/lit/ - Literature

No need to get butt-hurt when somebody pokes fun.

I think it was Bill Hicks who pretty well summed up my thoughts on comedy: if more than half of the audience isn't disgusted and angry when you're done you haven't gone far enough.

Nope. Great screencap, btw.

>>1565955

>Bill Hicks
>Comedy

Haha, oh wow.

This is a trend I noticed in comedy.

When I was a kid and even a teenager, we had chaste comedy. Think of Seinfeld's "what's the deal with airplane peanuts?"

Now, comedy is super offensive--because it's become comedic gold to be offensive (think Sarah Silverman saying the best time to get pregnant is when you're a black teenager.)

I think it might actually be because of the heightened P.C. society in which we live. Comedians find it ridiculous, and play up to it in outlandish ways.

It's interesting to note how drastic comedy has changed since "In Living Color."

i heard ricky gervais killed laura palmer so he could host the golden oscars David Lynch

Nope.

How do you say in Latin, "in insult there is truth?"

"Insulting" comedians are funny exactly because they say the kind of mean but true things that most people don't want to hear. Their boldness helps peel away the layers of civility that keep corruption buried beneath them.

>>1565960

I'm not sure if >>1565972 is trying to say I trolled you with my Hicks summary, but I stand by it. Seeing what makes an audience angry or uncomfortable is more interesting to me than the routine itself. Though I guess that makes 'comedy' a means to an end instead of valuable on its own merits.

>>1565965

>When I was a kid

When I was a kid we never had paedophiles- we had to buy our own sweets.

Does anyone else think that Camilla is what Princess Diana would look like if she survived the crash.

That's like asking if drama should avoid being "too sad".

>>1565970

Comedians are bringers of Light

>>1566011

Light = truth.

Truth and meanness are not irreconcilable. The UNBURYING of truth and meanness are inseparable.

>>1566004
I think that of all the towering heaps of shit that have been typed out on this board, this is the single dumbest question amongst them.

Is comedy considered an art? I think it should be.

>>1566018

It doesn't get the respect that it should. Summed up in butthurt. A lot of people don't deal with criticism well.

The saving grace that comedy has right now is that it is undeniable.

What's the difference between Italians and toast?

You can make soldiers out of toast.

boom boom

>>1566022
In all fairness, most comedy is pretty commercial drivel and society doesn't consider commercialized material art. I've never understood that though: commercial art may (or may not) be bad, but it still seems like it should be considered artistic expression.

funniest living comedian = Doug Stanhope. That guy is brutally honest. David Cross is great too. RIP George Carlin. Lewis Black is a funny funny funny guy.

I do love insult comedy though. RIP Greg Giraldo. Lisa Lampanelli. Whitney Cummings is an upcoming insult comic. jeffrey ross isn't bad either.

Comedy can be mean and funny but I don't think it's the best form of comedy. If comedy has to be mean then I prefer it to be about fictional characters.

Take, for example, Ricky Gervais. I like Ricky Gervais' writing and think Extras and the Office are hilarious, but he recently did a comedy about a friend who was a bit idiotic and we watched him being an idiot around the world (an idiot abroad). I thought it was a bit mean-spirited and less funny.

I don't know how long i could be a vet before i got bored and started shagging stuff.

>>1566033

That's what OP is talking about. The commercialized comedy is nice-d up.

It's nice to be nice.

Comedy should be better than that.

>>1566040

>butthurt detected

Lisa Lampanelli is the worst good comedian

>>1565947

Where is her eye???

>>1566047

Do overtly nice comedians like Ellen Degeneres have a place on the comedy landscape, or ideally should they be eliminated?

How does all this explain Radiohead fans acting as self-important as $cientologists?

>>1566074
She has a place if she can find work. There's plenty of people who only want their entertainment to make them happy. I don't get it, but at the same time it's not justifiable to get rid of them.

>>1566082

I think it's indicative of a mental illness. Bi-polar.

One can only imagine the depths of depression these people sink to.

>>1566099
Antidepressants and self-help books aren't best sellers for nothing.

captcha's going to have to give me more to work with if it wants me to solve for limits

My Girlfriend and I often roleplay in the bedroom. She pretends she is Catwoman and I pretend that I love her.

Boxers don't have sex before a fight, do you know why that is? They don't fancy each other.

I like Kathy Griffin. She talks shit about celebrities all the time but never comes off as hateful and jealous. Even if the person is a fucking dimwit.

>>1566171
>I like Kathy Griffin

>>1566186
wat

What's the definition of "making love?"

It's something a woman does when a man is fucking her.

>>1566191

Ah, a droplet of wisdom covers me.

I've been censoring myself to avoid people's feelings. It actually destroys my soul to do so.

Is this God's way of telling Roger Ebert to shut up?

Gay celebrities don't come out of the closet because they think they'll be killed.

I went to see the nurse this morning for my annual check-up.
She said I had to stop wanking.
When I asked why she said, "Because I'm trying to examine you!"

