I don't think comedy is necessarily an attack. It's finding humour in life. I don't think if you're making a joke about something you're automatically demeaning it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Comedy often comes at the expense of others, and to do that smartly, you don't want to make fun of vulnerable people. You want to make fun of people in power, and so you need to really understand the dynamics of power.
What I've always said about comedy is if you do it in the right way, you can say anything to anybody because they know where you're coming from. They know it's not malicious.
The violence or the vaudeville style of comedy is a technique all by itself. You get up there, and you are a comedian, and you're doing one thing. That is, you're going to make the audience laugh.
What's great about comedy, obviously, is that you set up a situation that people assume one thing and then you break the assumption. That's basically the backbone to comedy. You set up a situation, let people make an assumption, and then you break the assumption.
Eddie Murphy said once in an interview that nothing is offensive if it's funny. I sort of agree with that, but if something's funny and you're the subject of it, sometimes it's more offensive. If someone's insulting you, you want them to sound like an idiot.
People complain that joking about serious subjects is 'making light' of them. Isn't that a good idea? Comedy lets the air out of the bully's tires.
There's an art to stupid comedy. There's an art to offensive comedy, and I think the key is it's just gotta make you laugh.
I think when you dissect a joke too much, you have ruined whatever there is in comedy.
Comedy is a great weapon of attack. It's not a great weapon of support.
And humor has always been a weapon. You want to get even on somebody? You want to attack somebody? Make fun of them.