exodus I haven’t seen Joshimental (the name of which already sure does show where they’re coming from), but I’ll give it a shot.
I’m not going to pretend there isn’t a big ol’ dollop of casual misogyny behind the very premise. But you’ve watched enough Documental that I know there’s something about the format you find compelling in spite of the content - and you seem to wish it was funnier… this is exactly that. (Apart from the fact that it’s so much funnier, you will probably enjoy seeing how the contestants play off the professional and societal expectations of them as women.)
◉◉maru I suspect Stand-up is a very American concept – possibly even more specifically a Jewish-American concept given its origins and the huge influence of Lenny Bruce (a Long Island jewish comedian) on this style of comedy.
I don’t know if the Jewish influence has any importance – maybe this style of comedy is inherited from European Jewish ghettos with less access to material stage and props? – but one would understand why this type of comedy did not have a strong foothold in Europe in the middle of the 20th Century…
Standup comedy as we know it is definitely an anglophone concept and absolutely American in origin. British stage comedy followed a similar trajectory from the vaudevillesque ‘music halls’ to the proto-standup of the mid 20th century, but Lenny Bruce was like a bomb going off and planted the seeds for the development of a British take on the modern American style of standup. The Jewish influence is vital to the development of standup as an artform but I don’t know that it can really be traced back to the ‘old world’, I think it’s something that could only come out of an interaction of immigrant and anglo culture in the ‘new world’. I’d make a similar argument about the Black influence on standup, with particular reference to Dick Gregory, who I think ought to be treated with the same reverence and awe as Bruce.