again, and nowadays it is considered as one of the most popular comedy shows on the Russian TV. It also gave rise to a new genre of gag – СТЭМ (‘stam’ an experimental sketch, when not more than three people are allowed on stage).

At the same time some comedians in the USSR were also quite popular. They performed on stage in theatres and concert-halls, and their routines were broadcasted on TV. Among the most remarkable were Arkadiy Raikin, Michael Zhvanetskiy, Arkadiy Arkanov, Roman Kartsev, Gennadiy Hazanov (later the director of the famous Theater of Estrada in Moscow) and Evgeniy Petrosyan, mentioned above. Their performances abounded in aphorisms, some of which became popular. There also emerged a TV-program Вокруг смеха “Around the

42http://www.tvmuseum.ru/catalog.asp?ob_no=6291

43http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%92%D0%9D

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Laughter” with Alexander Ivanov as its host, that was broadcasted from the Television Theatre (a large pavilion that reminded a theatrical hall). Among its guests were famous actors, writers, comedians, musicians44.

Comedy shows of the western type became popular after Perestroika. The new genres emerged on the Russian TV: talk-shows, TV-shows, reality-shows, games with letters and words, panel games, TV-series, western video clips, erotic programs, TV-shops, etc., which, according to Elvira Mogilevskaya, was a result of two processes: changes in economy and ideology of the country and “Perestroika” (restructuring) of the TV-system. It was the same as to start from nothing (Могилевская 2006). Considering this trend, some comedians managed to keep their popularity in 1990s (Evgeniy Petrosyan, for example, created his own TV-program Смехопанорама “Panorama of Laughter”, that included videos of performances by the Soviet comedy school – most of them were repeats). But there also was a spread of new programs, most of which are now forgotten:

Comedy shows like a sketch show, vaudeville: “Каламбур”, “Маски-

шоу”, «Джентльмен-шоу» (channel – Первый канал); «Городок»

(channel – Россия); «33 квадратных метра», «Назло рекордам!» (channel – ТВ-6); «6 кадров» (channel – СТС); «Наша Russia» (channel – ТНТ);

Humorist talk-shows: «Оба-на! Угол шоу» and «Добрый вечер с Игорем Угольниковым» (channel – АТВ), «СВ-шоу» (channel –

ТВ-6);

Parodies of talk-shows: «ОСП-студия» (channel – ТВ-6); of newsreels – «Шоу Ньюс» (channel – ТНТ); of documentaries – «Бешенл Джеографик» (channel – ТНТ);

Comedy games: «Хорошие шутки», «Слава Богу, ты пришел!» (channel – СТС); «Звезды против Караоке», «Убойная лига», «Смех без правил» (channel – ТНТ);

44 http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3_%D1%81%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%85%D0%B0

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Stand-up shows: «Камеди клаб» (channel – ТНТ), «Бла-бла шоу»

(channel – Рен-ТВ)45.

“Comedy Сlub” (Камеди клаб, channel – ТНТ)46 is a newcomer, that is still on the surface, despite the criticism. This show is a peculiar social and cultural phenomenon: in the article describing it there is a tendency to express author’s attitude towards it quite emotionally, often with mockery or distaste. The article in Wikipedia, for example, mentions that the show abounds in “F words”, “pornography”, “swearing”, “vulgarity”, “toilet humor” etc.47 In his interview for the newspaper Труд “Labor” the КВН host Alexander Malyakov gives the following opinion: “У нас в КВН одно из немногих табу – на такое вот желание завоевать публику с помощью юмора ниже пояса…”48 (Масляков

2006). Or, in another interview, a famous Russian old school comedian says: “Я

понимаю, чтобы заработать, можно и штаны снять, но ведь публика хохочет до колик в желудке и заражает народ ощущением успеха, чего артисты сами сделать не могут!”49 (Жванецкий 2006) Even more emotional is the commentary by Aleksandr Kondrashov (a journalist, Литературная газета): “Создана атмосфера абсолютного счастья, когда можно от пуза пожрать, поржать и на всех, прошу прощения за использование лексики ТНТ, нас.ать” 50

(Кондрашов).

