Journal Entry 4

After these first couple weeks of Rhetoric and humor I came to realize an ongoing similarity between all comics, whether fictional or not. All humorous figures seem to take on a persona or character that makes them stand out from the norm of other human beings. Whether it be Ben Franklin's codename Silence Doogood, or the transvestite character of Eddy Izzard, they tend to create another person entirely, in their acts of readings, to distance themselves personally from the audience. Because comics are considered entertainers, they have to find a way to separate themselves form the biased views of society that may judge who they are by what they say or think is funny. I guess my puzzle is how or when do they know to turn their created character off. I feel like its not fair to some of these comics because outside of their job they are like everyone else, but since everyone wants to only see the funny witty created character, they must, for fear of the cricket-noise audience. And I'm not sure if this is correct , but I have heard that many comics are in face manic depressive and have personality complexes. Although this is not credible evidence in the least, it is important to note how challenging the life of a comic to stay edgy and funny can really be

Journal Entry 3

Although I had already seen Charlie Chaplain's Modern Times in High School, after watching it a second time I noticed a few things that I had not noticed before. Although the slap stick humor of that Chaplain creates in his character, you can definitely notice some ironic and dark images that depict the atmosphere of America during that time. Depending on how deep you look into the movie related to what a person might in fact get out of it. So although I did recognize those images, I am still a big fan of slap stick humor. From the old classics of the three stooges to the ridiculous antics that occurs in the Jackass series. There is just something funny to me about people falling down and getting hurt. It could be because I am quite accident prone myself and I find a sort of camaraderie with these clumsy fools, but even when I fall down I laugh at myself as well. I think it is extremely important to be able to laugh at yourself and whenever I see these hooligans get a pie in their face, or a scorpion sting on their ass, it just reminds me of the stupid accidents that I myself have been apart of. Like this one time I was trying to hop the fence at Drake plaza, and I lost my balance, fell off the top and broke my arm. Looking back it sucked when it happened but its pretty god damn funny too

Journal Entry 2

Journal Entry 2: In our only class this week we watched a small clip about a stand-up comic named Eddie Izzard. Although I did not think he was as funny as Carlin, Izzard parallels Carlin’s technique of poking fun at strange traditions in the world society today. Where Carlin focuses on swear words and cuss words, Izzard dedicates most of his act on the ridiculous religious and social traditions that exist in our world. From the indistinguishable verses that exist in the American national Anthem, to qualms of indifference that exist in the Anglican church, Izzard loves to point out the cultural calamities not only in his home, but around the world. One thing that I found interesting was the character that Izzard portrays in his stand-up act. Although unclear to me, he seems to take on the persona of a transvestite. I am not too sure whether it makes him less likely to receive criticism from females for feminist jokes but just his appearance seemed to put me in a humorous mood because of how ridiculous he looked.

Journal Entry 1

In our second class of Rhetoric and Humor we watched a few clips of stand-up comedy from one of the great comics, George Carlin. Being a big fan of George Carlin I greatly enjoyed his attacks on the linguistic taboos that exist in our society. Although many people tend to shy away from the vulgarity that exists within Carlin’s act, I find it extremely entertaining in the way he points out how ridiculous and absurd the steps are to refrain from using these so called “swear words.” I think it is important to notice how our society and even our government continually try to censor us from ourselves with these linguistic taboos. The reason why I find George Carlin so funny is not just because he uses such words as “fuck” or “shit” not just for the sake of the word, but includes a certain inflection and delivery within his voice that makes you feel like you are agreeing on how absurd this paradox really is.