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Craig White's Literature Courses Deadpan |
 Carrie Brownstein of Portlandia |
Oxford English Dictionary:
A. adj. Of a face, look, etc.: expressionless, impassive. Of a person: having such a face. Also transf., applied to speech, behaviour, etc.: detached, impersonal.
B. n. An expressionless or impassive face, esp. one deliberately assumed; also, a person with such a face; the assumption of such a face.
Examples
Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Jerry Seinfeld, Ice Cube, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith
 Buster Keaton (above) |
 Buster Keaton (above) |
 Buster Keaton (above) |
 Buster Keaton (above) |
 Jack Benny (above) |
 Jack Benny (above) one of his trademarks was to play the violin just badly enough to cause some small pain |
 Jack Benny (above) |
 Jack Benny (above) Another Benny trademark as he aged was to show vanity about his youth and good looks |
 Jerry Seinfeld (above) |
 Jerry Seinfeld (above) |
 Jerry Seinfeld (above) |
 Ice Cube (above) |
 Eddie Murphy (above) |
 Will Smith (above) |
 Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory |
 Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory |
Mark Twain, from "How to Tell a Story" (concerning the American deadpan style)
. . . There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter.
The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst.
The humorous story is strictly a work of art—high and delicate art—and only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous story—understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print—was created in America, and has remained at home.
The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is one of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager delight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through.
Chinese-Americans are sometimes stereotyped as aloof and humorless. Might this be another version of the deadpan? (Early Anglo-Americans would have characterized this look as "inscrutable.")
Jeremy Lin, b. 1988
