When Improv's Lies Become Bullshit

© Matt Wuerker

“Why give improvisation a bad name? It’s not a synonym for lies or bullshit!”

So came a distinguished jazz historian’s immediate response to the email blast I circulated to promote a New Orleans Improv Conference panel I’d entitled “The Dark Side of Improv: Politics.”

I was stunned by his response. Improvisation may not be a synonym for “lies or bullshit.” But by December 2018 when we held the conference, it seemed to fit hand in improv’s glove well enough—unlike OJ’s—to convict. The Washington Post documented 30,000 lies during Trump’s tenure in the White House.

How many lies does it take to turn alt-facts into just plain bullshit?

I didn't reply to the jazzman. What was the point? Winging It: Improv’s Power and Peril in the Time of Trump took me a few COVID years, but it will now serve as my belated—and thorough—response.

On this day of this historic presidential debate, I’m anticipating that during the 90 minutes the two presidents share, Trump may drop a few more untruths. In honor of those lies-to-be, I offer some context for his improvised lies.

Lord of Liars

Improv may not always rise to the level of BS, but it’s always been associated with lies. The Greek Trickster Hermes is the perennial energy behind improv. Greek poet Hesiod in his Works and Days depicts Hermes giving Pandora the gifts of lies, seductive words, and a dubious character. (Hmmm…. Given that CV, maybe she and Trump are cousins). In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, hearing a pack of lies from Hermes, Zeus dubs the lesser god the “Lord of Liars.”

But, a wink accompanies Hermes’s lies to Zeus and the Olympians. Like Trump’s dog whistles, Hermes’s wink transforms lies into inside jokes. While lies persuade, inside jokes create community. Sure enough, Zeus and the gods are set to laughing, and soon enough, Hermes secures the 12th and final seat among the gods, now one of the tribe.

Hey, Apollo, pass the ambrosia.

Trump’s tribe sees the wink, too. As Selena Zito explained in The Atlantic, “The press takes him literally but not seriously. His supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Not known for their philosophical acumen, they have a point that takes some translating. Trump’s followers believe what he means is, just as I am now breaking the norms of civic discourse, I’ll break political norms to bring your jobs back home. They may know that Trump’s promise to save the coal industry is empty, but they trust his promise to care for those whom Hillary Clinton dismissed as deplorables. That too was a lie, but like Hermes he’s nothing if not entertaining, so they let it pass, even though their lives and livelihoods are at stake.

Matt Wuerker’s Cartoons

The jazz historian put me ill at ease with his caustic email, but Matt Wuerker, Politico’s cartoonist, an ol’ fishing buddy, showed up for the panel and made it all better. Knowing that my interpretation of improv relied on Trickster Hermes, Matt brought me this gift of cartoons showing Trump as a kind of Hermes. Hermes’ winged helmet and sandals are decked out with Twitter’s tweeting mascot. To this Matt added overtones of the more extreme Trickster, Dionysus. If Hermes sprinkles laughter among his lies, Dionysus (or Donnynisus, who’s not so nice) rains down pure chaos. By the end of Euripides’s The Bacchae, Dionysus, insisting upon loyalty from his followers, inspires patricide, regicide, and cannibalism, the trifecta of taboos.

That regicide? Yes, that was an insurrection 3000 years before Donnynisus’s.

© Matt Wuerker

By contrast, the friendliest of the gods, charismatic Hermes builds community. Displaying well-earned pride, Hermes invites his audience through call-and-response, to display the same. Hermes’s bemused community reflects what Toni Morrison calls “an indelible hand of agency”—restoring what was stolen by enslavement. Through that shared sense of agency, call and response creates flourishing community.

Trump / Donnynisus creates a cult manned by followers who invest their aggrieved alienation and are willing to die—or murder or commit insurrection—for their charismatic leader. Hard to acknowledge but impossible to deny, Trump’s charisma promises agency to his followers, an agency of which they feel long deprived. Another empty promise.

Tonight, look for plenty more of what we’ve seen, now, for years—empty promises, lies, dog whistles, self-serving aggrandizement, and bullshit—coming from the left-hand podium. May the (Greek) gods be with them.