For starters, if virtually the entire virtual class has deactivated their audio and video, then the act of teaching is reduced to nothing more than lecturing into a blank, empty, lifeless void. Whether bringing that humor to lectures is done through traditional joke structures or via George Carlin -esque, cleverly wordsmithed monologues that call attention to peculiar yet comical details is up to the teacher.
Both approaches can work. For many people, the struggles of Zoom might be yet another unwelcome stressor during times that are already stressful enough. And for others, the gravity of the pandemic and its global consequences may reduce Zoom to just one more irritating, trivial annoyance that provides ample kvetching material.
But for both of these groups of people, Zoom gives one crucial benefit that might make it well worth purchasing the official Zoom license in order to have meetings longer than 40 minutes. Zoom provides us with small and absurd details amid the overwhelming physical and psychological horrors of the pandemic. Details that we will eventually be able to look back on and laugh at, precisely because they are trivial, absurd and amusing.
This will prove invaluable because laughter can be a highly effective method for healthily processing tragedy. While this is a positive and valuable trend, there is something weird and off-kilter about watching them putter about their homes as they eagerly scramble to entertain us and make us laugh.
Especially when they are often no more interesting or enlightened than we are. This leads to a larger philosophical question concerning whether joking about serious subjects should be considered appropriate at all.
But that is merely an important stylistic consideration regarding how to joke about something, not a strict criterion for evaluating whether or not you should joke about something. And I will provide no such criteria because there should not be any. That is, as long as the jokes are made in sensitive ways, crafted with care and clear intent. I often fear that our culture is losing the ability to distinguish between making fun of something and making light of it.
They are not the same. Mocking, minimizing and making light of serious, sensitive subject matter is where we run into problems with tone deafness, ambiguous targets of jokes and flat out poor taste. Diminishing the seriousness of tragedies simply should not be done. But in my book, making fun of things is different.
It requires a quite refined and self-aware critical lens in order to produce humorous and subversive commentary on serious issues while still making it abundantly clear that you should be taking the seriousness seriously — not the jokes seriously.
This is why I think John Oliver has been, by far, the most effective and important comedic voice of the coronavirus era. He is making sure that the show is not about him. He has distilled the show down to nothing but the information and the bitter ironies we need to make sense of everything right now.
He prioritizes sharing information and his sense of bewilderment. Reacting with laughter seems more like a byproduct than his primary goal. I have tried to adapt this approach in my own humor writing.
Originally, I had planned to write another set of opinion columns this quarter so I could continue my pattern of switching between columns and satire articles every quarter. Rather, I set out to identify ironies and figure out ways to repackage them and vividly show them, not just tell them. This has been an invaluable exercise in critical thinking and comedic style. Yet, I constantly fear that some people may look at my coronavirus-themed humor as extremely distasteful.
To illustrate this point, I return to David. A very dark and twisted scenario indeed, but David navigates it delicately and brilliantly. It seems to apply to general events and not just personal incidents. Do you know who first crafted this formula? Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence of this saying located by QI was published in Cosmopolitan magazine in February The television personality, actor, and polymath Steve Allen presented his viewpoint on the genesis of comedy.
Boldface has been added to excerpts: 1. When I explained to a friend recently that the subject matter of most comedy is tragic drunkenness, overweight, financial problems, accidents, etc. Man jokes about the things that depress him, but he usually waits till a certain amount of time has passed.
It must have been a tragedy when Judge Crater disappeared, but everybody jokes about it now. I guess you can make a mathematical formula out of it. Tragedy plus time equals comedy. Joseph Crater was a judge in New York City who puzzlingly disappeared in Newspaper reports on the never-solved case mentioned: a secret blond mistress, missing money, corrupt politicians, and purloined papers. Eventually the event became grist for comedy and even graffiti scrawls such as: 2 3.
The prominent English novelist Thomas Hardy penned a letter in containing the following thematically related statement: 4. A QI article about the quotation above is available here. The show explored humor by presenting multiple samples together with general remarks on the theme. Steve Allen further disseminated the formula he gave in Cosmopolitan: 5.
He presented an amended version of his equation with a new additive term: 6 7. They say that comedy is tragedy plus time. After getting the bills I believe it. In February the television star Carol Burnett stated a close variant of the formula: 9. Like most clowns who take their comedy seriously, Carol grasps every opportunity to explain her artistic philosophy.
Burnett illustrated the principle with a humiliating tale about hiding in a closet to avoid being given a shot of penicillin by her doctor when she was a child:. Skip to content Skip to menu. Carol Burnett The previous quote is often attributed to Carol Burnett, but in all honesty the true source of this quote is shrouded in about as much comedic tragedy as the quote itself.
Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading It is very similar to mine. May 3, at pm Reply. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.
Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments
0コメント