Pete Davidson: Human Comedy
Still giddy with laughter left over from two fantastic opening acts, the restless crowd gathered in Memorial Hall cheers for the man they’ve been waiting for hours—or perhaps years—to see. After sauntering on stage and greeting the ecstatic spectators, he picks up the microphone and begins the show, joke after joke begetting laugh after laugh, hilarious insults becoming humble apologies: he’s a paragon of comedy with this college-age audience.
Then, when the house lights come up and the mic’s turned off, he’s talking to a student around his age about the chronic illness they both share, bonding over medical experiences and Hogwarts houses.
Suddenly, Pete Davidson, Saturday Night Live’s “resident young person,” is as human as the kids headed back to their dorms that Sunday night.
The evening of Oct. 30 marked a time of excitement on campus for both comedians and fans alike. SIT, Muhlenberg’s student-led comedy group, kicked off the night. They were followed by Ricky Velez, who has made an appearance on Master of None and is a contributor to The Nightly Show. Pierce Lockett ‘19, a member of SIT, recalls his performance as having an intriguing mix of emotions.
“Doing stand-up on that large of a stage was definitely one of the most nerve-inducing moments of my life, let alone as a comic,” said Lockett. “There were about 400 people there, easily the largest crowd SIT has ever performed in front of, so there was definitely a lot of pressure to do well, especially given the fact Pete Davidson would be there. The crowd had some great energy, however, so the tension dissipated once I started getting into my set and I really enjoyed myself.”
After enjoying the first rounds of comedy, the crowd was ready to hear from Davidson himself. Whether or not an audience member happened to be a longtime fan, like Allison Benbenek ‘20, by the end of the night, the entire room was converted.
“I love SNL, so I’ve seen [Davidson] on the last few seasons! Very funny guy,” Benbenek said. “My friend and I could not stop laughing and I’m so glad I went.”
Floating in the crowd of admirers was one particularly avid follower who shares more in common with Davidson than a passion for the theatrical. Erin Tiffany ‘17, master carpenter of the Muhlenberg Theatre Association, resident technician of the Office of Information Technology, and musical director of Live in Color, also has Crohn’s disease, the same inflammatory bowel disorder as Davidson.
“[Crohn’s affects] different areas in different people, and it’s kind of known as ‘the pooping disease’...but there’s a lot more to it that people don’t realize,” said Tiffany. “It’s a lot of fatigue, it’s not eating certain foods, it’s your joints [getting] inflamed when things are getting all messed up inside...but it’s a chronic illness and it’s not going away anytime soon, so you just have to figure out how to keep going...I’m very big on not letting...my body tell me I can’t do something.”
Tiffany, who liked Davidson’s work from the moment he appeared as the youngest cast member of SNL, says his casual mentioning of Crohn’s in comedy is what cemented her status as a Davidson devotee.
“I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when I was eleven, and...one of the groups I’m involved in is the National Council of College Leaders for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation,” Tiffany said. “Somebody had mentioned that they found out—probably through Googling, to be honest—that he had Crohn’s, and...he had a line in the show [about Crohn’s disease]...I mean, I know I was super excited he just mentioned it because there are so many people that have these diseases that just don’t want to talk about it, so it’s nice to see celebrities coming out and saying stuff about it, even in the smallest way.”
Having the chance to speak personally with the man who brought their common chronic illness onto the silver screen was a surreal experience that manifested itself in a purely normal and very human interaction; as the two met and took pictures in front of a Muhlenberg-speckled backdrop, they discussed medications, diet, and living life, topics that Tiffany says are surefire ways to spot a person who shares her condition.
“That was the craziest thing to have ever happened, and...he seems like such a real person,” said Tiffany. “I think what made him...such a real person is that the first thing [he said] was, ‘Oh, what are you on?’ As soon as you meet somebody else in the disability community, your first thought is, ‘What medication are you on?’ and I was like, ‘You’re a person! Oh, my God, this is awesome!’”
This realization of Davidson’s tangible nature wasn’t exclusive only to Tiffany, however. Lockett agrees that even Davidson’s raucous (and endearingly vulgar) comedy offers a valuable glimpse into the person he is.
“I remember first seeing him at the Justin Bieber roast where he started doing jokes about his dad dying in 9/11, and I was like, ‘Whoa, this kid knows what the hell he’s doing,’” Lockett said. “It was cool to see somebody basically my age go up there and perform some really dark, really funny material on a big stage like that, because that’s kind of the comedy I most enjoy.”
“I think comedy is really about destabilizing people and getting them to look at things as they are rather than what we imagine they should be, like sex or love or death or any other confusing aspect of being a person, and realizing that most of what we think is totally arbitrary and kind of silly,” said Lockett.
Throughout the night, Davidson capitalized on this theme throughout his set. Introducing heavy subjects and lightening them with a well placed pause or hint of laughter, he successfully navigated the rocky waters that can sometimes present themselves when joking about controversial topics, supplanting surface-level humor with a slightly shifted and deeper perspective on life, even if he might have come back to those sillier jokes later to make Memorial Hall really roll with laughter.
Clearly, whether he’s poking fun at a freshman’s gold suit, discussing the perils of the presidential election, or making a connection with a longtime fan, Pete Davidson is the kind of comedian who sets the bar high—and maybe, just maybe, tries to jump over it himself.
Photos courtesy of David Budnick