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by zer00eyz 845 days ago
>> I understand the need for comedy in dealing with stress

The rest of your statement says you do not understand why comedy and stress have the relationship they do.

If you go look there is data for the impact of humor on stress, on fear, on danger. The product of comedy, laughter, is one of the few autonomic functions that others can trigger in you.

In return I would caution you to not police others good time. Not only is it unfounded in data (yes there has been research on this, no one supports this perspective). It is the thing that has been done for generations, and failed (see tipper gore as the latest example).

>> dehumanizing comedy about blacks in the era of slavery or jews in the holocaust

Candidly this take is deeply misinformed. Blackface, had shades of slavery but the larger arc of it was NOT that. Calling attention to the slavery aspect is actually diminishing what it was. You're also reinforcing the stereo type of Black people and Slavery something that is massively historically inaccurate, read about the bakery pirates and the ottomans. Plenty of other people from other races have been slaves throughout history.

Meanwhile calling out "jews in the holocaust" and comedy is going to be a hard sell. Not only was this comedy never common, the foundations of American comedy are deeply rooted in the jewish community and jewish tradition. The godfather of modern comedy, Lenny Bruce was a jew. The scene in the Catskills that drove early days comedy that ended up on television (think cid cesar) was jewish.

1 comments

I never said you shouldnt engage in humor, I said you shouldnt dehumanize people. Its possible to make a joke without equating an entire population as less than human. Its not productive to nitpick my analogies, I never claimed there was comedy about blacks during slavery, nor jews during the holocaust, you missed the point completely, its not funny to dehumanize people, and its corrosive to your own senses as well as society.