Earlier this year, controversial comedian Louis CK left appeared on the American comedy show ‘Saturday Night Live!’ to perform a stand-up routine which would open the show. During his monologue for what was to be the finale for Saturday Night Live’s 40th anniversary season, Louis CK produced a string of jokes about growing up in the 70s that encompassed racism, the Middle East and paedophilia. Predictably, people quickly became outraged and took to social media saying that it was the “unfunniest most offensive SNL monologue ever”, stating that anyone who defends it must be a “predator themselves”.
As much as there was backlash, there was an equal amount of people coming in support of C.K, each of whom claiming that he is a ‘one of a kind’ artist who is constantly trying to push the barriers of free speech and good taste.
…show more content…
This whole controversy got me asking questions, not only around this incident, but also around some of my own personal experiences.
When is a joke no longer a joke? Can a joke which causes controversy and upset still be funny?
I suppose one aspect we can look at is whether or not a joke is ‘morally right’. But how can we assess this? Some people seem to believe that what determines whether a joke is morally right is its ‘effect’. Because child molestation is such a sensitive subject, because the harm caused is so gruesome and lasting, because any light hearted mention of it could in some way diminish the suffering of victims - child molestation as a topic should be wholly avoided in the realm of comedy.
Now that’s certainly a persuasive argument: comedy’s purpose can’t be to cause pain to innocent victims. But of course that wasn’t the purpose of Louis CK’s joke in the first place, it wasn’t his
intent. This brings light to a counter argument to the impact of effect being the moral judge of a joke. Instead, it is the comedian’s intention that really matters in the end. Clearly Louis Ck’s intention in his paedophilia joke is to use comedy to get us to think about society’s attitude and treatment of paedophilia. Never does he forgive or validate the act. Indeed jokes are uniquely designed to deliver messages like this: they sneak into our consciousness, pass the barriers that normally defend against the ways of thinking that threaten our comfort. This is not, however, to say that ‘intention’ is all that matters, clearly it isn’t. We have to be aware of both the intention and the unintended consequences of what we say. My previous example of the anorexic patient comes to mind. These consequences of course are the stem of controversy and debate. These debates about political correctness and comedy have been happening more and more frequently as the rise of internet takes place. The arguments quickly devolve into two different camps: one side will raise a concern about a joke; the other will come down hard defending jokes at all cost, lamenting the encroachment of ‘pc police’ and ‘social justice warriors’ on free speech What all this says is morality is messy. It shifts and changes. People often say that something went ‘over the line’ but there are no lines in morality. There is a no man’s land, a nebula. And comedians are amongst the very few people who tread this nebula. Comedians are in one sense like detectives on a TV show, who oftentimes are required to bend the rules in order to achieve justice, or in this case expose the outskirts of morality. Our society in many ways is at cross roads, where the strongly held values of freedom of speech are now no longer congruent with the freedom from harm.
My humor consists mainly of a mix of high and low comedy, and sarcasm. One element of humor that does not appeal to is caricatures. An example of this is a terrorist joke. The terrorist was holding a pencil and saying “Where is the trigger?” exaggerating the fact that, in the news we hear about terrorism, and when the terrorists come to America they would not be able to decipher the language or the meaning of objects. The joke did not appeal to me in anyway and didn’t make sense. A certain part of an element of humor that does not appeal to is disgusting anecdotes. In the passage, Brothers by Jon Scieszka, a family goes on a roadtrip and stopover to eat. A brother drops a piece of candy and the cat eats it and yacks it up. “Tom burped a bit of Stuckey lunch back on Gregg.” The bodily functions and them throwing up and spilling out of the puke wagon had made me lose my appetite for lunch.
Bernie Mac’s second Def Comedy Jam special, “I Ain’t Scared of You Motherfuckers” is a comedic work that has always made me laugh uncontrollably. Even when I was too young to fully understand most of the jokes in that particular standup routine, his physical motions, use of curses and taboo sex phrases, as well as his urban Chicago colloquialisms were enough to have tears dripping from my eyes and a boisterous sound of laughter coming from my mouth, loud enough that it would cause my mother to come into my room and investigate what all the fuss was about. Despite the obvious comedic subject matter of works of comedy done by comedians such as Bernie Mac, there are numerous underlying reasons that attribute to the humor that is expressed through our laugher and enjoyment. Through his lively stage presences and sociological motifs, Bernie Mac was able to enlighten the world on the various cultural aspects of urban life by his use of social and psychological cues that capture our attention, giving us directions on how to react, providing us with an increased social awareness though satirical methods, and making light of taboo topics regarding the themes of sex and gender roles.
Psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists study humor because it is a fundamental culture value, but they still can’t determine why certain things make some people laugh and others not. There are “humor quotient” tests that are designed to measure an individual’s sense of humor, but these tests are questionable. These tests aren’t accurate because almost all humor depends on cultural background knowledge and language skills. Not every person in the whole world, or even in one country share the same background knowledge and skills, therefore they cannot have the same type of humor. “The fact remains that individuals vary in their appreciation of humor” (Rappoport 9). Since humor varies from individual to individual, humor lies in the individual. How successful or funny a joke is depends on how the person receives the joke, humor cannot be measured by a statistical
Steve Almond’s “Funny is the New Deep” talks of the role that comedy has in our current society, and most certainly, it plays a huge role here. Namely, through what Almond [Aristotle?] calls the “comic impulse”, we as a people can speak of topics that would otherwise make many of uncomfortable. Almond deems the comic impulse as the most surefire way to keep heavy situations from becoming too foreboding. The comic impulse itself stems from our ability and unconscious need to defend and thus contend with the feeling of tragedy. As such, instead of rather forcing out humor, he implies that humor is something that is not consciously forced out from an author, but instead is more of a subconscious entity, coming out on its own. Almond emphasizes
In the beginning of the article, Lukianoff and Haidt explain how one word can offend a college student really quickly, even if the person saying it didn’t intend to insult them. The authors then tell the audience how popular comedians, like Chris Rock, have stopped performing on college campuses, because the students cannot take a joke.
