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Vox Tablet - Society

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This is Vox Tablet, the weekly podcast of Tablet Magazine, the online Jewish arts and culture magazine that used to be known as Nextbook.org. Our archive of podcasts is available on our site, tablet2015.wpengine.com. Vox Tablet, hosted by Sara Ivry, varies widely in subject matter and sound -- one week it's a conversation with novelist Michael Chabon, theater critic Alisa Solomon, or anthropologist Ruth Behar. Another week brings the listener to "the etrog man" hocking his wares at a fruit-juice stand in a Jersualem market. Or into the hotel room with poet and rock musician David Berman an hour before he and his band, Silver Jews, head over to their next gig. Recent guests include Alex Ross, Shalom Auslander, Aline K. Crumb, Howard Jacobson, and the late Norman Mailer.
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Jan
20

The Man Behind the Mustache

6 months ago

When we think of Groucho Marx, we think of a giant of comedy. From his cigar to his wisecracks, Groucho, along with his brothers, established the fundamentals of American comedy. Indeed, it was he who first said he’d want no part of a club that would have him as a member—a notion made famous by a Brooklyn-bred heir named Woody Allen.

As critic Lee Siegel argues in Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence, Marx’s humor was predicated on disdain toward others—he was hardly a cuddly character, or a champion of the downtrodden, as critics and fans alike have painted him. Groucho and his brothers were all about disrupting social norms and sticking it to the man—whether that person was a lowly shlub or a high-society doyenne. Siegel joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss how such an unlikable person became such a household icon; to what extent the personae the Marx brothers played were faithful to their real selves; and how you can trace a direct line from Groucho to Amy Schumer.

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