Argumentative Essay: Comedy And Stereotypes

In today’s society, a minstrel show would unquestionably be pointed out as a racist act. However, if stereotypes were used in comedic TV shows it becomes more uncertain as to whether or not it is appropriate. With the popular use of satire in the current pop culture, the line between racism and harmless satire is harder to define. Shows like Family Guy play on a lot of racial stereotypes but do not always receive attention on those jokes. The show is often written off as just a raunchy animated show, so people expect the outrageous humor and take the jokes less seriously. Racist jokes has been muddled with satire by putting it in a comical context and in a different medium such as animation. There needs to be a more defined line between

Comedy can be defined as any act or narrative that makes a target audience to laugh or feel amused. That is the definition of comedy. However, what I find as comedy may not necessarily be any act or story that makes people laugh. What makes you laugh, may not make me to laugh. I may even derive offense in the joke being relayed as comedy. Therefore, two things are important: the target audience and the message behind the joke.

Don't we all have something in common? Well that's just how comedians have an effect to communicate a universal truth with their audience. Whether if its confusion, sickness, frustration we all have something that we can relate to and that is how comedians use this effect because we can relate to that feeling or subject. That's how a comedian can communicate a universal truth to us by using humor.

Many comedians have been talking a great deal about politics and the government as a way to spread a variety of messages to the community expressing how they feel about how things are going for America. Therefore many comedians have become more popular in this past election season and with Trump 's new presidency. Stephen Colbert an American comedian, television host, and author uses his spotlight in media as a way to attack President Trump and his administration within his comedy. Colbert uses Juvenalian satire and satirical techniques while discussing politics to reveal his opinions as a way to spread messages to society about the Trump Administration and uses his comedic platform to do so.

Modern society allows humorists to touch upon offensive topics without receiving much criticism. As Alain de Botton claimed in his 2004 book, Status Anxiety, humorists’ role is not merely to entertain but “to convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly.” De Botton’s argument proves legitimate. Many humorists, such as cartoonists and television hosts, decide to use their humor as a tool to prove an idea or express a belief that cannot be voiced candidly in public.

Throughout time, humorists have been able to pull off a phenomenon, which allows for others to laugh about sensitive, stressful topics. With talent, humorists are able to captivate positive emotion from their audience and allow for society to see delicate issues in an unbiased view. Although humorists are commonly seen as people who only intend to entertain, humorists purposefully say things through their work that allow for hard issues to be spoken or illustrated.

In Status Anxiety, author de Botton correctly claims that humorists are expected to not only entertain their audience, but to make statements about controversial events that may be too sensitive to say directly and causally present them in a way that is easy for the public to understand. This is demonstrated through various forms of media such as television shows and political cartoons.

America is a culture that enjoys having some time away from the reality of political issues within society. Comedic entertainment has found ways to also inform its audience about important political statements that is used to “refer to any act or nonverbal form of communication that is intended to influence a decision to be made for or by a political party”( Wikipedia), or ideas through a comedic point of view. Comical news is what brings our attention with ease because listening to straight political debates can lead a person to not want to sit and become informed on latest political topics. The culture that society has developed into became accustomed to finding it better to have a laugh about serious news because through humor an audience

Many people feel that controversial topics, such as racism or anti-Semitism, should be regarded as off-limits when it comes to humor. These people argue that any joke about these topics is inappropriate and always should be punished, or, at the very least, condemned, and to a certain extent, I agree with

The power of comedy is that it takes contemporary issues and stretches them to the extreme and then puts the exaggerated picture of who we are as a society back in our faces. Back a while ago, comedian great Mike Myers played Pitka in the movie flop "The Love Guru". During a number of scenes, Pitka would make comments, realize that they were catchy, and then quickly tack on and little "TM" to his statement. The idea was that he was trademarking everything clever that he said. Ridiculous? That's why it's comedy.

In America, for quite some time now, there has been late night comedy shows. The are strategically aired after all of the “little kiddies” go to bed so the “mature” adults can enjoys advanced humor. This type of advanced humor has reputation of bashing a figure that almost everybody knows or has experienced. For an example, The daily show with Jon Stewart goes Through almost all of the presidential candidates and stretches and magnifies the humor in them. If you watch the show, it has a live audience

We live in an era where television-show host known for his entrepreneurial background has become president of the United States. With loads of controversy leading his win and constant roulette of employees. Additionally, with an impressive array of tweets, it is no shock that the President and his employees tend to be the end of all the jokes. Especially, in the rain of parodies pored over in the media: from new media to television, all forms are taking advantage to make fun of the government. Specifically, focusing on the well-known show of sketch comedy, Saturday Night Live or SNL for short.

The world is composed of millions of people that come from different locations, are part of different races, believe in different religions, and have developed different cultures to those of everyone else. Over the course of human history, the differences that we have developed have played an enormous role in dividing us. Perhaps the chief problem that has plagued society in the past, and continues to do so to this day, is the idea that one’s race is superior to that of others; in other words: racism. Racism has led to the discrimination, oppression, and deaths of countless numbers of people. In the present, racism is often closely associated with stereotypes. In today’s society, being stereotypical often gets you the criticism that “you

Comedy is of course made up of many things. Since we are all different we all have different opinions about what makes up comedy. French Philosopher Henrie Bergson wrote an essay in which he explains what comedy means to him and how it is composed. Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves have also written an easy in which, they define what comedy is and how it is an important factor in human life. Both these authors have many differences in what they feel comedy is as well as some of the similarities that they have in common. Bergson, Carr and Greeves define comedy in many ways like who laughs, situations that are funny, who makes a joke, group comedy and emotions regarding comedy.

According to the Oxford dictionary “Humor,” is defined as: The quality of being amustic or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech, but what truly makes something funny? Comedy has been around for hundreds of years; as it is being examined four concrete theories have been developed to understand the idea of comedy: Superiority, Relief, incongruity, and Benign Violation theory.