Okay, so in my haste to bash the twitter crowd I found myself accused of twittering myself through short blog posts that don't have any meat. Which is fine, I can take that. (beyond the lashing out I did in my earlier post) So I am making an effort to include some more meat every now and then. So here goes.
This week Tim Sutherland gave me a copy of this great article about comedy and satire - it came in Newsweek after the reaction to the Obama caricatures on the cover of the New Yorker. Read it here, and then we'll discuss.
James Poniewozik makes a case that America may have lost its sense of humor, and makes some profound comments regarding comedy. Here are my favorite bits:
"Comedy is about tearing off scabs and unveiling anxieties."
"In June, Jon Stewart had to assure his audience after an Obama joke, "You're allowed to laugh at him."
"Comedy, good comedy, is not just unsafe; it's uncontrollable--satire most of all. Satire takes a real position and exaggerates it to the point of absurdity. By nature, it is, if it is any good, subject to interpretation."
"Daniel Radosh, in his book Rapture Ready!, about Christian pop culture, explains why irony is anathema to Fundamentalist entertainers: it is too dangerous to introduce the slightest possibility that someone might not get the joke and thus might be led to moral error. Better safe than funny."
That last one really hit home with me. I think that Community is one of the more permission-giving churches when it comes to the issue of comedy. We take a lot of risks in this department. But you can see that over time, the "concerns" start to show up as newcomers who may have a church background start to wring their hands as we play clips from Will Farrell movies and film UFC parodies where Cain actually kills Abel and someone somewhere is supposed to laugh at it.
This week we're already experiencing the mutterings of campus pastors who are "tentatively concerned" about the upcoming clip from Nacho Libre (we'll be talking about baptism, remember that renegade baptism from the film?)... the campus pastors are on the front line, so they end up taking the heat when we show something that is designed to make people laugh but is still ultimately a scene between two wrestlers in tights and without shirts.
Which, of course, is funny to me! And is definitely unsafe and uncontrollable. Better funny than safe. Right?
Thoughts?
