I was watching Last Comic Standing the other night (kind of the American Idol for comedians). It's a pretty funny show, for good and for bad, and I'm not ashamed to say that I watch it and like it. Because they go to different cities around the country to pick the finalists, it gives a bit of a window into what is considered funny nationally and regionally. What became clear from watching the auditions are the following:
1. Comedians make fun of their own, be it Jewish, Black, Catholic, fat, short, for biggest laughs (because they allow "others" to laugh "with" them about those stereotypes)
2. Mexicans are the new Poles. (I know the joke word for Pole ends in "k" but I don't want to use it being that we're a family blog. Oh wait, no we're not. But whatever). It is apparently completely okay to make fun of Mexicans no matter what your own ethnicity.
3. There is no accounting for taste in humor. The two judges find things funny and "really great" that I think for sure is going to get the contestant berated and sent home for being the least funny individual since Henry Kissinger.
4. Weird-looking people making jokes about their inability to "get laid" is a booming subsector of the entire comedic economy. If such jokes were banned, you'd see thousands of comics go bankrupt overnight, thereby making them unemployed AND celibate, which, for my money, is HILARIOUS.
5. Prim-looking young women who tell unbelievably raunchy and offensive jokes are the new...um, er...old, pony-tailed men who tell unbelievably raunchy and offensive jokes? Or maybe they are the acolytes at the Sarah Silverman Altar of Humor?
Either way, I think I've found my next job.
2 comments:
And now ladies and gentlemen, a woman of irreverent humor who loves the fart scene in Blazing Saddles and two of her favorite books are inexplicably both called Anything, hailing from the Washington DC area, please welcome EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Just saw it last night. Good reco, E. ps--you could totally do that gig.
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