Post-intellectualism: An introduction
Post-intellectualism is not anti-intellectual. As writers, directors and actors we do not reject the importance of past works, rational thought and rigor. However, we are skeptical that the rational and the intellect form the foundation of comedy. We reject Moliere’s insistence that comedy emerges out of rational incongruency, on the part of the characters, w
hich highlight reality. Furthermore, we reject the reliance on comedic history, reference and allusion as the basis of comedy. Post- intellectualism sees the intellectualization of comedy and the attempts to rationalize its structure as a distraction from the immediate and material roots of comedy. Post-intellectualism is more than a negative comedic ideology. It identifies the roots of comedy as the limitations of structure and makes those roots present through the embracement of those limitations. Rather than focusing on reference, where the only available punch-line must be derived from irony, post-intellectualism prioritizes the form of the joke itself, as it is the form from which existing narratives can be determined. It is the decision, consciously or not, of post-intellectual characters to embrace a narrative outside of their own self-understanding that elevates their sense of purpose, with the punch-line being that they themselves do not actually change, as the post-intellectual character is not able to change themselves, yet they change those around them. Through foregoing the Gen-X product of Apatowian urgency as ironic salvation, post-intellectualism has the privilege of reaching for the low-hanging fruit if it is comedically honest. Through the cross-generational reflection of 9/11 and the Great Recession, our current cultural-form reveals great humor in the immediacy of the dick joke and variations there of. From a masculine-cultural form, these events give rise to the fundamental dick jokes who’s is bigger, who can p**s farther, the embarrassment of being pantsed and the revelation and denial of impotence. The dick joke as such indicates not just the physical but the psychological, warranted and otherwise, associated with it. This is not to say that the post-intellectual’s approach to comedy is centered on the dick, rather its focus lies within its accepted absurdity-as-normality. As a response to Apatowian thinkers who reserve a faux-elevated space for women in comedy as the face of the rational, post-intellectualism offers no clear rationality towards the absurdity of our cultural narratives.