On the other hand, the younger generations of Russian viewer tend to support Comedy Club, because they bring novelty. G. Shagalieva, for example, in her semi-professional review describes Comedy Club as a commercial project, that justifies itself: in the context of Russian comedy television where the first place is shared by Petrosyan and Maslyakov (КВН), such phenomenon as Comedy Club is

45We do not consider here such genre as a comedy TV-series, which unlike TV-shows has a finite number of episodes, that are characterized by a rise and climax of the plot, unity of personages and directing.

46The Russian variants of spelling are «Комеди» or «Камеди» (the second one is closer to the actual pronunciation).

47http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8_%D0%9A%D0

%BB%D0%B0%D0%B1

48/In КВН one of the few taboos is this desire to win the public with the help of toilet humor./

49/I understand, that if you want money and the way you see to do it is to take off your pants, you do it, but look at the audience there – they roll with laughter and pass this idea of success onto the viewers, because the comedians cannot do it themselves!/

50/They create an atmosphere of absolute happiness, when you can stuff you face, yock and, I apologize for using ТНТ lexis, whiz-b.ng./

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long awaited, because if people want to see the second finger, they will see it (Шагалиева).

The history of Comedy Club starts on the 9 of April, 2005, when the show was first broadcasted on ТНТ. Among its founder are people who got famous when they participated in КВН (Igor Harlamov, Timur Batrutdinov, Garik Martirosyan, Pavel Dobrovolskiy, Artashes Sarkisyan, and others). Under the brand name of Comedy Club new teams work in nightclubs around Russia; the comedians are mainly recruited from student КВН teams. On the initiative of private TV-channels new shows were created (Убойная лига “Slaughter League”, Смех без правил

“Ultimate laughter” and other).

The name of the program – Comedy Club – refers to the popular type of American nightclubs, where the guests are entertained by comedians, actors, singers. The more there are stars among the guests and performers, the more popularity the club gains. Nevertheless, the Russian show has its own specifics, that rose from the desire of its founders to make it able to meet competition in the Russian media sphere. These factors considered, Comedy Club can be named a unique phenomenon on the Russian television of the 2000s.

Comedians’ (or, as they call themselves, residents) performances include monologues, skits and sketches, musical parodies. The team consists only of men, but they are all of different nationalities – Russian, Belorus, Armenian. Each of the comedians has his own style of writing a humorous text, that can contain jokes, narrative humor, altered quotations and sayings, puns, etc. The script is prepared beforehand. One or more artists can participate in one performance. Often the comedians create their own persona, that shows one stage in every (or almost every) episode (e.g. the duet Сестры Зайцевы and their personas – Roman and Tatyana). The performances are done in the interior of a night club. There are now special props for each performance, but some objects, like chairs or musical instruments can be found on stage. Across the stage at the small tables of four sit guests. In the corner three openly dressed girls dance. The interior of a night club

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suggests the classic variant of stand-up. Naturally, most jokes have sexual or aggressive connotations and break social taboos.

It is probable that the attempt, accomplished by Comedy Club to find the borders of allowable with the help of western media technologies, creates a social tension and, very likely, corrupts morals and tastes of the Russian viewers. On the other hand, stand-up as a format and a genre is a stage in the history of modern Russian television, that would be taken sooner or later, considering the capitalization of private channels, that copy those formats, that already proved their effectiveness among American and European viewers.

