World policy group turns to comedy to make sense of world
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September 10, 2010
by Carl Unegbu, ComedyBeat
NEW YORK - Everywhere you go these days, comedy is fast becoming the big game in town and on the evening of Monday September 13, the World Policy Institute (WPI), one of America’s leading global policy think tanks, will be getting aboard the comedy bandwagon when it hosts what it calls a special evening of international stand-up comedy in New York City. The event, entitled “It’s a Funny World” will be happening at the Comix Comedy Club and will feature not only highly successful stand-up comedians but also some amateur comedians whose day jobs seem a world away from stand-up comedy.
The line-up of comedians includes event emcee Christian Finnegan, a regular on Comedy Central who has also appeared on shows like The Today Show; The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as well as The Chappelle Show. Others are Kevin Bleyer, an Emmy Award-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Ian Bremmer, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute and the president of what he calls a political science company, the Eurasia Group; Ophira Eisenberg, a comedy writer and veteran stand-up comic who was recognized as one of the Top 10 Comics by New York Magazine; and Robert A. George, a conservative political commentator and an editorial writer for the New York Post who moonlights as a stand-up comic.
The WPI sees comedy as a good way of advancing its world policy goals and setting itself apart from other think tanks. “The world could use a little levity more often than not,” said Michele Wucker, executive director of the WPI. “One of WPI’s goals is to make international policy issues more accessible and what warms people up more than laughing?” Wucker said, adding that what makes her Institute stand out from other think tanks is that they care about “connecting with people outside the world of wonks.”
Panelist Ian Bremmer agrees. Bremmer, a great admirer of the late political satirist and comic legend George Carlin, said that much of the stuff the think tank community deals with such as deficits, climate change, and nuclear proliferation are rather depressing and could use some comedy. “We need to leaven this with some humor and give people a way to access that humor and get people to understand the absurdity of these situations.” Bremmer says he prefers to do things differently from many of his colleagues in the policy community who talk to the same people inside the beltway and at forums like Davos [World Economic Forum]and that he considers humor as a way to bring the absurdities of many of global issues home to people.
Organizers have to strike the right balance between humor and an appropriate somberness and approach human tragedy with the sensitivity it merits. But the ability to laugh is itself a basic human survival skill, and the organizers believe that have found the right approach. The recent earthquake tragedy in Haiti played some role both in nudging the WPI to make the attempt with Comix.
Wucker said she was a guest at a Haitian benefit organized by Comix when the comedy club’s PR chief Kambri Crews (who is married to comedian Christian Finnegan), suggested the idea to her during their conversations and the idea caught on with her and Comix emerged as the easy choice for a host.
If things go over well with the audience at WPI’s debut in comedy, more comedy nights can be expected in the future. “We hope this will be the first of many,” said Wucker. “But we’ll let the audience be the judge of that.” The same wait- and- see attitude goes for Bremmer who won’t hesitate to do it again if all goes well. “Let’s see how it goes on Monday.” (The event starts at 7 p.m. and lasts through 8:30 p.m.)
As the stage is set for the global policy elites to test the comedy waters, it would be interesting to see if political satire can secure a steady seat on the policy wagon.