Humor With a Multifunctional Nature: Cultures and Traditions in Works of Comedy Essay

The things that make us laugh mostly occur in the real life. According to Shaw, reality is an excellent material for comedy. Hence, works of comedy can reveal cultures and traditions in a way that it is easy for us to grasp and to perceive them. In Mel Brooks’ spoof Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the villainous Prince John asks to hear bad news in a Good way. The Sheriff of Rottingham responds by delivering the bad news in between boots of laughter. The above could be considered as the function and the purpose of comedy: to make us laugh in order to drown our tears. In difficult time, this is the most effective tool to distract masses from the problems that make them cry. Owing to the fact that we are on the edge of the election year, we will analyze how humor, with an emphasis on sarcasm and irony, is being used to inform and distract. Currently, there have emerged many comedy shows that are politically oriented and are focused mostly on the satirizing the political events in order to cheer up the audience and to influence the positive thinking. One of the best-known TV comic shows of such type is The Colbert Report, satirical program on Comedy Channel. Hence, Stephen Colbert presented a parody of major cable news by satirizing the report from CNN and NBC. (Andersen et al. 295). Therefore, the main function of such programs points out the news parodies are aimed not to inform people but to entertain and to make them laugh. Considering the 2008 elections in particular, the Colbert Report served as accelerator of the people’s self-awareness and patriotism; it aimed at revealing the truth to people in humorous ways in order to compensates the lack of information about the force coming event.

In this respect, Colbert greatly influenced the political life and contributed to the rapid changes in the media delivery since most of his jokes were perceived as a serious argument (Maisel et al. 369). Actually, that was the trigger point of the foundation of this program and the reason why the audience was more inclined to watch satirical programs rather than boring and oppressive news. People were getting the information about the elections from this show and did not want to watch the CNN channel or BCC news channels. In his show, the anchor invited many political influential figures that were making jokes and speak in front of camera about the inadmissible things that were not censured. The show, on the one hand, pokes fun at boring politics and, on the other hand, it is quite a down-to-earth depiction that manifests reality from humorous angle. This is the first show that introduce such neologism as ‘truthiness’ where Stephan Colbert overtly satirizes on the other television stars and politicians who have often been convicted of confusing humble population with the false information. Hence, this program is directed at depicting the right things, without imposing the support of reason on it (Language Log unpaged). “Colbert is less concerned with examining how our ideas of truth are used to manipulate us. His subject is not some abstract, capital-T Truth but truthiness… that cannot be navigated on the two dimensional axes of “true” and torture.” (Peterson 144).

The show proved that the power of humor is considerable especially in the political field since it is capable to persuade people to build certain stereotypes. The Colbert Report’s ironical treatment of 2008 elections revealed the actual state of affairs of this process and turned out to be useful for the viewers in terms of the validity of the election itself. The self-humiliating humor sometimes increases the likeability of the program. The 2008 election caused many contradictions among the American society since the newly elected president was the first African American president in the history of the USA. That is why, most comedy talk shows have many issues to discuss and to poke fun at. Thus, The Colbert show brought the viewers political coverage of the fateful election with analysis of the candidate headquarters. In his satirizing the force-coming election, Stephen Colbert decides to run for presidency as if teasing the seriousness thus announcing that his intensions are serious. In the release of the program devoted to the election, he implicitly expressed his political views and his fidelity to South Carolina region although he revealed himself as the supporter of both a Democrat and a Republican. The pseudo-campaign also disclosed the bias, prejudices, and humorous situation based on the veritable elections. Moreover, the show discovered the daily issues of main political parties thus showing parody pictures and video games (Election 2008 unpaged).

The main purpose of the parody was to highlight the process of preparation of the candidates of the election so that the audience could be involved in the political processes. These programs are not only aimed at entertaining people; they function to get people know about politicians even if they are not interested in politics. Therefore, such political parodies are a kind of political propaganda on the one hand and the way of distracting people from the essential issues in politics on the other hand.

The device used by Stephen Colbert is quite simple and serious in delivery but this exaggerated seriousness made people laugh and treat the force-coming elections in a humorous way. (Election 2008 unpaged). During the election campaign, Colbert strived to attract the attention of the younger voters saying, “By the way, voter out there: Do not blow this for us! Every four years we hear about your vote-rocking powers, and every four years you stay home and play Super Mario. Not this time” (Election 2008 unpaged). This humorous call was, probably, even more efficient, as that might provoke the self-awareness of the young generation during the election. In this calling, Stephen also pokes fun at the actual situation at the election when the target voters are still adult people. By joking and mocking at the present youth, the anchor intended to demonstrate the absence of knowledge and experience that should be cultivated among the youngsters.

