Awfully Entertaining
We interrupt “The Art of Diplomacy” for a moment. For one, simply because I need a change of pace, and I wanted to give a quick discussion on a different topic.
WARNING: The following victim depicts violent scenes and dark humour, viewer discretion is advised.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g]
Some of your out there might be chuckling, some of you will be appalled, but face it, it isn’t a really bad adaptation of “Part of Your World” from the Little Mermaid is it? Yeah, that last line was pretty lame, but I found this video interesting not just because of the comedic value, but it also taps into an interesting human response.
You remember dead baby jokes, right? Why exactly do we laugh at these kinds of things? It isn’t because they are actually funny, so much as they are witty and just so awful there really isn’t an effective response. I can’t even remember the explanation myself personally for why I find this so entertaining, but I think it may have something to do with just how our society functions.
Comedy in itself, is mostly built around the concept of putting ourselves above someone else. Sometimes at the expense of the comedian, or the person the comedian is talking about. George Carlin suggests that his job is to “Think up goofy shit and notice funny things that happened to you that you forgot to laugh at.” Between these three methods of funny there really isn’t anything in between. There are not many funny moments that actually leave someone in a lower position after the exchange in some form or another. Even if personal injury or loss is involved, there is often a change in social heirarchy as the underdog gets a ‘leg up’ on his superiors.
Sorry, but it had to be used.
There seems to be a fascination with morbid and altogether uncouth content. Over the years we have seemed to become desensitized to it and require bigger thrills in our media. Instead of the slapstick of the Muppet Show, we dra entertainment from the suffering of others. Reality TV shows like Fear Factor and Jackass seem to provide their entertaining comedic value often by showing stupid people doing extremely stupid things. It does reaffirm that we are smarter than these people, but is this really the height of comedy?
What ever happenned to the incredibly wry wits that actually made us feel more intelligent, and that did indeed bring us to the comedic turnover of the heirarchy. Whatever happened to witty insults like the ones found here? It seems as though the media is playing to a stupider market and is running out of these bad ideas to keep up entertained.
However, is it really that we’re getting stupider? Or is the media making us think we’re stupid?