“Everyone has a sense of humor. If you don't laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions.” Once said an American poet, essayist, and existentialist philosopher Criss Jami, Killosophy. I also believe that humor and laugh play a big role in our lives. However, there are two types of people’s personality; people who understand humor and more open minded, and those who just cannot get it, and that, in my opinion, just makes their live harder. The article, “That’s Not Funny” by Caitlin Flanagan, is talking about college students that are not allowed to joke because of comedians restrictiveness in what they are talking
According to Everything’s an Argument by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz, “Humor has always played an important role in argument…” (38). Humor itself is something that activates amusement or laughter. Moreover, in popular culture satire is a tool that is used to point out things in our society. Satire opens the minds of people to philosophies they might completely deny, using humor. There are many elements of satire that identify flaws within our society. A couple of satire elements that will be discussed are irony and exaggeration. In addition, a parody is used in popular culture as a way to mock or mimic situation or person.
In Alain de Botton’s book, Status Anxiety, he argues that the aim of humorists is not solely entertainment, but also to convey a message that isn’t always okay to state directly. There are many places where his argument can apply. Even with humor, some topics are still too controversial to joke about; However, in most cases, humor can lighten things up and make it easier to discuss topics that otherwise would not be as easy to talk about without heavy arguments. There are many cases that would make his argument true. There are many examples that support his argument, and that help to show the importance of humor in arguing, including cartoons, comics, works of literature, and also when thinking of hosts of television programs.
every example falls into one class or the other, but not both) and obvious (i.e. it is always apparent into which class an instance of humor falls), although this view is not unanimous: ‘conceptual humor and verbal humor are not distinct categories, however’ (Armstrong, 2005). There appears to be on strict definition of the boundary between verbal and referential humor, with classification of examples being left to general intuition. Sometimes translability is proposed as the criterion for distinguishing the two types (e.g. Bergson, 1940; Attardo 1994; Armstrong, 2005). It is certainly true that the two types of humor put quite different demands on the translator, but the ‘transable’ criterion is not well-defined: does it mean ‘ it can be translated into every language’ or ‘there is some language somewhere into which it can be
"Where have I been?" Dave Chappelle asked a San Francisco crowd in 2005. "It is a long story. It is a long, uninteresting story ..." Perhaps it is. And perhaps it isn’t. One thing is for certain. Today, Chappelle is considered by many to be one of the most influential comedians. He is particularly well known for his lively, controversial, and sometimes bordering on the obscene stand-up comic acts. In 2006, he was labeled “the comic genius of America” by Esquire. More recently, Billboard (2013) proclaimed him “the best.” Amazingly, it has been more than ten years since his comedy series, “The Chappelle Show” first aired. What’s even more amazing is the fact that his main body of work comes from only the first two seasons.
The first example of humor in the book Dead End in Norvelt, is when Jack farts to save the deer's life. “. . . landed on an island that was populated by a primate tribe of people who just happened to be called the Hairy Ainus People. The name alone almost made me howl with laughter, but I kept telling myself not to laugh through my mouth, but out the other direction.” (Gantos 82) This is a funny text because it is ironic. He is doing something really meaningful and serious, but he does it by doing something funny and not serious. Jack saving the deer was humorous because it was ironic.
Satire is the most powerful democratical weapon in the arsenal of modern media. Sophia McClennen, the author of America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy, describes it as the modern form of public pedagogy, as it helps to educate the masses about current issues (73). In fact, ”a Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey in 2004 found that 61 percent of people under the age of thirty got some of their political 'news' from late-night comedy shows” (McClennen 73). This statistic shows how influential satirical shows such as The Colbert Report or South Park can be. Satire invites critical self introspection from us in a way that no other media can. It also acts as an unbiased mirror that reflects the mirror image of the flaws of our society. This beautiful process, when unhindered and uncensored, is the epitome of western freedom of speech, which is the single most significant right that deserves to be cherished and defended.
How do lots of people handle humor? There are people that take humor very seriously and if you make a joke they get offended very easily. In the other hand, there are people that think humor is a constant habit and sometimes it can be taken too far. Many of us use humor to relieve boredom, to gain power and relieve tension?
You can find wide varieties of these crude pieces on the internet, and it is not uncommon to hear them in the hallways of schools, or whispered among students and followed by unjustified giggles. Attempting to lighten the seriousness of things such as sexual assault or terrorism is not comedy, no matter what people may say. Comedy is about laughing with the people being mocked, not lessening the seriousness of their situations. When we try to make ‘jokes’, we must keep one thing in mind: comedy is about laughter and joy. A joke is only funny when it is not blinding us to the reality of cruel
Humor can be used like a sniper's gun, picking people off when they least expect it. When we use humor to hurt, we abuse the fundamental essence of this wonderful gift. We must teach our children the difference between what is funny and what is cruel. A joke is never humorous if it is at the expense of another.