Jack Bernhardt on the Benefits of Stand-Up and Jokes Versus Threats
In The Guardian, comedy writer Jack Bernhardt writes a nice little column on “Why everyone should try standup comedy once” (7/31/2017). He says, I a...
Tag: discordant narrators
Chattoo, The Laughter Effect III. D. 3. Comedy Formats: Stand-Up Impacts
In May (2017), Caty Borum Chattoo, co-director of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University and a comedy fan, released “The Laughter E...
Ironic Satire
I’m still talking about Bill Maher’s 2007 HBO stand-up showcase, Bill Maher: The Decider, where, after greeting the Boston crowd, Maher begins with ...
John C. Meyer’s Four Functions of Humor
John C. Meyer was interested in how people use humor – what their purpose is. Meyer’s first conception is that people can use humor to unite us or t...
Persona
I’ve already written a bit on the documentary, Dying Laughing, but there’s a lot more to say there [plus, I transcribed quite a bit of stuff, so I&#...
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...
Narrators: Unreliable and Discordant
The idea that we can influence people with words (rhetoric) depends on the notion that the speaker is who they appear to be and mean what they say. Scholars ca...
Comic Intent
You hear it time and time again, from both comics and scholars: in stand-up comedy the only goal is laughter by any means available (Borns; Gilbert; Horowitz; L...
Spatial Theories
The basic idea of a space for ideas comes from Aristotle, who argues that we organize ideas spatially in our mind. We group like with like into genres, topics,...