Laughing With Victims At Butts
Apologies for reposting, but in trying to organize the site I think it will be more useful to break the theory out from the cases. This enables me to just link ...
Tag: Superiority
The Difference Between Silverman and Maher
I’ve already written about Bill Maher’s recent N-word problem; however it’s not the first time he’s been a part of a discussion about ra...
Wise Fools Speaking Truth to Power
When talking about stand-up comedy, a lot of attention is given to the figure of the wise fool. This concept is traceable back to at least the middle ages (for...
Dick Jokes Vs. Sexual Jokes
Betsy Borns differentiates the dick joke from sexual jokes as based on “what makes the joke funny: if people laugh because the word ‘fuck’ is used, that’s a dic...
How to Write a Joke
Everything starts with the jokes. Until you’ve got material that consistently gets laughs, you’ve got nothing – and you need at least five mi...
Superiority Theory
Socrates/Plato’s (and others’) view of humor as derived from ridicule. The forms usually attached to this mode of humor are irony, parody, and satire, wh...
Humorous Modes
Today's update is on the three main theories that have emerged from philosophy, psychology and linguistics to explain humor (Berger; Meyer; Morreall; Raskin): S...
Bill Maher’s “N-Bomb” Wasn’t a Big Deal, But Neither Was It Funny.
Warning: “explicit language.” Bill Maher said the “N-word” (Bailey, DeMarche, Guerrasio, Italiano, Itzkoff, Kiefer, Lopez, Obeidallah, P...
Kathy Griffin Produced Art, and Art has Consequences.
I should begin by saying, I’ve never really been a fan. She had moments and jokes, and I’m always in favor of people who advocate for gender and sex...