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Post by sgev1977 on Jul 24, 2018 1:18:45 GMT
I don't even think he was doing something new or revolutionary. That kind of jokes were very common a very few years ago. From South Park to stand up comedians! Two or three years ago I watched a Netflix special with a British guy (I don't remember his name!) and he did that kind of jokes!
Ironically I hated shock comedy when it was huge at the end of the 90s. Again I couldn't finished The Aristocrats because the experience was just awful! Later I understood it was about getting a reaction and pushing boundaries. I'm not a fan but I understand what they want to do.
It's amazing how the world has changed in a very few years!
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Post by queenzod on Jul 24, 2018 2:35:17 GMT
I watched the Aristocrats, too. It was disgusting, but it also was an interesting exploration of shock comedy, and how they have to keep “doubling down,” in order to find stuff that’s shocking. I don’t necessarily find shocking = funny. I prefer witty comedy. Ellen deGeneres started out trying to find comedy that wasn’t based in meanness. She doesn’t always succeed, but I like that she tries.
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Post by sgev1977 on Jul 24, 2018 3:01:10 GMT
I’m very silly so I prefer silly jokes. For example the intentional bad editing with a melodramatic music during the scene of the guards watching Sir Lancelot approaching in Monty Pythoyn and The Holy Grail:
It always make me laugh. I’m laughing right now!
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Post by queenzod on Jul 24, 2018 5:53:41 GMT
What a beautiful nod to David Lean! I like silliness, too, but of course The Holy Grail is one of the great films of all time. Incredibly stupid and cheeky. What a glorious waste of film.
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Post by mllemass on Jul 24, 2018 7:14:54 GMT
Way back in the 80s and 90s, comedy clubs were the hot places to go. We had several here where I live, and we’d go almost every weekend. The admission price was usually less than a movie (not counting the drinks), so it was an inexpensive evening of entertainment. I even organized our Christmas party at work at a comedy club one year! I remember that I was so panicked that my boss might be offended one of the comedians.
You took your chances when you went to a show - sometimes the comedians were funny and other times not. By far the worst was this older comic who didn’t exactly tell jokes but instead stood on stage and just said vulgar things about women’s private parts. I guess he thought it was funny, and maybe a couple of really drunk people would laugh. I saw that same comic on a tv comedy special once, and he did the exact same bit. I think that’s all he had.
The funniest thing I ever heard at a comedy club was a silly Polish joke. It was hysterical and still makes me laugh when I think about it. It happened to be a Polish joke, but it wasn’t mean-spirited at all, and it could just as easily have been an Italian joke, or a blond joke (remember when those were big?) or a Newfie joke (for us Canadians!).
A few years ago, a local radio station switched to all comedy, so I always listened to it during my drive home from work each day. It was a great way to discover new comedians, and that’s where I first heard Jim Gaffigan. He’s silly and hilarious and squeaky clean, so it is possible to do all that at once!
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Post by queenzod on Jul 24, 2018 8:13:31 GMT
And I think clean comedians should get extra points for working harder. It’s easy to roll around in the gutter. It takes brains to be witty. (Eddy Izard)
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Post by ellie on Jul 24, 2018 12:28:53 GMT
And I think clean comedians should get extra points for working harder. It’s easy to roll around in the gutter. It takes brains to be witty. (Eddy Izard) I love Eddie Izzard. His humour really appeals to me. But I know people who just don’t get him. I hate “shock value” comedy but lots of people love it and there is an argument that it gets people thinking about difficult subjects. There’s a UK comedian called Frankie Boyle who is always in trouble for stepping way beyond the boundaries of what’s considered fair game territory but he has a huge following. There was a great TV series on recently (which I think was made in called “The History of Comedy.” Each episode looked at a different topic and one was devoted to comedy tackling taboo subjects. It’s worth watching to see the comedians’ take on the issue.
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Post by sgev1977 on Jul 24, 2018 13:24:03 GMT
I think in some ways Monty Python influenced a lot of recent shock comedians. The most direct link is of course South Park. Their last movie The Meaning of Life is very schocking even for today standards (well, I think we are actually more moralistic now so that's not that difficult!). The anglo-zulu war had a few very disturbing racist images that I doubt were just symptomatic of the time considering the black extras protested and were ignored by the group. They knew what they were doing and that it was offensive. I think their aim was to shock. The same with that masterwork that's Every sperm is Sacred song, the scene with the comedian condemned to death for saying a sexist joke that chose to be killed by a group of naked women or the long anti semitic speech by the clean lady after the comically disgusting scene of Mr. Creosote's death (which for different reasons but is still shock comedy). I have always thought this movie was a some kind of angry answer to the very controversial but actually much kinder The Life of Brian. Nowadays even religious people enjoy and understand The Life of Brian. They weren't criticizing cristianism there as people said at the time (they did in The Meaning of Life, tho) they were just making fun of fanatics and the ironic thing to me is that I'm sure that if they released the movie today the angry people would be from the left! Imagine how the scene of "Loretta" would be received today! After all they were criticizing fanatics from all the sides not just Conservatives but the left wasn't so sensitive then! I saw that yesterday Don Cheadle posted an Airplaine! clip which actually contained a pedophile joke! I didn't even remembered it. Probably because I was very young when I watched that movie and didn't understand it! I also remember a few crass jokes about a depraved uncle in old SNL shows. A few years ago I bought two or three DVD collections with early seasons and they were indeed very daring shows. By the way, I checked and the British comedian I watched on a Netflix special was Jimmy Carr: www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/comedy/features/taboo-buster-the-dark-side-of-jimmy-carr-1022921.html
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Post by mllemass on Jul 24, 2018 13:37:54 GMT
I haven’t seen him anywhere in a while, but I really liked Russell Brand. I thought he was silly and weird and different. Then one time he had a comedy special on tv, and there were tons of warnings about the offensive subject matter. I remember a tv critic trying to review it said that his jokes were ‘unprintable’ in the review. But as I watched it, I didn’t see anything offensive at all. Until the last few minutes - when he became absolutely filthy. I think he did it the right way - if you’re going to be shocking, show us first that you’re actually funny.
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Post by sgev1977 on Jul 24, 2018 14:04:12 GMT
I just remembered a wonderful story related to Monty Python and why this idea of judge celebrities for what they did or said many years ago is wrong. I'm not against criticize them but not discarded them without considering the context and the complexity of the cases. It's never right to ignoring what it's behind and what they do to become better. Michael Palin used to play and write a lot of comical sketches in which the main joke was speaking disorders. There was a reason behind it. It wasn't just him wanting to make fun of people who suffered them! His father was a stammer and the problem was so grave that it affected psychologically and socially to him and all his family. I guess in certain moment Palin wanted to free himself of the pain it caused to all of them using comedy but when A Fish Called Wanda was released he was publicly criticized for accepting the role and for his past characters. What he did? Well, he accepted to gave his name to The Michael Palin Centre for Stammering. whittington.nhs.uk/default.asp?c=25406He gave them a famous name and works for them to promote the cause.
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