Forever mourn the loss of Hicks, gone too soon. A man that came through his alcohol soaked days to set himself to the task of scathing observer who pulled no punches.
As to Carlin, well, he is less of a hero to me. He would tell his audiences "Don't vote, I never have!"
Thanks, George, that was really useful advice.
Comedy is art and is thus fluid. The second you define it, that moment is gone and your definition out of date. Good comedy can make you feel less alone. Great comedy will inspire you to act.
Agree with your take on George Carlin's advice never to vote. It's one thing to reject conventional wisdom; it's another thing to think all government is corrupt. Preserving one's outsider status as only outsiders have purity of purpose? I respect Mr. Carlin as a gadfly, but the world cannot work if everyone is a gadfly. Diogones of Sinope, considered the founder of the philosophical school of Cynicism, lived in a giant jar in Athens, delivering sermons to passersby, but also receiving donations so he could eat. He needed a government that allowed others to prosper so he could survive. There's no government if we don't participate.
Good points. The problem with “conservative comedy punches down” is that”punching down” is a matter of perspective because even in non-comedy everyone seems to think it’s their enemies who are powerful evil elites. The Republican assumes the Democrat is a rich hypocrite elitist smugly mocking their traditional values and the Democrat assumes the Republican is a bigoted rich elitist oppressing vulnerable groups. Why wouldn’t it be the same way with comedy?
And it’s often hard to even tell which way is punching down—imagine a joke where a waiter gets the better of a complaining customer. Surely the waiter is “down” from the customer because he is serving the customer. But what if the customer is a woman and the waiter is being a sexist jerk? Would it matter if the woman customer is white and the sexist waiter was black? Then it turns out the white woman customer is lower class and treating herself to a rare meal and the waiter is about to graduate Harvard Law and taking the job for a while until his trust fund comes through. Or should it matter more what the customer and waiter actually said to each other? Which one is punching down? Both, maybe?
Comedy is about subverting expectations, using overstatement and employing a mix of subtlety and absurdity. Where I think most people find something unfunny due to offensiveness (as opposed to just plainly unfunny due to a lack of humor) is where the cruelty of the comedy is in our opinion overwhelming the humor.
That was a long and dry way to say humor is subjective.
Forever mourn the loss of Hicks, gone too soon. A man that came through his alcohol soaked days to set himself to the task of scathing observer who pulled no punches.
As to Carlin, well, he is less of a hero to me. He would tell his audiences "Don't vote, I never have!"
Thanks, George, that was really useful advice.
Comedy is art and is thus fluid. The second you define it, that moment is gone and your definition out of date. Good comedy can make you feel less alone. Great comedy will inspire you to act.
Agree with your take on George Carlin's advice never to vote. It's one thing to reject conventional wisdom; it's another thing to think all government is corrupt. Preserving one's outsider status as only outsiders have purity of purpose? I respect Mr. Carlin as a gadfly, but the world cannot work if everyone is a gadfly. Diogones of Sinope, considered the founder of the philosophical school of Cynicism, lived in a giant jar in Athens, delivering sermons to passersby, but also receiving donations so he could eat. He needed a government that allowed others to prosper so he could survive. There's no government if we don't participate.
Good points. The problem with “conservative comedy punches down” is that”punching down” is a matter of perspective because even in non-comedy everyone seems to think it’s their enemies who are powerful evil elites. The Republican assumes the Democrat is a rich hypocrite elitist smugly mocking their traditional values and the Democrat assumes the Republican is a bigoted rich elitist oppressing vulnerable groups. Why wouldn’t it be the same way with comedy?
And it’s often hard to even tell which way is punching down—imagine a joke where a waiter gets the better of a complaining customer. Surely the waiter is “down” from the customer because he is serving the customer. But what if the customer is a woman and the waiter is being a sexist jerk? Would it matter if the woman customer is white and the sexist waiter was black? Then it turns out the white woman customer is lower class and treating herself to a rare meal and the waiter is about to graduate Harvard Law and taking the job for a while until his trust fund comes through. Or should it matter more what the customer and waiter actually said to each other? Which one is punching down? Both, maybe?
Comedy is about subverting expectations, using overstatement and employing a mix of subtlety and absurdity. Where I think most people find something unfunny due to offensiveness (as opposed to just plainly unfunny due to a lack of humor) is where the cruelty of the comedy is in our opinion overwhelming the humor.
That was a long and dry way to say humor is subjective.