A beautiful person is so often a confrontation. Even in silence, symmetrical features announce their presence and elicit a reaction: desire, admiration, curiosity, resentment, belittlement, rage or envy. The response is rarely neutral.
In this way, beautiful people are different from comedians who have to work for a crowd’s attention. Comics choreograph their lines, pauses and gestures to get a laugh. Then they practice, and fail, and practice more. Why would an attractive person toil for a reaction if they don’t have to?
This is why my colleague Jason Zinoman, The Times’s comedy critic, recently chose to disclose a bias of his: He is skeptical of attractive men in comedy. And he isn’t alone. The conventional wisdom is that male comics need to be relatable, not hot, lest their beauty distract from the bit. But that may be changing.
Stand-up stages are crawling with beautiful men. Chris Rock is showing off his abs. Jimmy Fallon smiles boyishly on late night. Trevor Noah and his dimples date actresses. An industry once known for nerdy, affable guys — Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Newhart, Jim Gaffigan — is becoming another venue for charmers. One annoyed late night writer complained to his peers: “You’ve let the popular kids appropriate the very art form that helped you deal.”
