Deadpan

Deadpan, dry humour, or dry-wit humour[1] is the deliberate display of emotional neutrality or no emotion, commonly as a form of comedic delivery to contrast with the ridiculousness of the subject matter. The delivery is meant to be blunt, ironic, laconic, or apparently unintentional.

"Deadface" redirects here. For the electrical engineering technique, see Deadfacing.

Etymology

The term deadpan first emerged as an adjective or adverb in the 1920s, as a compound word combining "dead" and "pan" (a slang term for the face). The oldest usage recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary comes from The New York Times (1928), which defines the term as "playing a role with expressionless face".[2] An example of this usage is in a scene from the 1934 film The Gay Bride in which a gangster tells a man on the other end of a phone conversation to "give it a dead pan" (with the emphasis on "pan"), so that the man does not inadvertently alert anyone else in the room as to the importance of what the gangster is about to say. The usage of deadpan as a verb ("to speak, act, or utter in a deadpan manner; to maintain a dead pan") is recorded at least as far back as 1942.[2]

Examples
See also: List of deadpan comedians
Rat Pack comedian Joey Bishop, noted for his deadpan style, with Jennie and Terrie Frankel (Doublemint Twins), Sig Sakowitz, Tony Diamond, Sara Sue, Tippi Hedren and Mel Bishop

Early in his vaudeville days, Buster Keaton developed his deadpan expression. Keaton realized that audiences responded better to his stony expression than when he smiled, and he carried this style into his silent film career.[3] The 1928 Vitaphone short film The Beau Brummels, with vaudeville comics Al Shaw and Sam Lee, was performed entirely in deadpan.[4] The 1980 film Airplane! was performed almost entirely in deadpan.[5]

Many popular American sitcoms use deadpan expressions to deliver dry humor, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development, and My Name Is Earl. More recent examples are Andre Braugher as Captain Raymond Holt from the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing in Friends, Aubrey Plaza as April Ludgate in Parks and Recreation, Jennette McCurdy as Sam Puckett in iCarly, and Louis C.K. in Louie. Another example is the comedy of Steven Wright.[6]

Deadpan delivery runs throughout British humour.[7] John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers and Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder in Blackadder are two notable exponents of dry, sarcastic wit from television sitcoms. The comedy troupe Monty Python include it in their work, such as "The Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch.[8] In his various roles Ricky Gervais often draws humour from an exasperated sigh.[9] For his deadpan delivery Peter Sellers received a BAFTA for Best Actor for I'm All Right Jack (1959). While in his various guises such as Ali G and Borat, the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen interacts with unsuspecting subjects not realising they've been set up for self-revealing ridicule; on this The Observer states, "his career has been built on winding people up, while keeping a deadpan face."[10] Spice Girls member Victoria Beckham, is known for her dry wit.[11]

Dry humor is often confused with highbrow or egghead humor, because the humor in dry humor does not exist in the words or delivery. Instead, the listener must look for humor in the contradiction between words, delivery and context. Failure to include the context or to identify the contradiction results in the listener finding the dry humor unfunny. However, the term "deadpan" itself actually refers only to the method of delivery.

See also

References
  1. Rishel, Mary Ann (2002). Writing humor. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 166. ISBN 0-8143-2959-4.
  2. Oxford English Dictionary. "dead-pan, adj., n., adv., and v." Second edition, 1989; online version December 2011. accessed 17 February 2012. First published in A Supplement to the OED I, 1972
  3. "Deadpan: the comedy of Buster Keaton". Telescope. CBC.ca. 17 April 1964. Archived from the original on 2016-01-01. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  4. Knipfel, Jim (29 May 2015). "Shaw and Lee: Vaudeville's Loony Futurists". OZY. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  5. Dudek, Duane. "25 years and still laughing; Airplane!' maintains its cruising". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Archived from the original on 30 April 2008. Retrieved 23 February 2009.
  6. Thomas, E.C. (2014). The Everything Big Book of Jokes: Hundreds of the Shortest, Longest, Silliest, Smartest, Most Hilarious Jokes You've Never Heard!. Adams Media. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-4405-7698-0. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  7. Andy Bloxham (10 Mar 2008). British humour 'dictated by genetics', Daily Telegraph. Accessed 31 July 2019
  8. "John Cleese and Mick Jagger are wrong – Monty Python's silly walks are still hilarious". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  9. "The king of deadpan". The Irish News. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
  10. "Sacha Baron Cohen: Our man from Kazakhstan". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
  11. "The Spice Girls: cake fights and catty talk – what could be better?". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
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