there's an issue for something like The Thick of It where the satirical comment is so close to the reality
Definitely. Never really found The Office funny for that reason. It was just like an office. Which took me back to your original post (and woof's response) about whether humour is necessary.
I remember Wyndham Lewis wrote somewhere that all sorts of works are the better for being 'stiffened with satire' rather than being necessarily purely satirical (anyone who's read any of his purely satirical works will feel he has a point about limiting the amount of satire maybe).
I feel aesthetically that's right (and might operate only on a relatively unobtrusive level like externalising descriptions of people). Whether the same applies to humour I'm not so sure. I find black things funny. What woof said about Beckett upthread is relevant.
xpost lol.
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:31 (twelve years ago) link
i find black things v. funny. this is another point - often we bring the humour to what we're experiencing, it isn't necessarily present in the art work itself. i'll argue that Salo functions as black humour and i'm convinced that i'm right but it's obvious how you could miss it. the same wd go for a hell of a lot of cultural products. but is this eye for humour itself an expression of a sensibility that belongs to now?
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:34 (twelve years ago) link
No.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:35 (twelve years ago) link
Cautious no.
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:36 (twelve years ago) link
like obviously some people have always seen humour in everything. but does the degree to which this is a thinkable response change thru time/geography? i'm almost convinced it does. po-faced Victorians like all cliches is obviously false and disprovable but societies do have a public face i think, a way that they like to think about themselves out loud and present themselves to themselves. we live in an informal age and i wd agree with the crustiest Telegraph curmudgeon on that point, tho our conclusions wd be different.
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:37 (twelve years ago) link
eg Ulysses now is funny in some of the same ways and in some very different ways than it was in 1922. or more accurately perhaps it was serious in different ways back then.
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:39 (twelve years ago) link
We live in an informal age compared to upper class urban Victorians but that's tilting the playing field a little bit!
I don't know why, maybe it's just a natural egotism, but people always seem to think that previous generations were less funny, more serious-minded, less sophisticated, easier to fool, etc etc.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:40 (twelve years ago) link
the intent of the artist is of limited importance, i think, and proximity is an important part of that murky equation
― Streep? That's where I'm a-striking! (darraghmac), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:41 (twelve years ago) link
and yeah 100 years ago only the worst kind of political demagogue wanted to be your friend, friend of the people.
Trace this isn't less, more, better, worse...this is different. I'm saying that societies and cultures are different to one another. They may even repeat the same mannerisms, but i don't buy a timeless universality of experience.
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:42 (twelve years ago) link
Couple of case studies I guess. The first a 'yes' to the suggestion it's an expression of 'now'. Kafka I found incredibly gloomy (obv) when I first read him as a teenager. Now I find him quite amusing to read. The endless fruitless attempts to get things done in the face of the way things are (yes it's more than that), why, it's Larry David! (no.)
Celine: black as hell, and often extremely funny in what is essentially a presentation the bleak absurd? Black humour funny as a consequence of existentialism? see also Beckett.
So, death of god results in black humour? v possibly. See also the transition of the word absurd from the unique impossible to 'lol'.
Wd want to try and look at Rabelais/Cervantes/Swift maybe in this context, but people be staring at me not doing work.
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:42 (twelve years ago) link
Is it egotism? Premise of this thread seems to be that this might not, in itself, be A Good Thing.
― Homosexual Satan Wasp (Matt DC), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:42 (twelve years ago) link
so that's me saying 'yes' I guess.
sorry, xposting like blazes.
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:43 (twelve years ago) link
and it's not "previous generations", it's public discourse. the way media and public figures address their audience. the ways it's considered seemly for adults to relate to each other in public.
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:43 (twelve years ago) link
also xposting like mad. cos i'll have to work again shortly.
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:44 (twelve years ago) link
There is some kind of irony in a thread about humour being humorously delinated :/
― Lindsay NAGL (Trayce), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:45 (twelve years ago) link
deliniated. gah.
I'm cautiously yes on a cultural shift towards the tendency to see humour. I get the feeling 30s-70s maybe were a great deal more serious about their Kafka, Beckett, Dostoevsky etc.
― woof, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:46 (twelve years ago) link
death of god results in black humour
god = high seriousnessaftermath of death of god = black humourgod dead and forgotten = tim vine
― woof, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:47 (twelve years ago) link
xp
yeah i'm thinking this, from the perspective of criticism. altho it's obviously not the only measure of how writers are received.
