Comedy

Maybe it is just me, but I do not find cinematic or television comedy very comedic. The only reason, I think, that motion picture romantic comedies and other comedic endeavors is due to age; my age.

Watching comedies and this goes for cartoons also is not the fun I remember. The current list of comedic performers lack skill. They depend too much on toilet humor and vulgarity. Let me be clear, I am not prudish. Occasionally I like off-color jokes as much as anyone; however a steady stream of such humor finally fails to be funny.

Another form of current humor I do not find funny is that which belittles people. The intelligent are made to look foolish, older people are out of touch, and families are the disdained and made to look pointless. Of course, while growing up I often thought of my family as funny, but I never belittled any of my family. As my children grew up I am certain they too found humor in family life, but I did not feel belittled.

While teaching a college course on human cultures I often used an Abbott and Costello film called "Buck Privates" as an example of the American culture of the late 1930s and early 1940s. To my astonishment the young college students in my classes would laugh out loud at the antics of the bungling Abbot and Costello. Further, even in the slap stick comedy of the film a message could be clearly understood. Further, the film provided a good medium for discussing current social issues. In "Buck Privates" you were truly entertained. You got to see the Andrews Sisters perform the "Bugle Boy from Company B," an unresolved triangular love dilemma providing the plot line, and the absurdity of Army life. The most important message of the film is that with dedicated effort and commitment success can be achieved. In other words, the story had in it a sense of redemption and purpose. Army life and street life provided the sources of humor but no one or anything was the target of scorn.

Again, age may color my observations. If I were in my twenties or thirties in 2011, maybe I could find the humor in the unpleasant and thoughtless comedy of this era.