is comedy inherently conservative?

targeted satire isn't, though, is it? i am just thinking of "a modest proposal" here. it's some next-level imagining a worse world to invoke a better one.

xxxp

― horseshoe

yes, well this is the other side of the coin obv. satire can be qutie deliberately aimed at something and may be the opposite of conservative in any cases.

maybe 'comedy' is the art and 'humor' is the discourse? xp

didn't gabbneb have a *point of view* on comedy v. humor?

it wasn't what you just said, at any rate, Mordy; i am just free associatin

making jokes at a funeral is kinda sublime, esp if you are humiliated and frightened as you speak

tbh i think the world we live in pushing people to situate every fucking thing and idea and joke and object in the world on a left/right political spectrum is in and of itself kind of horrible and destructive, which is either why i should leave this thread alone or post more, i don't know

Some of the recent revisiting of the Beastie Boys got at this -- we were all really happy that they turned out to be such enlightened dudes, but otoh it wasn't being enlightened dudes that made them fun -- and funny -- in the first place.

I think a more interesting model than swift for this convo would be rabelais but then again idk

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, May 14, 2012 10:35 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ooh la la!

j/k tell me about french humor!

can we talk about this guy?

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/authphoto_330/14934_kafka_franz.jpg

tbh i think the world we live in pushing people to situate every fucking thing and idea and joke and object in the world on a left/right political spectrum is in and of itself kind of horrible and destructive, which is either why i should leave this thread alone or post more, i don't know

― kitty shayme (some dude), Monday, May 14, 2012 10:39 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't really mean "conservative" like Fox News, fwiw, al. then again, i don't really know what i do mean.

i guess i mean "deeply rooted in/committed to the world as it is"

conservative: the dark impulse in humanity to call forth totalitarianism? that's a kinda of death drive.

reactionary?

which, when it comes to race and gender can be troubling

xp yeah and reactionary might have been better

banaka, i am sorry but you are wrong. laughter will be the song we sing as our consciousnesses are uploaded to the singularity. u didn't get the memo?

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 3:31 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The "singularity" as popularly depicted is a technolibertarian fantasy. We are cyber-collectivists.

As we said, "humor" acts a release/pacification tool, a much more insidious opiate than even "religion".

When our goals are achieved, there will be no need for either.

if i can't laugh i want no part of your cyber-collectivist revolution

yeah and reactionary might have been better

Was just going to say that! Because in some literal sense comedy is reactionary, it's built around reactions to disruption.

I know from personal experience that there is a big diff between being actually funny as a craft and getting lols because you are in a serious situation and willing to say the most dumbshit thing available.

So OTM it should be printed on a tshirt and distributed to every practitioner of comedy, professional or otherwise.

comedy is ENTIRELY reactionary i think.

at least if we're talking performative comedy

But I think what you do with the reactions, how you channel them, makes a big difference in what kind of comedy it is.

bullshit. xxp

Of course if "comedy" is confined to either live mainstream stand-up or sitcoms, that might be true.

if i can't laugh i want no part of your cyber-collectivist revolution

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 3:43 AM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Then the "joke" is on you. There are more "fulfilling" (for lack of a better word) states of being than "joy" "humor" "fun" etc. etc.

Why must humanity be reduced to such a limited emotional palette? Can we not better than we are?

btw being funny in a real-life situation IS NOT comedy

yay! dr. morbs! tell me what comedy is!

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and th sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy rises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same time, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Oedipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

morbz, i don't really feel like u and i have much to discuss re comedy

This discussion reminds me of one of the more ridiculous criticisms of Girls, namely that, OMG, all of the girls are white (because that's literally the first time there's ever been an all-white cast on a tv show)! There's almost an expectation that you discuss/confront issues of race/sexuality/class in comedy because to not do so is considered somehow racist/sexist/classist. Although an all-white cast is, in its own way, a comment on race. Basically, you can't win with this stuff if your material exists within the pop crit sphere, so you might as well go "edgy" and get some laffs.

"Girls" is a part of the Apatow comedy industrial complex, so it is inherently reactionary.

which is interesting because i felt like in the other thread that 30 Rock was being held under suspicion of being racist/sexist/classist really just for discussing/confronting issues of race/sexuality/class in comedy

xpost

making jokes at a funeral is kinda sublime, esp if you are humiliated and frightened as you speak

cf. like every wake i have ever been to!

early today I loled conservatively @ a sissymanwhore post

Yeah, sd, that's what I mean about how you can't win for losing. Discussing it or avoiding it, you're taking a risk.

? that's not really what i was saying about comedy that deals with race and gender. first of all, i like comedy about those things because they are things i care about, and i am a narcissist. it's also not my intention to be saying Chapelle's Show is secretly equivalent to the KKK--i love Chapelle's Show and think Dave Chapelle is a thoughtful person, not particularly reactionary at all. i guess i have some misgivings about comedy as form? i don't know how to be more specific. but i am not suggesting comedy should be abolished because it's counter to the revolution or something, as if such a thing were even possible.

xxxp to Deric

for god's sake, i don't think acknowledging that race affects people's experiences and choosing to represent that in whatever cultural work is "losing"--i'm just speculating about genre limitations, maybe? should probably shut up.

the revolution is counter to the revolution too. there's always elements of society that you're trying to rehabilitate or keep, even as you're demolishing everything else. for everything that comes down something stays up and the revolution is responsible for perpetuating that. this is hegelian, i think - the dialectic is never resolved, it's just reintroduced in new terms

i think there is something at the psychological root of a lot of comedy that might lend itself to reinforcing the status quo -- like a lot of time a joke has to function by playing off of some widely understood truth or idea or social norm. if an idea or norm is inherently racist or misogynist etc., then yeah, a lot of the jokes constructed around will probably essential saying "check out this ridiculous situation in which our accepted ideas of this minority are defied." which by the way would be a horrible way to tell that kind of joke, usually it's done much more smoothly, but i'm not a comedy professional.

it probably IS counter to the revolution but fuck it because the alternative is stalinist sellf-crit sessions

also dying at dr. morbius taking offense at the idea of reactionary comedy

Oh no no no, horseshoe, my post about Girls wasn't meant to be at all accusatory. This discussion reminds me of those criticisms but it doesn't reflect those criticisms, if you get me. I was just pointing out an example that indicates what a tricky minefield it is to even go, like, post-racial in comedy (which I don't think is the intention behind the Girls casting, ftr).

lol sorry for being defensive; it's hard to come to terms with having started a thread

hahaha

I like this thread.

wow you really do almost never start threads (xpost)

also dying at dr. morbius taking offense at the idea of reactionary comedy

― jesus christ (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Monday, May 14, 2012 11:07 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that was delightful! (love you forever, dr. morbs!)

xp i like to piggyback on the insights of others

it probably IS counter to the revolution but fuck it because the alternative is stalinist sellf-crit sessions

― jesus christ (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Tuesday, May 15, 2012 4:06 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the alternative is necessary.

There's obviously been "radical" humor in one sense or another for like forever. Most notably, various elements of absurdism, surrealism (though clearly not all surrealism), dada, etc. Street theatre too. Satire has historically been part of the arsenal of all sorts of social movements, both left and right. The idea that every instance of this has been secretly "conservative" is pretty far-fetched. I can think of some very funny radical poetry as well (and some very funny conservative poetry, for that matter...)

lol horseshoe i've started even less threads than you have i bet. and unlike mine this one is actually interesting

horseshoe you make me laff but strike me as essentially right-on. perhaps you are your own one-woman corrective.