Sock & Buskin
There are podcasts of every shape and size, for every purpose and priority a person could have. The huge variety of genres can appeal from children up to old folks. From educational, to entertainment, from musicals, to weekly news, there is something for everybody. One thing podcasts aren’t often, is polarizing. Using just an audio medium, one would think it quite difficult to find a way to polarize an audience. After all, podcasts (with the exception of news related ones) are usually something people listen to to get them through their day or uplift their spirits. However, the podcast Small Town Murder found a way to upset people.
Small Town Murder is a comedy podcast that is primarily driven by heavy and serious topics, usually murder. Hosted by two comedians, James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman, the show follows stories of murder and lies in small towns, all the while laughing and joking through it. Pietragallo, who does the majority of the research for each week, artfully weaves the tale of the murder to the listener, making it seem more like a story than a retelling of a horrific tragedy. He draws you in, and like a bad car accident, you find yourself not wanting to look away. Whisman provides as a pacer for the listener, often getting the podcast off track by telling jokes or laughing at some of the people in the story.
Wait- laughing at the people in the story? That’s messed up! People are getting horrifically murdered! No wonder they polarize people.
Now, hang on. They may laugh at the some of the people in the story, but never the victim. However, everyone else is up for grabs, like the murderer and the frequently bumbling police force. They make it explicitly clear at the beginning of every podcast, a disclaimer if you will, that if the listener doesn’t think that comedy and tragedy should go together then that they should stop listening now. How’s that for polarizing? Before the podcast has even begun they are telling people not to listen. However, their following only grows.
The comedians’ first episode dropped January 18th 2017 and since then, they have remained on the higher end of the iTunes rating charts. Staying in the top of the charts is important for a podcast’s success, especially on iTunes. It can determine what kind of sponsors the podcast will get. With 13,000 5 star ratings, it doesn’t look like they’ll be moving or dropping in the ranks anytime soon.
The two comedians felt it necessary to put a disclaimer at the beginning to ward off people who do not think true crime and comedy go together. Mixing comedy with these horrific crimes can be seen in bad taste, and upset people, but one of the hosts has a personal connection with this kind of coping. When Pietragallo was a kid his grandmother was robbed and murdered. She had her throat slit from the attacker. While at her funeral, Pietragallo recalls, his grandmother was wearing a pearl necklace. He pointed it out to his cousin and whispered, “If she had been wearing that at the time, none of us would be here right now.” This inappropriate form of comedy helped him cope and deal with his grandmother’s violent and unhappy passing he claims. By doing this podcast, he hopes others will see the value of using comedy to heal.
Not everyone can relate to the podcast telling of murder and homicide though, as not everyone has been affected by these things in their life. According to Rasmussen Reports, 25% of Americans know someone who was murdered, but that still leaves a vast majority that have never known murder on a close level. But the one thing no one can escape? Death. Almost everyone knows someone who has passed away naturally or by accident in their lives. Both of these can be just as traumatizing as a horrific murder, based on the circumstances and how the affected persons deal with coping. Death affects everyone differently, for some it’s easy to accept that this is a natural process in life and there is no avoiding it, others turn to religion. However, there is some that maybe can’t cope with the fact that someone they love is gone forever, and don’t know how to move on. Well, I think podcasts such as these, and the idea that comedy and tragedy are essential together could help.
However, most of their harshest criticism doesn’t come from those who think true crime and comedy don’t go together (they must’ve listened to the disclaimer and unsubscribed), it comes from people who take offence to their riffing on small towns. At the beginning of every episode they go through statistics of the towns the murder will be happening in, if only to gain some more insight as to why this might’ve happened here in the first place. After a while, the listener will catch on to the trends such as, predominantly white, usually lower class and very religious. Unfortunately, a small town is not equipped very well police and resource wise to deal with these intense and disturbing crimes, and often their fumbling will result in the murdered almost getting free. Whatever state the town’s in, they’re going to focus on the stereotype and run with it. In an episode based on Eufaula, Oklahoma, the hosts joked about how flat and boring Oklahoma is, saying that if you think you see any type of hill or landscape in the distance, it’s just a mirage. They also joked about how people having nothing to do there but make meth labs. This is not even close to the most offensive thing they talk about on the show, yet it seems to bother people the most.
So what does it mean for the rest of us that keep on listening after the disclaimer? Do we all truly believe there is a place for comedy in situations such as these? Where is the line to cross? Is there even a line anymore?
According to two new studies from the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory, there isn’t one. Their studies found that the most effective form of dealing with tragedy is comedy, not solemnity. The use of jokes creates distance between the subject and the upsetting thing, but doesn’t change the picture. Like with Pietragallo earlier, at his grandmother’s funeral he made a quip about her wearing a necklace, right at her casket. This allowed him to distance himself from the horrifying scene at hand and allow him to laugh, all the while still accepting and knowing that his grandmother was murdered.
Ricky Gervais in his recent stand up special, Humanity (which is now on Netflix), had a segment at the end of his show where he addressed the audience candidly and talked about dark humor. He tells the story of how his brother Bob lied to the preacher for his mother’s funeral, and the preacher ended up saying all kinds of lies about her. Gervais recalled: “It was my older brother, Bob, it was him who I first saw making these dark jokes, right in the bad situation, as things were happening. People were laughing. I realized, “He’s healing them.” That’s what comedy’s for, what humor’s for. It gets us over bad stuff. Right?” Gervais’s comedy special up until that point attacked every kind of person and subject no holds barred, but the audience was laughing through it all. After all, it feels better to laugh about something than to cry or be upset. This is how Gervais traverses through life and it is something we could all start adapting. As Gervais said, “We’re all going to die, so we should have a laugh. If you can laugh in the face of adversity, you’re bullet-proof.”
