The Brisbane Comedy Festival

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Brisbane Comedy Festival where tonight I will offer my opinion on the nature of humour.

As great writer, Mark Twain, once said, “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter”.

Humor and humanity go hand in hand. Humour appears to help a person’s psychological well-being and using pleasure to negate pain can have positive effect on the physicality of a person.

There are various forms of humour and numerous mediums in which to receive or observe it. Comedy is entertainment intended to make the audience laugh and can have a viral effect if the presenter has refined their art. Therefore, one can say great comedy is humour perfected!

A positive aspect of using humour can be that a person can get

This type of humour is used to shed light on and make fun of society’s often controversial social issues. The downside of this type of humour is its ability to sometimes reinforce stereotypes.

Carl Barron’s ‘One Ended Stick’ ridicules and stereotypes people from mainly Townsville and other areas as “bogan”. (Miss Townsville)- explaining how some of the Miss Australia contestants have come from “yobo” places.---- goes onto to say “And he comes Miss Townsville accepting a prize with a keg on her shoulder”- making silly body language. (add in that thing I might not carry a keg on my shoulder but I might do a 6-pack.. no no only kidding)

I found this hilarious considering I come from Townsville but I didn’t like the idea that it can reinforce stereotypes that people have about these regional towns and cities. A touchy subject for me at this point in my life. I recently moved to Logan as my mum renovates a house – yes it is a little further out from the city and the town-planning and architecture differs slightly but undeservedly being titled a “Logan bogan” can get under your skin. Especially when your best friend says “If you live in Logan, you’re a