Hacks, clichés, and how you can learn from stuff you hate
Material that makes you recoil teaches you what you do like and want to do onstage.
Just watched/enjoyed Attack of the Hollywood Clichés! on Netflix. It’s all about the hack tropes you see over and over again in films. Here’s a review:
Attack of the Hollywood Clichés! managed to cover just about every cinematic chestnut there is, from the Meet Cute and Manic Pixie Dream Girl to Dead Man Walking (never be the character two days from retirement, and certainly don’t reflect on your love and aspirations for your young family) via the likes of the Jump Scare, the Spit-take and Montage Mode.
Reminds me of Andy Kindler’s “The Hack’s Handbook.”
In 1991, Andy Kindler wrote an article for an issue of The National Lampoon which centered on the impending demise of the comedy boom. It was called “The Hack’s Handbook.” The piece was a compendium of every cliche that the boom had dragged up — from inane observations to celebrity gags to “I’m half (ethnicity) and half (ethnicity), so (racist punchline)” jokes.
Even though it’s old, it’s still a good read – and many of the hack premises mentioned are ones you still hear today.
It’s a big reason why newer comics should consume as much standup as possible. You need to know what the clichés are and when you’re covering a topic that’s already been beaten to death. You may think you have a fresh take on dating apps, Joe Biden, or the NYC subway announcements, but…
Another reason to focus on hack topics, clichés, and other material that makes you recoil is it helps you realize what you do like and want to do onstage. Author George Saunders offers a similar p.o.v. when discussing the value of reading bad stories:
We can grow and learn by reading, not only stories that don’t speak to us, but plain old bad stories. We can read along until the sense of badness first hits us and then ask ourselves why. What constituted “badness?” To what are we reacting? We can do some thought-experimentation: Could there have been a way to tell that part of the story that would have been….less bad? What was the fatal error? The moment when the writer first started to lose us? What quality was the writer manifesting in that moment, to which we are reacting/feeling averse?
When we read like this, we get a nice glimpse into our own esthetic system – what we value, what we feel averse to.
There’s nothing like a strong reaction to tell us what we believe.
Next time there’s a comic you hate, ask yourself what is that you hate about their act? Then steer your own act in the opposite direction.
And don’t be afraid to follow your own internal compass instead of what you think the audience wants. That’s what separates an artist from a hack. Here’s an excerpt from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield:
“A hack is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for. The hack condescends to his audience. He thinks he’s superior to them. The truth is, he’s scared to death of them or, more accurately, scared of being authentic in front of them, scared of writing what he really feels or believes, what he himself thinks is interesting.”
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thanks for sharing, matt!
i like this sentiment a lot:
"When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart."