This is a strange story, but let’s all approach it with an open mind, OK? OK. Because sometimes things just don’t go the way you think they’re going to go. Sometimes, for instance, you get cornered at a party, or at a dinner with some people you kind of know, and you’re stuck in a conversation with those people, who are smart and they say witty things, but slowly you realize everyone is saying diverging smart things and it’s hard following what anyone is talking about and trying to say, and you’re not the only one who feels that way — the people saying those things are clearly thinking the same thing.
Know what I mean?
At last you step away and ask: What was that about?
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Friday night I went to a “Forum Talk” at the Obama Presidential Center, which is planned to be a free ongoing conversation series in its sumptuous Elie Wiesel Auditorium. Seemed like a good thing to attend, what with fall coming, the season of folks on stage across Chicago talking and talking. If you’ve ever been to a panel discussion, you know: They get easily sidetracked, by an aimless audience question that’s a manifesto, not a question at all; by someone with a bone to pick on an unrelated topic; by someone with nothing to say. Insight on demand is tougher than it sounds.
The panel was titled “Learning Democracy Through Laughter,” and it’s a promising idea: “What can comedy teach us about democracy?” asked the online description. And the participants were well chosen: Bill Nye “the Science Guy”; Sophie Shrand, host of the education series “Science with Sophie” and self-described science comedian; and lastly, Keegan-Michael Key, Second City alum and half of “Key & Peele,” on which he famously played Luther, Barack Obama’s fiery “anger translator.” Lynn Ahrens, who wrote many of the American history shorts for “Schoolhouse Rock” (as well as the stage musicals “Ragtime” and “Seussical”) delivered a (video) introduction. Plus, as Tina Tchen, the moderator and executive director of programs for the Obama Foundation, pointed out, Aug. 28 was the 12th anniversary of that infamous day Obama wore a tan suit.
Comedy!
Problem is, Key’s flight was canceled because of a storm (he sent a video apology), and so the balance was blown and the focus became two TV science hosts who are kinda funny, attempting to get on a handle on what the discussion was supposed to be about.
Why even write about this?
Because we’ve all been there, even if it wasn’t in front of an audience, struggling for footing.
“Modeling yourself failing,” not a bad thing to do, Shrand offered.
“I’ve put in the hours on that,” Nye agreed.
“But when we fail, that’s how we learn things,” Shrand said. “If everything went right all of the time, we wouldn’t learn anything, and also it would make for really boring television.”
Which reminded Nye: “So there are a lot of versions of this — I’m so old — you have a paint-thinner can, turpentine can, you boil a little bit of water in it, take it off the burner, close it up, put it in ice water — the can is crushed like a giant’s fist. Because the water vapor …” And so forth. But in Seattle, he once found an oil drum: “A freaking oil drum! A big shipyard there, you buy a reconditioned oil drum, they claim there’s nothing flammable in it, boil your water — you know that turkey thing in hot oil on Thanksgiving? OK, take the thing off and it’s hot and put the bung in the bunghole — real word, wine merchants know — and do it with the bung wrench, then I thought it would be so great to spray it with a fire extinguisher and then, WA-WOSSHH! But you know what? Nothing freaking happened, and that was on live television. Sucks. But I figured it out. Next time I did it with a kiddie pool, ice water, you seal it, stay back …”
“Don’t try this at home,” Tchen said.
“No! Try this at home!” Nye said. “Do dangerous stuff! But be careful!”
Again, this in front of a packed house, two-thirds of the audience school teachers.
The Obama Center, about two months after opening, is developing a rhythm, a hum. Lines at the bronze Michelle and Barack Obama welcoming statue. Independent T-shirt vendors and BBQ pit masters across the street. Old friends talking over coffee in the courtyard. Programming, though, is still trickling in; I’m told it’ll get robust in the fall, that staff has a million ideas but nothing ready to be announced. May I suggest starting with a panel titled “Learning Democracy Through Laughter”? Ask, is there a pro-government comedy? A line between satire and protest? Obama himself once slayed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, mocking Donald Trump’s birth certificate claims, with a visibly embarrassed Trump present — is there such a thing as a comedy of unintended consequences? Screen the 1999 comedy “Election” and discuss. Possibilities, endless.
Instead, some topics mentioned included lawyers, crazy people, passion, Mark Twain, infectious disease. Comedy was slipped in, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.
Shrand: “When you laugh, your cortisol, your stress hormones, go down. Lower adrenaline. Your feel-good hormones go up. Your dopamine, serotonin, your oxytocin goes up — the bonding chemical responsible for trust.”
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Nye: “Huge fan.”
He played the curmudgeon, she played the friendly foil. “The reason laughter is so useful is because of the science but also we feel it in our bodies. We have felt those moments when we’re having an amazing belly laugh with friends in a living room, you’re crying laughing — it’s in a trusted space. The key here is this is comedy that is inclusive, and when we’re laughing together. When it’s laughing at somebody, this does not work.”
“So you’re saying punch up, not down,” Nye said.
“Bill, tell us what punching up means,” Shrand said.
“When you make fun of your boss, that’s funny, because he or she is an idiot,” Nye said.
“We punch up at higher status and call it satire,” she said, “we punch down and call it being a jerk. My particular type of comedy is more, what if we don’t punch at all?”
“Whoa!” Nye said, not meaning it.
Tchen, with her hands full by now, asked them to explain, at last, “OK, what’s the relationship between science and democracy — and how do we use laughter to teach democracy?”
Nye pulled out his small pocket copy of the United States Constitution and read, this establishes Congress; it guarantees elections. He paused for effect. (“OK, we’re a 501c3 here,” Tchen noted.) And it also establishes a post office, he continued. And also, “‘Congress is to promote the progress of science …’ Say what you will about (the framers), that is some insightful insight! … Science and the process of democracy are intimately related in that both involve change.” Eventually, thankfully, as with any awkward and meandering conversation, someone enters the fray to rescue you, and in this case, that role was played by the audience, who began asking questions, smart ones, not about comedy but YouTube science influencers and how much AI should be in a science classroom.
“Oh, exclusively,” Nye joked.
And when it was over at last, he stood and his gray suit had bunched while he was sitting, so his pants had risen high up his legs and the long expanse of his grey socks were exposed.
He mugged.
Laughter!