Iliza shlesinger - The economy melts down, and stand-up comics joke

The banking crisis. Rising unemployment. Foreclosures. Comedians call it material.

Sharing the pain

It's no secret to professional comedians, this release, the pithy vocalization of common anxiety, can actually make the recession a comedic gold mine. According to Bill Burr, a comic admired by his peers for an uncompromising approach, "It's probably one of the easiest subjects ever because we're all in the same sinking boat."

Even invoking an audience's own shortcomings in the erstwhile Age of Excess can pay off. A much-forwarded interview with Conan O'Brien from October has earned comedian Louis C.K. voice-of-a-generation status on the Internet for calling out "the Crappiest Generation" and its discontent with the marvels of modern life: "Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going, 'Oh my God! Wow! You're sitting on a chair -- in the sky.' "

As he preps for his Friday night show in Los Angeles at the Wiltern, C.K. says he feels no qualms about mining the pain for humor. "The more emotional and more negative a thing is in a person's life, the more reason to travel to that place and find something funny." To him, brutally honest soul-searching goes arm in arm with self-deprecating laughter:

"I'm including myself in the Crappiest Generation. I think what I'm trying to say is something positive. Life is about surviving failure, having a tough knock, and coming back stronger. . . . In a year, maybe we're not going to be the fattest people in the world anymore. Is that so bad?"

Burr agrees that you can make the dreariest, most self-damning material funny, if you tell the truth from an authentic perspective. "I do it from my point of view, from the boat I'm sitting in. I don't like to be lectured to -- if I was going to make fun of what a scam mortgages are . . . I make fun of the ignorance I had going into the mortgage, which is, I bought an apartment because I heard in a bar it was a good thing to do."

A ring of truth

For him, the key is tackling serious material honestly while not taking himself too seriously: "You know that guy who rants in the bar and you're laughing because he kind of makes sense? That's who I am."

This seems to be the understanding comics have that lets them lead audiences into the dark parts of life and return with laughter. Iliza Shlesinger, whose 2008 victory in NBC's "Last Comic Standing" catapulted her to headlining status, knows the deal. "You should only stay away from a topic if it's not going to be funny," she says. "As a comic, your priority is to make people laugh while staying true to your views."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-comicrelief25-2009mar25,0,2168620.story