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:47 (twelve years ago) link
aftermath of death of god = black humour
fits nicely into Breton's Anthology of Black Humour
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:48 (twelve years ago) link
on an unrelated note a work colleague - somebody i don't work that often with - just signed off an email to me with a "xx". i'm not perturbed but i am v much "this is ok now?"
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:53 (twelve years ago) link
You do see it.
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:53 (twelve years ago) link
i guess it's kind of pleasant, i think what throws me is the shifting signification of the "x" from "kiss"
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:55 (twelve years ago) link
well, yes, the first few times I saw it, I thought that as well. Take it it's from a woman tho? (I've only ever had an x at the end of an email from a woman, denuded of any close affection obv).
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:56 (twelve years ago) link
fuckin denuded gotta stop using that word. esp that close to 'affection'.
yeah exacly it's kinda like an air kiss but then you wdn't air kiss a colleague either?
― FPocalypto! (Noodle Vague), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:57 (twelve years ago) link
gotta go actually work yay friday
xx is a bit much, but x i see a bit.
― woof, Friday, 2 March 2012 11:58 (twelve years ago) link
Going to think about humour and the bleak void we stare at/stares at us.
it's even closer to the word "woman" FYI
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:58 (twelve years ago) link
xx
― Streep? That's where I'm a-striking! (darraghmac), Friday, 2 March 2012 11:59 (twelve years ago) link
Most of the "humour" in Private Eye is in the centre pages, the stuff towards the back about industry and banking is back at the anger and investigation. I think that stuff has as much sarcasm per item at the Street of Shame, but it just takes longer to cut through the pomposity and obstructive layers so the items are longer, whereas the SoS is all "An excellent review by Gerald Starborgling in the Telegraph of the new John Hardt novel, but surely the novel was written by a different Sally Johnson than the one who has been shacked up with him for 10 years?"
That said my reading order is straight to the satirical "From The Forums" in the humour, then SoS / the book reviews / everything else.
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:01 (twelve years ago) link
Also modern satire in pure black tar form = Chris Morris, particularly Brass Eye.
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:02 (twelve years ago) link
Yep. That qualifies more than anything else in the last couple of decades I think.
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:03 (twelve years ago) link
And the non-special part of it is 15 years ago, because I am old.
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:04 (twelve years ago) link
lulz this was the exact subject and angle of a hand-wringing daily mail column yesterday
― lex pretend, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:04 (twelve years ago) link
FUCK CHRIS MORRIS
FUCK THE OFFICE
― lex pretend, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:05 (twelve years ago) link
FUCK PEEP SHOW WHILE WE'RE AT IT
FUCK DAVID MITCHELL AND HIS FUCKING OBSERVER COLUMN
i actually like some black humour, a certain strain of it, i'm thinking uhhh... the opposite of sex? heathers?
elegance is an absolutely crucial component of humour for me, and indeed the only quality that can redeem comedy
― lex pretend, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:06 (twelve years ago) link
also no british people
Opinions running in a direct line from false to true, there.
Can there be comedy about poor people, lex?
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:09 (twelve years ago) link
maybe but the exceptions to the comedy rule are so rare that it's probably safer to say there should be no comedy at all, about anyone
― lex pretend, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:11 (twelve years ago) link
there's also the issue of 'grace' in real-life/observed humor –– are we laughing because of relatability, because of discomfort, or because of mockery –- and how separable are the three?
― a serious minestrone rockist (remy bean), Friday, 2 March 2012 12:11 (twelve years ago) link
fwiw, i do think that all (funny) comedy comes at somebody's expense, unless it is purely absurdist/verbal humor, in which case it's just an odd situ
― a serious minestrone rockist (remy bean), Friday, 2 March 2012 12:12 (twelve years ago) link
You mean performed stuff or things that actually happen to someone?
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:13 (twelve years ago) link
David Mitchell's observer column is truly dreadful. Gives me the heebie-jeebies, weird combo of 'humour' and unpleasant assumed 'moral rationalism'. Elegance is an interesting component. Wd seem to come specifically from the fin-de-siecle (back to death of god/absolute truth)... avatars of 'elegant humour' Firbank? Wodehouse even? Sorry, coming at it from a lit. point of view. Must admit that appeals to my taste less.
― Fizzles, Friday, 2 March 2012 12:14 (twelve years ago) link
I mean stuff that actually happens, Andrew. Or "reality" humor i.e. some idiot who posts a video of himself on youtube as he falls off a wall he's trying to balance beam (or w/e).
― a serious minestrone rockist (remy bean), Friday, 2 March 2012 12:16 (twelve years ago) link