Are Atheists Better Comedians for Their Irreverence? | Jim Gaffigan | Big Think

Most of my friends are atheists, I would say. And so being a self-identified Christian is so loaded in my field of standup comedy, which has such a contrarian spirit. Look, the Catholic Church has done horrible things. Horrible things. You know, sexism, bigotry, just monstrous things. But so has the United States of America. I mean, genocide, enslaving people. But I’m still American, and I feel a sense of pride in that. I’m not apologetic. Like when I travel internationally, and if people are negative towards Americans, I get angry. I get annoyed.

So for me, it’s not about the participants in this belief system that I share. It’s what the belief system provides me. The concept of mercy is very appealing to me. The concept that there is something greater than me that is forgiving is very important to me. But being a comedian – it’s such a strange path being a comedian because I’m also a clean comedian. I’m considered a clean comedian. Which is a very backhanded compliment.

Comedians don’t want any adjective. They don’t want to be a female comedian. They don’t want to be a black comedian. They don’t want to be a gay comedian. They want to be a comedian. The only adjective that a comedian wants is funny. Like if you’re attractive, you don’t want to be like, a funny good looking comedian. They just want funny. And so being a clean comedian is, it’s weird because it’s almost kind of like an asterisk. It’s like, yeah, yeah, you can be a funny clean comedian.

Comedy has such a rich kind of irreverent fighting censorship mentality. So being clean, you know, Mark Twain was clean. George Carlin was clean before he did the seven words you can’t say, right? So clean is not a great adjective. But that being said, from a historical standpoint, most comedians were clean. There were one or two that – there was Lenny Bruce, but the rest of, a majority of them – not a majority, but I would say a great portion of them were clean.

So, I did an interview a year ago with Larry King, who’s now 109 years old. And he told me the interesting thing is he used to ask comedians, "Why are you dirty?" That was the question he would ask them. And now he asks, "Why are you clean?" I like to think that George Carlin and Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor broke all these barriers so that I could talk about mini muffins.

Comedians do the type of comedy they’re going to do whether it’s irreverent, obnoxious, yelling, or quiet. They do the type of comedy they’re going to do, and then people give credit or criticism to it. So, in other words, people will go, "That person is so brave." Are they brave, or that’s the type of comedy we’re going to do anyway? So people will say, "Thank you for being clean." I’m like, that’s just how it comes out. I’m not sitting there, you know, people sometimes will say, "Why are you a clean comedian?" And I say, "Because Jesus told me." It makes no sense. It’s what works for me.

So what works for Chris Rock and Louis Black and Dave Chappelle is what they do. Now clean and irreverent and filthy are these strange kind of adjectives. That’s not to say that individually comedians aren’t challenging themselves. But challenging yourself is not, "I’m not going to curse," or "I am going to curse." You challenge yourself in being more honest and being more authentic, or talking about an issue in a creative way.

So that’s why you’ll see some people just preaching these social issues as a comedian. And in my opinion, yeah, those are important social issues. But it’s not funny. But if you can craft it in a funny way, in a more subtle way where you’re reflecting on how all human beings and maybe addressing homophobia is much more potent. But again, like I said, I think comedians just do what they’re going to do.

I’m from a small town in Indiana. I curse every day, but I’m not the type of person that’s going to stand in front of 1800 people and discuss the love life that I have with my wife or bury my wife on stage. It’s just not my mentality. So anyway, that’s my rant on that...