On Tuesday, March 10th, John Mulaney, prominent American comedian and producer, received the University Philosophical Society (the Phil) Medal of Honorary Patronage in the GMB debate chamber. Liam Corcoran, President of the Phil, presented the award and emphasised the Phil’s formal recognition of Mulaney’s remarkable achievements in the field of comedy, paying tribute to the “warmth and affability” with which Mulaney approaches his work.
Best known for his involvement in the American sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live, Mulaney has achieved considerable success in his career as a stand-up comedian, producing several Netflix specials, including the acclaimed The Comeback Kid. As part of his latest project, Mulaney is scheduled to perform his Mister Whatever tour in Dublin on the 27th of April.
Mulaney began his opening address by likening the contents of his speech to the one made by Patrick Pearse during the 1916 Easter Rising, describing it as “short, not very well planned, and all in all kind of a failure in the moment.” Mulaney then went on to provide the context of his connection to Ireland, dating his Irish heritage back to his great-grandmother, who migrated from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1900. During his university years, Mulaney spent a semester abroad at UCD in 2002 – a detail that inspired emphatic booing from the Trinity crowd – where his exploration of English Literature sparked his appreciation for the great Irish playwright and poet, Samuel Beckett.
The initial focus of Corcoran’s interview centred around the beginning of Mulaney’s career in comedy. While Mulaney said his interest in show business revealed itself from a very young age, he began his career as a writer in college. Eventually, this interest evolved into an early career in stand-up comedy, spurred forward by a “symbiotic relationship” between writing and stand-up, the latter of which acted as a creative outlet which made the writing process more enjoyable.
Mulaney admitted that his early work in comedy drew on more “mundane” life experiences as the foundation for his routines. As his career progressed, he became more comfortable bringing his personal experiences to the stage – a transition which he described as “applying an old song-and-dance instinct to a heavier subject”. Mulaney emphasised comedy’s role as a coping mechanism – a “type of processing” following difficult life experiences, transforming the memory of a heartbreaking story into laughter’s cathartic release. Mulaney used his Baby J Netflix special as a platform from which to express his struggle with addiction, and to shed light on a reality he felt was not spoken enough about by recovering addicts: the overwhelming sense of anger and frustration that is directed onto loved ones during the early stages of sobriety.
Mulaney noted how his personal relationship with comedy as an outlet for negative emotion could be broadened to wider society, asserting that political instability can result in a “turn to social commentary through comedy.” Mulaney expanded on this by highlighting the “disruption” that comedy can provoke on the political level, drawing attention to the “profound” effect that Jimmy Kimmel’s removal from television had in the United States, describing it as a “shocking” instance of censorship.
Above all, Mulaney exhibited a true love for his craft during the ceremony, concluding the event with the statement: “If I’m still doing stand-up in my 70s or 80s, you know I’m happy.”
