My oh my, what a brilliant wit!
Fran Lebowitz (described by Netflix as a "wry writer, humorist, and raconteur") won 'Class Wit' in high school, and that's about the most prophetic thing I've heard all day. She is 1,000% hilarious. Reminds me of Will Rogers or Mark Twain, though Lawrence Epstein's The Haunted Smile: The Story Of Jewish Comedians In America (Psychology Today, Jan-Feb, 2002) leads me down an entirely different yet equally enjoyable spiderhole, to wit:
After Jews began to migrate to America in large numbers, they, like other minority groups, found it difficult to gain mainstream acceptance and obtain upward mobility (as Lenny Bruce lampooned, "He was charming. ... They said, 'C'mon! Let's go watch the Jew be charming!'"). The newly-developing entertainment industry, combined with the Jewish humor tradition, provided a potential route for Jews to succeed. One of the first successful radio "sitcoms", The Goldbergs, featured a Jewish family. As radio and television matured, many of its most famous comedians, including Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, George Burns, Eddie Cantor, Jack Carter, Henny Youngman, Milton Berle, and Jerry Lewis were Jewish. The Jewish comedy tradition continues today, with Jewish humor much entwined with that of mainstream humor, as comedies like Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Woody Allen films indicate.
Beginning with vaudeville, and continuing through radio, stand-up comedy, film, and television, a disproportionately high percentage of American, German, and Russian comedians have been Jewish. Time estimated in 1978 that 80% of professional American comics were Jewish. Jewish humor, while diverse, favors wordplay, irony, and satire, and its themes are highly anti-authoritarian, mocking religious and secular life alike. Sigmund Freud considered Jewish humor unique in that its humor is primarily derived from mocking of the in-group (Jews) rather than the "other". However, rather than simply being self-deprecating, it also contains a dialectical element of self-praise, which works in the opposite direction.
Do check Fran out; you'll be glad you did!
p.s. In her own special, Sweet & Salty, Fortune Feimster goes on a hilarious rant about 1980s shoulder pads. Given Fran's ENORMOUS shoulder pads, I'd pay top dollar to see these two gals bump into one another.
p.p.s. Fran's NYC apartment. At least four rooms of floor-to-ceiling books. To die!