It is quite obvious, that the two shows are placed in different informational context, which makes them seldom appreciated by other cultures. It seems that the focus of our research is on quite an ambiguous matter, as the two shows first of all belong to different genres (variety/sketch show versus stand-up show). The second difficulty, which should also be kept in mind, is the chronological discrepancy: SNL has a long history, dating back to 1975, and Comedy Club is its later copy with certain specifics that its initiators inserted in its content and genre. Finally, if we go back to the words of D. Eshleman and K. Neuendorf about the two ways of humor production in mass media, we will see that the third difficulty lies in the difference of the type of communicative situations: SNL allows more opportunities for improvisations, although the audience (guests) is often more detached from the comedians and the narrative humor predominates; Comedy Club, on the opposite, creating a tense atmosphere of a free communication between the comedian and the guests, seldom allows improvisations. As we will see in the next paragraph, these conditions influence to a large extend the pragmatics of humor in the two shows.

§ 2.4. PRAGMATICS OF A HUMOROUS SITUATION IN THE STAND-UP SHOW “COMEDY CLUB”

AND THE SKETCH SHOW “SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE”

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A humorous situation is a type of communicative situation, where the addresser codes the message, so that it produces a humorous effect on the addressee, which does not always mean laughter or even a smile. It is enough that both communicants understand that the situation has a humorous mode. In a live communication the success depends on the participants’ sense of humor – the ability to produce and appreciate humor. In mass media such situation is created artificially – with the means of manipulation. Thus, it will also depend on the talent and skill of the manipulator – a host, a comedian, a director.

The pragmatics of a humorous situation in comedy TV-shows is conditioned by the following factors: type of broadcasting (live or recorded), type of stage (a big hall, a stage at a night club, absence of a high stage), presence of live guests, number of participants in an act (solo, duet, group), interferences of other genres (dance, circus, pantomime), content of a performance (typed of jokes), level of rehearsedness/improvisation, types of property employed (props, costumes, musical instruments).

The addresser of the humorous message is the comedian that stands up in front of an audience. As it was mentioned in the previous paragraph, the genre presupposes a live communication with the audience, but the television creates different rules, that limit it. For example, the residents of Comedy Club often address their speech to the audience witting in front of them, for example with the phrase alluding advice or recommendation “And remember…”: “И помните:

рыба любит, где глубже, а человек – где придется» (Общество ихтиофилов). It should be noted that such form of address does not entail any answer (as in the case of recommendations, prescriptions, instructions, etc.), which means that the comedian tries to prevent audience from answering – that gives him or her more control over the situation. Besides, the audience do not have any microphones. If they want to answer they will have to wait until a microphone is brought, and we know that in a humorous situation a swift reply is much more likely to induce laughter than a well-thought, but late remark.

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This principle can also be illustrated with another example. In the performances by Pavel Volya, who used to open every episode, he usually mocked at the guests and the situation when the guests wanted to talk back was very likely. But such improvisations, if they happened, were not a great success and never provoked much reaction in the studio. Ergo, the viewers were also unlikely to appreciate them. Then, does it increase the popularity of the show? R. Stebbins notes that “original presentations are more personal and direct, more unrestrained, than scripted presentations and material impersonating a social type or public figure” (Stebbins 1990: 4). In case of Pavel Volya improvisations could make his speech more open for a dialogue, more provoking, but on the other hand, more tense and risky, as under pressure to fail and make a good improvisation he might lose courage and the guests then would have better chances to give a funnier reply.

In the genre of stand-up the comedian provokes a humorous situation: he or she is the focus of attention and has to meet viewers’ expectations, as a failure in any stage of performance will bring it all down. Closeness with the audience, that is entitled the power to judge the comedian (their laughter creates an audio-visual map of adequate reaction to a joke), is a risk, that the comedian might fail to be funnier, i.e. more professional and thus deserving to stand up – over others. That is why it is characteristic of many residents of Comedy Club to sound more assertive, authoritative. Their manner may seem aggressive and fanciful, speech tempo is increased, the intonations bounce, gestures and mimics are too energetic51. All these means of expression, although they are not normal for a close daily communication, are quite due on stage and help to overcome the tension in case, if one or two jokes fail. They also pass this psycho-emotional tension on the guests and viewers and create a virtual competition with the comedian. And as the audience in studio does not practice “professional joking”, they are not likely to compete successfully.

