Highlights From JFL’s First Virtual Fest: An Examination of Variety’s Top Ten 2020
Variety’s Top 10 Comics to Watch is such a beloved and important event in comedy, so this year we covered it twice, with two great approaches. Marty Younge’s coverage highlights all ten picks this year, and how aptly the list reflects the entire industry. Sara Dahms covered her picks for the three standout performers, on a list of incredible standouts in the industry. If you love comedy and love discovering who’s next to break big, you’ll want to read them both!
Variety Reimagines It’s 10 Comics to Watch Event With Digital Live Stream
What makes Just for Laughs so much more than a comedy festival, is the industry component know as ComedyPro. Taking place in the daylight hours the series of panels, podcast recordings and networking events feature the top talent preforming on the festival in mediums not only meant to entertain but to educate. Attendees usually pay 500 dollars for a pass to this event.
Comedy School was online this year. And it was free.
The center piece of ComedyPro is always Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch events: a panel discussion, an industry networking cocktail party and a performance by the ten young comedian’s that Variety deems poised to break out into mainstream.
To be on this list is to be judged and scrutinized to be made the topic of conversation to have hundreds of people looking for any reason to disagree with the selection. A very serious energy shadows these talented people during the days of the ComedyPro. This is because very few people make it big in comedy without first joining this prestigious list: John Mulaney, Tiffany Haddish, Amy Schumer. Sam Jay, Ricky Valez are a few alums.
The 2020 Comedy Pro was reimagined out of necessity, and rather then attempt to declare a winner to a competition with no clear parameters, I’ve looked at the participants of this year’s list as delegates from their respective corners of the comedic cultural landscape.
This reviewer sees the breakdown as such.
Larger then life critical reflectors.
Caleb Hearon and Megan Stalter represent a style of comedy emerging that is spilling over with character driven bluntness with low production values and even less personal boundaries. Both use Twitter as their weapon of choice. Hearon uses social media to bring the world snack size sips of tea about his life as a near sighted Queer that sees right through you. The amount of words Hearon is able to fit into a Twitter video is as impressive as it is oddly soothing in its passive aggressive validation.
Megan Stalter is what results when Roseann is left on the T.V while a little girl is dreaming of being a superstar. A resulting comedic expansion of the Brassy Big lady who is has traded in Aidy Bryant like preciousness for cunning, shoddy production value and freeing bratty character assassination; Stalter’s work splashes crazy and other ideas you aren’t sure if your supposed to laugh at in delicious high energy performances and content that has wonderful Zany Chicago improv roots; an ever important tool in breaking ground.
The Party of Satirists.
Political Satire with a side of chill these comics want you to think they are stupid……because now you’re thinking.
Brent Terhune. Of all the participants on this list Terhune is the one most likely whose work will get taken out of context. He preforms satire of Trump’s America, a rapid fire turnover rate, a necessary skill of a multi faceted breakout comic today. His stand up videos are not as widely popular as his Redneck character which requires a sense of humour to know he is joking. The line of irony is thin in his work but he is self actualized about his country and although it is hard to see exactly how much of himself is in his satire, maybe that’s entirely the point.
Sarah Cooper. The digital nature of the list this year allowed unconventional digital comics to be featured. Sarah Cooper has an unconventionality and intelligence that has resonated with the high brow late night sitarists. Cooper is known for lip syncing Trump soundbites on TikTok. Cooper’s work is the sort of mocking performance art that allows the sheer unpolished insanity of Trump to be scrutinized in a way that will certainly lay the foundation for a dynamic career to come. Her mind works is ways unclear but certainly hilarious and taking the industry in to necessary territory.
Chad goes Deep. It is quite sad that the duo known as “Chad goes deep” was not summoned to the aforementioned high court of comedy situation. It is the exact type of cultural place they thrive off making fun of. The dumb skater kids who watched too much The Tom Green show and wildboyz. These two viral surfers sensation have brought their own brand of stupid Gnar to ellen and fox news. With videos like asking city council for a Paul Walker statue or entering a body building competition without training, they are unflinching and seamless in their characters, who shamelessly see what’s up with… not politics exactly… but the people who allowed it to go this way. It will be interesting to see what direction this wave takes them. The industry seems stoked.
The Antithesis of Angry.
Jenny Yang, Franqi French, Janelle James
These comics brought a certain enlightenment to the list. A departure from loud showmanship and punctuated complaining. A stillness to who they are and making others laugh that is refreshing.
Jenny Yang has an inviting quality so full of promise. A multi facted comedian who voices her examination of her American experience and pushes past stereotypes with a smile. There is a Polished Politeness to her work that is perfect for Buzzfeed. Her numerous live show productions and collaborations come from the lense of her Taiwanese immigrant experience but there’s far more to the story of Jenny Yang. This is the beginning of a very long layered career.
Franqi French is one of the only pure bread stand up comics on this year’s list. She was the winner of NBC’s national stand up competition. She leads with what sets her apart- a bi curious nature and a laid back delivery that is long form, not overly preachy, but very enjoyable. French is clearly very driven but that is not her unrelenting focus. It is a shame French was not able to showcase her contributions to the medium and it doesn’t seem entirely right to analyze a live performer off a video but French has stage presence that is both subtle and un-ignorable.
Janelle James toured with Chris Rock on the Total Blackout Tour– all about Rock’s merger of styles and a quest for his own deeper truth in pain. James is the only one on this list to have any work put out by Netflix. She brings a direct New York energy to her comedy that could make even the largest of venues feel intimate. She seems to know the boundaries of people’s comfort and humour and gets laughs from thoughts and ideas rather than reaction to over exaggerated antics.
The Unboxed Weirdos.
Dwayne Perkins and Zawie are challenging to document because they are drawing from so many sources beaming down to the industry from respective planets we cannot even see yet. These two should makes you excited and confused don’t worry you’ll understand it in a few years like the rest of us.
Perkins has an impressive and varied resume from the artistry of winning awards for Ballet and his writing on the 2018 White house correspondents dinner to the slick truth server to be one of Amber Ruffin’s top picks for the writer’s room of her new show. Perkins standup lives in the candid hilarity that comes from the thick fabulous skin of a black man gay man from the Southside of Chicago. Perkins doesn’t care if you are uncomfortable or if you are even paying attention because by the end of the set you will know whats up. Clearly someone NBC has a lot of faith in him, as he is involved in several projects on their Peacock Streaming service. The great thing about the ones to watch list is they never tell where to watch and with Perkins it could be any direction.
Zawie . An artist knows when they refer to themselves by only one name that they have set on a course for originality that normies and squares will never understand. Exaggeration is a timeless ingredient in the political cartoon in the case of Zawie it found a green screen and has come to life see what you want in Zawie’s work but you won’t be looking away.
Variety still releasing this list is a statement beyond the comics it’s fond of this year it comes with a declaration that comedy will always find a way. Keep your skills sharp for when there is stages a creative boom in response to this pain will be like none other comedy or anything other art form has ever seen.
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