The program devoted to the controversial elections humorously highlighted the hesitation of people in terms of the position they take during the election. Therefore, the show implicitly expressed the moral and ethical issues of the electoral campaign. Considering this, the work satirized on the issues of people’s awareness of the elections and their participation in it. Due to the fact that an American society is too much concentrated on the problems of justice and equality of human rights, the promotion Colbert’s candidacy attracted people and make them look at the problem from another angel. This step made the younger generation participate in the election (Young University, unpaged).

In his show, Colbert touches upon the question of racism thus expressing his position against racial discrimination. He also reveals liberal and a bit neutral view on the confrontation of the parties. His humorous approach to the elections revived the interest among the students so that their love of the show makes them pursue the debates (Young University, unpaged). Colbert, here tried to appeal to people who lacked information about the elections campaign and who, therefore, were reluctant to vote.

Generally speaking about the humor and purpose, it is necessary to mention that humor and irony has a specific social function. Hence, humor may express social approval or disappointment; it can shape stereotypes and develop your attitude to different aspects of life and politics in particular. According to Stephenson, “social functions [of humor] have been interpreted largely in terms of intergroup conflict and social control” (569). In this respect, a detailed examination of jokes and humor discloses their origin takes its roots in social conflict and contradiction of views. History witnesses that many jokes are aimed at mocking at the American upper classes and their high income so that people joke when they envy thus compensating their lower status. That implicit attitude to welfare class shows that jokes can be also stratified and are mostly focused on the economic and social differences (Stephenson 572). In contrast, by joking at poor people, the rich try to hide their vices. Anyway, joke is the method to compensate you disadvantages and to justify them. In the modern society, jokes saved their functions since the social problems have remained. The Colbert Report is the bright example of the presence of controversies within the American society. However, it does not intend to aggravate life of people but to inform about them in a relevant way.

Essay

Conflict and Control Functions if Humor

The role of humor is of great value for the current society as it helps not only to entertain people and but also to control the social environment at the current moment. Relying on this the article called Conflict and Control Functions of Humor by Stephenson is reveals sociologic aspect of humor whose primary function is to restrain conflicts and to monitor the people behavior. Moreover, it enlarges on the connection of humor with economic status of a person in a society. I chose this paper for my assay because, it facilitates the comprehension of the importance of irony and parody as the method to monitor the balance between the poor and rich class in the current society.

As in my work I analyze the significance of the work of humor from the cultural and historical point of view, the article promotes the understanding of historical background and nature of the conflict humor. The idea may be supported by the following abstract: “adaptability of humor as a conflict weapon lies in the fact that humor may conceal malice and allow the expression of aggression without consequences” (Stephenson 569). The socially predetermined conflicts distorted the morale thus aggravating the class controversies. That is why humor was an effective tool for establishing the peaceful relations between diverse community groups.

My paper also enlarges on the creation of ironically fixed stereotypes that helps to avoid tense situation in the society. The article under consideration gave me the opportunity to realize that humor could also shape our attitude and feelings (Stephenson 570). Hence, as the recent political events have caused bias on the racial and economic ground, the humorous approach has help to relieve the conflict situation and to create the favorable conditions for the elections.

Considering the racial issues in more detail, Stephenson writes, “Most jokes in which manual laborers or servants are the butts of the story use subjects of foreign origin or minority race” (Stephenson, 572). This statement explains what the major reasons are for using humor as the method to defend the racial groups. The passage turned out to be valuable for the analysis of my work of comedy, as it also runs about the problems of racial prejudice. In that respect, the article emphasizes that ethnic communities use humor in order to compensate their lower status. Considering the current situation, ironical treatment of African Americans and Latinos are partially based on that ground. Here, jokes also functions as the method of achieving balance between social and ethnic classes and to perpetuate the moral values that are typical for each culture. To minimize the aggression and to enhance economic stability our current society feels an extreme necessity for the humorous TV programs that serves to divert people’s attention from the hardship of political life.

As a conclusion, it should be stressed that humor has a multifunctional nature since it helps to keep the society in order. Relying on the article, the historical background of jokes forces the understanding of the human as one of the methods of conflict resolution. Therefore, the analyzed paper helped me to find the connection of humor with political and economic situation in the country, which is especially important during the elections.

Works Cited

Andersen, Robin, and Gray Jonathan. Battleground: the Media US: Greewood Publishing Group, 2008.

Colbert’s Candidacy: Great President? or Greatest President ever? Young University 2007. Web.

Colbert’s Fights for Truthiness. Language Log. 2006. Web.

“Election 2008” Campaigns, Voting, and Elections in the United States 2009. Web.

Maisel, Louis Sandy & Brewer, Mark D. Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process. US: Roman & Littlefield, 2007.

Peterson, Russell Leslie. Strange bedfellows: how late-night comedy turns democracy into a joke. US: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

Stephenson, Richard M. “Conflict and Control Functions of Humor” The American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 56.6 (1951) pp. 569-574.

Will youth vote… or play Super Mario? Election 2008. Web.