Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [87]
The men conversing on late night talk shows, rather than offering sympathy on hearing another man’s self-deprecating anecdote, frequently endorse and even augment the other’s selfdeprecation. Take, for example, Rudd’s story about a wedding he attended, paying special attention to O’Brien’s responses.
Rudd: I had a horrible one happen a few years ago where I actually got, um, thrown out of a wedding.
O’Brien: You got thrown out of a wedding?
Rudd: Yeah.
O’Brien: Did you know the people well, I mean these were friends of yours?
Rudd: Yeah, um—
O’Brien: And they threw you out?
Rudd goes on to describe a slightly embarrassing but very humorous video that he made for the bride and groom, with the conversation continuing as follows:
O’Brien: But you didn’t think—you didn’t know they were gonna show it at the wedding? And so all these people are there, hundreds of people?
Rudd: Well yeah…and uh, uh I’m not even gonna…yeah.
O’Brien: And what happened?
Rudd: Well I—she like, you know—people got kind of freaked out and the bride ran out. I mean it’s not the way you imagine your wedding day—
O’Brien: The bride ran away?! That’s terrible!
Rudd: I felt horrible.
O’Brien does nothing to soothe Rudd’s worries about Rudd’s disastrous experience; he urges his guest to divulge all the painful details and seems to relish Rudd’s embarrassment. But then, Rudd’s purpose was probably not to earn sympathy. O’Brien supported Rudd by not showing sympathy, as “refraining from giving sympathy is generous, insofar as it [sympathy] potentially condescends” (Understand Tannen 61). Had O’Brien responded that he was sure that Rudd’s friends would forgive him and that the incident was not remarkably embarrassing, he would have undermined the purpose of Rudd’s story. Instead, O’Brien complies with Rudd by emphasizing the “terrible” nature of his guest’s experience. […]
[The writer moves next to another of Tannen’s theories, which reformulate the binaries in the Rudd and O’Brien example:] Tannen suggests that while women look for understanding for their problems, men look for solutions: “Yet another man commented that women seem to wallow in their problems, wanting to talk about them forever, whereas he and other men want to get them out and be done with them, either by finding a solution or by laughing them off” (Understand 52). The men in these examples did not want sympathy for their problems, nor did they want their problems dismissed—they sought validation. But, unlike the women Tannen described, such validation does not come from sympathy or identification, but from laughter and reinforcement. The self-deprecator is laughing at a problem of his own, and needs the other man to acknowledge that his problem is funny, and is, indeed, a problem, for the two men to achieve equal status within the conversation.
[The writer then moves on to another pattern in her data, instances where two men in a conversation both use selfdeprecation:] Self-deprecation is not always used by only one party; it is also sometimes used by both parties to negotiate footing within a conversation. The following excerpt comes from a conversation between ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel and comedian Artie Lange in which the two men discuss a celebrity wedding both men attended.
Kimmel: I know, right. Well you said something—
Lange: Wasn’t that a great event though?
Kimmel: It was great and you did a great job with the toast. What was it you said with the toast about—
Lange: Well it’s a, it’s an older guy marrying a model way too young for him…
Notice how Lange attempts to avoid accepting Kimmel’s assertion that Lange said something funny at