Today I’m particularly adamant about getting rid of negativity, so it seems appropriate to write about something that’s been bugging me for a long time.
It appears to me that a lot of American sitcoms and also cartoons base their “fun” almost entirely on putting down fellow cast members. Extreme examples of this would be Everybody Loves Raymond (particularly the Raymond’s mum and dad), and from longer ago Roseanne (Roseanne Barr being the cynical expert on this dubious artform), and Married with Children (everybody).
Mind you, I’ve long stopped watching any such TV shows along with most others, but the references are still abundant. Situations can be funny, people can be funny, and you can even laugh at a person, but it doesn’t have to be at their expense. In a nutshell, I reckon the person being laughed at should be able to laugh about it also – that seems like a good test. I think Seinfeld did this well, as did Friends. Funny definitely doesn’t need to come in snipey ad-hominem attacks.
Phoebe doesn’t care that much for watching TV anyway most of the time, but if I catch any cartoon doing this negative approach to being funny, I tell MythTV to not record it any more. Kids will mimic and it’s just not a good example.
YES! Thank you. I speak about that sort of thing a lot on my comedy blog.
I’m a little unhappy with how many things are going for the easy sell and the easy laughs. It’s easy to sell something if it has plenty of sugar, fat, salt, and sex. It’s easy to get laughter from, well the results of such things, like farts, tits, and putting someone down for their weight, etc.
I have to admit that I watch more animated films for my comedy these days because I’m less likely to come away feeling dirty. The Toy Story series is great for a laugh, as is Shrek, and I loved the Triplets of Belleville. And they were all successful using mostly innocent humor.
Peace,
Katherine
I totally agree. It’s why I also hate The Simpsons and Futurama: the guys are all slack, hopeless layabouts and the women are all neurotic and end up fixing everything for the guys. Welcome to Matt Groening’s world, where all his characters are the same.
See also http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/humor-sapiens/201107/does-racist-humor-promote-racism (does Racist Humor Promote Racism) by Gil Greengross, PhD, containing interesting research results on people’s behaviour after being exposed to prejudicial jokes in different contexts (not merely racist).