In response to Katie Hughes’ status update “Katie Hughes thinks Patton Oswalt is a Genius”
It was also after someone said “is it safe to say, if your[sic] a geek comic they are geniuses? Oswalt,Posehn,Merriman[sic],Galafanikis [sic],Demetri Martin…should i continue or can the prosecution rest?”
Well, on the one hand I’m wary of how the word Genius has been devalued by it’s overuse, comparable only to the words hero and nazi (in the future, everyone will be a Genius-Hero-Nazi). On the other hand I do somewhat buy into the theory of multiple intelligences, and really excellent comedians do often display high level functioning in both Interpersonal and Intrapersonal, Verbal-linguistic, Logical-Mathematical (only the logical part), in some cases musical-rhythmic, and in some cases Bodily-kinesthetic areas. I also think people use the word Genius to make it seem like the person just had the innate ability to accomplish those things, like it couldn’t have happened any other way, which I think devalues the really hard work put in on top of someone who is usually gifted to begin with (basically the whole 2% inspiration and 98% persperation thing).
But in any case I still think if you can name more than 5 Geniuses in your field in a period of say less than 20 years then you need a new word. Incidentally I was just informed that Myq Kaplan won the 2009 New York’s Funniest Stand-Up Contest, among a slew of other contests he’s won this and the past few years. Burgeoning genius? Incredibly hard worker? Both? I’ll leave it up to History to decide.
