There’s not much to make sense of in the Steve Rannazzisi story. Rannazzisi, a comedian known for his role in FXX’s The League, was revealed in the New York Times today to have fabricated a story about working in the World Trade Center on 9/11. On Twitter he relayed a full apology statement, calling his tale “inexcusable” and “profoundly disrespectful”.
While outrage spread, comics cautiously dipped in. Fellow cast members from The League called his story “dumb”, “idiotic” and “super wrong”, but all expressed empathy and forgiveness. One of the first comics to respond was SNL cast-member Pete Davidson, who lost his firefighter father on 9/11. His initial snarky response gave way to a series of sympathetic messages, and an acceptance of Rannazzisi’s apology.
It’s clearly not the first time the two have connected over the event. On Pete Holmes’s You Made It Weird podcast, which was released this morning, Davidson talks about how his father’s death led him towards standup, and mentions in passing that Rannazzisi had told him that he started doing comedy in part because of 9/11. (This still could be true; Rannazzisi was working in midtown Manhattan that day.)
His tale of escaping from the south tower wasn’t one he told on stage; his material is more observational, with tales of marriage and fatherhood. It seems unclear even to him why he made up the story, but it was impossible to take back once he did. He told it multiple times in the echo chamber that is comedy podcasting, relaying it to Marc Maron and the Sklar brothers, among others, and it became part of his personal narrative, if not his on-stage persona.
Rannazzisi’s hour-long special, Breaking Dad, premieres on Saturday on Comedy Central. (The timing may be related; if he was indeed relating his comedic success to the lessons he learned on 9/11 while doing press for the upcoming special, it may have led to more digging on the story.) His comedy is fairly generic, aimed at sports-loving, middle-class guys who will fake an injury to get out of pumpkin picking during NFL season.
But standups possess a remarkable tool – the ability to turn the worst parts of their lives into comedy. From Richard Pryor’s iconic Live on the Sunset Strip retelling of his freebasing accident to Tig Notaro’s bold exploration of death, heartbreak and cancer on her album Live, one person with a microphone can retell the narratives of their lowest moments.
Had Rannazzisi decided to discuss his now-debunked 9/11 tale on stage, the game would be different. We don’t require that every joke or story be completely true, just honest in its essence. If small details are added or altered to make a bit funnier without losing the meat of the story, no one minds. But, as with Pryor and Notaro, we would have expected an honest journey of his relationship with this horrific event, and discovering that it’s untrue would have been a betrayal.
Now, if he chooses, Rannazzisi can turn this new tragedy – this intense public shaming – into material of his own. Though the Times piece seems to have forced his hand on confessing publicly, fellow comic Ari Shaffir tweeted that he “told us all a long time ago it wasn’t true. So he stopped saying it. We all lie. He realized it was wrong on his own.”
Rannazzisi’s straightforward admission today – the first time that many people will have heard the story in the first place – may allow him to steer his comeback into the public eye as he chooses. With The League in its final season, he’ll be able to take a step back from the public eye and decide how, and if, he wants to proceed in comedy with this newfound notoriety. Here’s hoping he does something interesting with it.
