The Essentially-Existential Schlemiel

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Shnorrer, the Nebbish, and the Schlemiel

Abstract

Reflecting on the well-known joke about the schlemiel, the schlimazel, and the nudnik, Ruth Wisse argues that while the schlimazel’s comedy is “situational” the schlemiel’s comedy is “essential” and “existential.” Taking these two terms together, we can see that Wisse is suggesting that this comic figure is “essentially existential.” But what does this mean? Unfortunately, Wisse’s explanation doesn’t go far enough to clarify. In my talk, I will define and contrast the “existential schlemiel” from what Daniel Itzkovitz calls the “new schlemiel.” The point of this distinction is to help us better understand what is at stake with the schlemiel of the past and the schlemiel today. The argument for this distinction will draw on a historical understanding of the comic character - vis-à-vis the Yiddish Schlemiel, the post-Holocaust American schlemiel, and the American post-assimilation schlemiel – and an existential reading of this character. This latter reading reflects on 1) what existential structure remains in the wake of history; 2) on how existentiality can be conveyed through comedy; and 3) how the existential is relational and may challenge the political. The last aspect is the most important since both Wisse and Hannah Arendt see the character’s political nature as limited to a specific historical time and both think it’s time runs or should run out at some point. Wisse suggested, in the early 1970s, that the schlemiel’s “balanced ironies” were no longer necessary since they were, literally, not good for democracy. Four years following the publication of her book, Woody Allen’s Annie Hall proved her wrong. It launched a whole wave of books and films that celebrated the balanced ironies (balancing hope and cynicism) of the schlemiel. This new wave, which is still riding itself out, today, gave Americans some sense of how the schlemiel’s existentiality can provide a comic buffer against a world that is too self-certain. Taking films, stand-up comedy, and literature in mind - as well as schlemiel theories - my talk will address both the schlemiel’s historical and existential dimensions and argue that the comic tension between hope and cynicism is maintained, today.

author

• Menachem Feuer, York University