Sunday, April 4, 2010

The Devolution of Comedy in American Culture or Why You Tube Makes Me Sad

So today I saw one of my more favorite You Tubers, Slyth66, post a Q&A video and at the end he makes a joke about masturbation. I was kind of appalled at this because thats not typically his type of humor, but I can see why he did it, he is almost at 20,000 subscribers and still doesn't have a partnership, mind you most people get a partnership at 2,000 subscribers. So then I reflect and think about the big names on You Tube, the Shane Dawsons and Phillip Defrancos of the top of the You Tube charts all have way too much sexual humor and I think its led me to be kind of bored of most You Tube videos recently. It used to be I would look forward to everyones videoes when I got big into You Tube over the summer, now I stay subscribed to a lot of the same people but I don't watch their videos because it is usually the same old thing, its like watch more than 5 episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

I then think about the rest of entertainment culture in America specifically comedy and how it is on the same page as that of what is big on You Tube. Sex comedies are what dominate the box office these days, last year alone the best non kids comedies were The Hangover and Bruno and sadly they have gratitutious amounts of sexual humor, yet American audiences seem to like it more than other types of humor.

It just makes me sad that the era of well written comedy is dying to make for comedy that has to deal with sex. I just watched the movie today called It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and wow what a great comedic movie from 1963, just really well put together overall, more on that movie some other time, but it makes me sad to compare that to comedies of today which arent as worthwhile, yes people enjoy them, but they are not the movies people put at the top of their lists of movies that NEED to see in the year. As comedies even on Television lessen in quality, i.e. The Office, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Two and A Half Men, it makes me wonder if the art of comedy in America is dying almost as fast as film criticism is because of how low brow it has to be to appeal to a mass audience.

It just makes me sad overall because I have learned to fully appreciate comedies of yester-year but most people really don't care cuz most of their comedic interests have to depend on subtle innuendos.

I could keep ranting but it would get redundant.

Until next time...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have a similar disappointment with today's pop culture and music. It seems like nowadays, what sells is cheesy entertainment that doesn't have an ounce of substance. Just look at what's been popular recently: High School Musical, Hannah Montana, Twilight, Taylor Swift, etc. Now I know Taylor Swift has a lot of fans, but really, have you listened to her lyrics? No substance.

I just wish entertainers would put more thought into what they're releasing. And I wish people would stop glorifying things based on the cheese factor.