In Shakespeare play King Lear and in other great comic literature the clown character, or Fool, is not there to reassure the rich and powerful. Quite the opposite.
After all, those who reassure the rich and powerful are called lackeys, and although lackeys may try to be funny and witty, they almost never are.
However in the current USA elections there is no down trodden, Both Clinton and Trump are rich and powerful.
Let us then turn our attention to the real rich and powerful, television 'comedians',sich as Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert et al.
Nothing is ahistorical, it would be preposterous to suggest that is the case and that includes comedy; even those who combine comedy with music or drama play the role of Lear’s Fool, afflicting the rich and powerful. The musicals of Gilbert and Sullivan, for example, tweeked the noses of the Edwardian upper class in England, even while those same members of the upper class flocked to the theatre to see themselves mocked in such an entertaining way.
Because Gilbert and Sullivan were creative geniuses, they thinly disguised their ridicule of the upper classes by… for example… pretending to set their “topsy-turvy” stories in the court of the Japanese Emperor. Yet it was really about the English class system.
You can even go back to the oldest Great Comic Writer known to civilization: the comic Greek playwright Aristophanes. There is a subversive tone in all his plays. Like all good comedians, Aristophanes saw people in charge doing stupid things. And the best response, he felt, was to write plays to expose the silliness and fallibility of their judgment.
After all, those who reassure the rich and powerful are called lackeys, and although lackeys may try to be funny and witty, they almost never are.
However in the current USA elections there is no down trodden, Both Clinton and Trump are rich and powerful.
Let us then turn our attention to the real rich and powerful, television 'comedians',sich as Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert et al.
Nothing is ahistorical, it would be preposterous to suggest that is the case and that includes comedy; even those who combine comedy with music or drama play the role of Lear’s Fool, afflicting the rich and powerful. The musicals of Gilbert and Sullivan, for example, tweeked the noses of the Edwardian upper class in England, even while those same members of the upper class flocked to the theatre to see themselves mocked in such an entertaining way.
Because Gilbert and Sullivan were creative geniuses, they thinly disguised their ridicule of the upper classes by… for example… pretending to set their “topsy-turvy” stories in the court of the Japanese Emperor. Yet it was really about the English class system.
You can even go back to the oldest Great Comic Writer known to civilization: the comic Greek playwright Aristophanes. There is a subversive tone in all his plays. Like all good comedians, Aristophanes saw people in charge doing stupid things. And the best response, he felt, was to write plays to expose the silliness and fallibility of their judgment.
In our own time, the Fool may be called Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, or Stephen Colbert. The Fool’s job is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. However underlying who are the powerful
and who are the afflicted lies oceans of bias.
Who do we blame for the inculcation of bias into to these fine and noble comedians like
Bill Maher, or Stephen Colbert as they polish their moral hauteur on the airwaves, their mount moral credentials before millions of estatic viewers. Could the culprits be those arch academic priests who in their doctrinaire way never permitted an illiberal thought to be aired in their classrooms and have in turn created the phenomenon of a nearly wholly left wing media. One looks but never sees the lesser spotted right wing comedian among the plethora of left wing comedians. Now I wonder why that is?
As these comedian head bang in meetings to come up with shock tactic comedy what is their aim
well it must be to affront and insult (plenty use of the F word from Maher and how 'cool' it is have a 'smoke') Jesus, how old hat is that? So one assume their aim is subvert one's norms, and if you fall for that well, more fool you.
As these comedian head bang in meetings to come up with shock tactic comedy what is their aim
well it must be to affront and insult (plenty use of the F word from Maher and how 'cool' it is have a 'smoke') Jesus, how old hat is that? So one assume their aim is subvert one's norms, and if you fall for that well, more fool you.
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