What do you call the useless flap of skin around the vagina?

The woman.

I real comedian doesn't actually know for sure what they are doing. It's not an entirely conscious procedure.

Comedians, I think, are in the realm of physics.

The oft unstudied fool, but hiding in literature.

>>1566265

*metaphysics

A real comedian doesn't actually know for sure what they are doing. It's not an entirely conscious procedure.

Comedians are in the realm of metaphysics.

The oft unstudied fool, but hiding in literature.

*This post has been edited 10 times.

There is a need for both, and I enjoy both. Most of my favorite stuff is always a little goofier than it is mean--stuff like Woody Allen, Eugene Mirman, or Arrested Development.

But comedy wouldn't go anywhere if people didn't keep pushing boundaries. Bill Hicks, Patton Oswalt, Ricky Gervais, The Onion, and Hipster Runoff are all good examples of this.

>>1565970
>How do you say in Latin, "in insult there is truth?"

Some options:
in convicio veritas
in contumelia veritas
in vituperatione veritas

>>1566279

You see both sides of the equation.

What are you on medication?

>>1566286

Why do I think the Italians won?

>>1566299
I'm a little high, and it's technically "medicinal", so yes
>in insults, truth

>>1566308

Truth makes me like a dog in heat.

I think it's a value as a comedian to be able to take your own medicine.

>>1566308

And people rail against drugs.

They're so stupid.

>>1565947

There's been nastiness in comedic genres and passages at least since Thersites in the Odyssey. Look at Aristophanes, at Greek and Roman epigram, at Roman satire (which isn't the same as satire in the modern sense, but does have the properties of much modern comedy, stand-up and acted, in social and political commentary, obscenity, and ridicule).

At the same time, there's a long tradition of more gentle comedy: Greek "New Comedy" and Roman comedy, wordplay, etc.

Both have a place. The problem is, it seems to me, that some comedians confuse streams of "fuck" and giving offence per se with comedy. Not that either doesn't have a place, but their mere presence doesn't make for (good) comedy either.

>>1566014

The comedian has to carry the burden of being mean. He doesn't get the opportunity to be a nice person, a value otherwise held so highly.

I find american "comedy" if we can even call it that anymore... or rather, most american comedy, to be complete rubbish. The ONLY exception I would make is seinfeld. That's just great for some reason. And the marx brothers.

>>1566430

>drunken brit

>>1566430
what about Matt Groening? and Seth McFarlane?

>>1566452

Don't forget the creator of Beavis & Butthead

I know I did.

>>1566452
Early simpsons and futuraam, definitely. Seth mcfarlane no way.

"I'd rather laugh of Auschwitz with a Jew than play Scrabble with Klaus Barbie"

Pierre Desproges.

Thinking man's comedy? Try Stewart Lee.

Isn't /lit/ the best board in terms of resources?

Honest questions get educated answers.

>>1566465
Finally.
fuck.
thank you.

>>1566465

He is a blasphemer. He's also a better writer than a comedian - his own delivery kills his meterial, I think he was better when he was working with Richard Herring - he needs someone more likeable than him alongside him.

Anyone who thinks comedy isn't funny when it's mean-spirited is a faggot.

If President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, "I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet," and if he'd just say "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" to every nigger he saw, "boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie," "nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger" 'til nigger didn't mean anything any more, then you could never make some 6 year old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.

- Lenny Bruce, patron saint of /b/

>>1566040

I have trouble believing that his idiot friend isn't just acting.

>>1566649

No, I think (from seeing a lot of his other work) that Ricky Gervais is pretty much a mean-spirited bully.

>>1566673

The entire premise of the show is that they send an "idiot" abroad. Are you suggesting that Ricky Gervais took his friend who actually is an idiot, decided that this was comedic gold; mocked him unmercifully, and proceeded to make a show of that with his friends consent?

And I've seen all of the British Office and both seasons of Extras and none of that seems all too mean spirited.

>>1566682

Listen to his radio show if possible - it' basically him taking the piss out of his chittering sycophants while they laugh and stroke his peen and writhe around on the floor begging him to piss on them and defile them.

>>1566703

hmmm

Well I have his podcast where him and Stephen Merchant laugh at the 'Idiot Abroad' guy. But I'm still sure that he's acting,

>>1566703
>pissing on chittering sycophants
brb fapping like never before

The Americans want to build a big tower on the site of September the 11th. Freedom Tower they're going to call it but now apparently they're worried and they're looking at ways to try and make it terrorist proof. I think they should have just build a giant fucking mosque. No one is going to fly into that are they?! Or even better, a runway. How galling would it be to high-jack a plane, and then come in and make a fucking text book landing.

>>1566018

Comedy isdefinitely an art - it even has its own muse - Thalia. Pic related, but I can't see her going down too well at an open mic might.

>>1566761

Yeah, I'm ashamed to say that I got a little chubby when I was writing it too. I feel that I am destined for hell.