Can You Feel That (BDE) Energy: The Mentally Ill Comedy of Pete Davidson

Abstract

In August of 2014, the untimely death of Robin Williams inspired a mainstream conversation about mental illness, particularly as experienced by the people you would least expect: people like Williams, a beloved comedian and star of family films that had made audiences laugh all around the world. In 2023, memoirs by comedians Matthew Perry and Jennette McCurdy brought this conversation back to the mainstream, but once again in a roundabout way: like Williams, Perry’s and McCurdy’s previous comedy work had never let on to their struggles behind-the-scenes. In this article, I examine a contemporary comedian and actor who has approached his career in a very different way from his predecessors: Pete Davidson, who has made a name for himself in part by marrying his real-life mental health struggles with his celebrity persona. In films like Judd Apatow (2020)’s The King of Staten Island and television appearances like the Saturday Night Live musical number I’m Just Pete (Patrick, 2023), Davidson has successfully drawn on his mental health battle to create a form of humour I have termed ‘mentally ill comedy’. In this article, I will draw on affect theory derived from Steven Shaviro (2010), Sianne Ngai (2012), and Lauren Berlant (2011) to consider how Davidson’s mentally ill comedy provides a unique affective experience that specifically reaches out to those in his audience who can relate to his experiences with mental illness.