51 This “assertive” manner of joking was quite new for the Post-perestroika television, and, probably, that is the reason why it was met with so much displeasure among critics, old school comedians, and conservative viewers.

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Another form of estranging oneself from the audience is a scenic persona: all the residents of Comedy Club either alter their name or add a nickname (e.g. Pavel Snowball Volya from Pavel Dobrovoloskiy). In a humorous situation it helps to depersonify the comedian as an individual and reduce the negative attitude, that rises in a guest, who has just been mocked at.

As Comedy Club, SNL is based on the ready-made well-rehearsed performances. The narrative humor dominates: the texts are built of a sequence of memorized or written-down jokes. The guests in the studio also participate in the final rehearsal – before the live broadcast, that is, when the broadcast starts, they have to react to the jokes, they hear for the second time, which eliminates novelty and reduces the humorous effect. The Wikipedia page, describing the history of SNL, mentions the case, when in the repeat the sketch was “replaced with the dress rehearsal version”, as “the dress version “worked better”52. The reason for this was that the comedian Debbie Downer and the invited star Ben Affleck improvised in the dress rehearsal, laughing at their presentation, and were serious, when performed during the live broadcast. Their improvisation is described with the phrase “break the character”, which consequently made them more individual, close to the audience and unrestrained. They used laughter as a non-verbal signal, but they did not change the text. And during the broadcast, the audience, who were already aware of the verbal content, accepted the “serious” version more coldly. Nevertheless, this case proves the dominance of a rehearsed version over improvisation in sketch shows. There is more freedom in choosing non-verbal signals (posture, mimics,) rather than in changing the text of a sketch.

As both shows seldom use pantomime, the text is the key of each performance. There can be several authors for each sketch or monologue, but the biggest responsibility lies on the one, who will perform it in front of cameras. Each comedian organizes the text according to his or her own ways. The difference lies in the number of characters (one – a monologue; two – a dialogue; more than two – a polylogue), preferred types of jokes (a short story, a narrative joke, a

52 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live

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conversational joke, bits, one-liners), improvisational potential (narrative jokes versus conversational jokes), genres (skit, sketch, monologue), style and means of expression (puns, paradoxes, oxymorons, metaphors, etc.).

A monologue is the most wide-spread genre in stand-up shows, as originally stand up allowed only one person speaking on stage (R. Stebbins in (Stebbins 1990) even refers all alternatives to quasi-stand-up). The specifics of humor in such a performance lies in the initial planning of all the elements, and so the jokes have a narrative character. Unlike conversational, jokes they are transmitted by a narrator, who demonstrates the will to joke, stands in the center of attention, and expects a humorous reaction from the audience. Such jokes are prepared beforehand and are estranged from the actual context of communication (Attardo 2001: 61-64).

Routine monologues are often composed from segments – jokes following each one in a logical or associative sequence, united by the topic, deixis, and means of expression. They contain repetitions of key-words, refer to common semantic fields, but each joke has an original element in its lexical and grammatical structure. Let us consider an example from the monologue by Sergey Bessmertniy “Russian Superman”:

“Русский супермэн может смотреть футбол и по выключенному

телевизору (1).

Из кучи постиранных носков русский супермен всегда может достать два одинаковых (2).

Русский супермэн пил березовый сок и высосал березу (3)” (Бессмертный о русском супермэне).

Here each segment has a repetition of the word group “Russian superman” (русский супермэн), but in the first and the third segments it stands as the subject and opens the sentence, in the second the adverbial modifier and the subject are inverted. The predicate may be in the present or past tense. The segments are united by the realia of modern Russian domestic life, but each time they are placed in an unusual context (for example, the inverted semantics in the quotation from

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