The Joke Is on Us

The Joke Is on Us PDF Author: Julie A. Webber
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498569854
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Get Book

Book Description
This edited volume brings together scholars of comedy to assess how political comedy encounters neoliberal themes in contemporary media. Central to this task is the notion of genre; under neoliberal conditions (where market logics motivate most actions) genre becomes “mixed.” Once stable, discreet categories such as comedy, horror, drama and news and entertainment have become blurred so as to be indistinguishable. The classic modern paradigm of comedy/tragedy no longer holds, if it ever did. Moreover, as politics becomes more economic and less moral or normative under neoliberalism, we are able to see new resistance to comedic genres that support neoliberal strategies to hide racial and gender injustice such as unlaughter, ambiguity, and anti-comedy. There is also an increasing interest with comedy as a form of entertainment on the political right following both Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump in the U.S. Several essays confront this conservative comedy and place it in context of the larger humor history of these debates over free speech and political correctness. For comedians too, entry into popular media now follows the familiar neoliberal script of the celebration of self-help with the increasing admonishment of those who fail to win in market terms. Laughter plays an important role in shaming and valorizing (often at the same time!) the precarious subject in the aftermath of global recession. Doubling down on austerity, self-help policies and equivocation in the face of extremist challenges (right and left), politics foils the critical comedian’s attempt to satirize and parody its object. Characterized by ambiguity, mixed genre and the increasing use of anti-humor, political comedy mirrors the social and political world it mocks, parodies and celebrates often with lackluster results suggesting that the joke might be on us, as audiences.

The Joke Is on Us

The Joke Is on Us PDF Author: Julie A. Webber
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498569854
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Get Book

Book Description
This edited volume brings together scholars of comedy to assess how political comedy encounters neoliberal themes in contemporary media. Central to this task is the notion of genre; under neoliberal conditions (where market logics motivate most actions) genre becomes “mixed.” Once stable, discreet categories such as comedy, horror, drama and news and entertainment have become blurred so as to be indistinguishable. The classic modern paradigm of comedy/tragedy no longer holds, if it ever did. Moreover, as politics becomes more economic and less moral or normative under neoliberalism, we are able to see new resistance to comedic genres that support neoliberal strategies to hide racial and gender injustice such as unlaughter, ambiguity, and anti-comedy. There is also an increasing interest with comedy as a form of entertainment on the political right following both Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump in the U.S. Several essays confront this conservative comedy and place it in context of the larger humor history of these debates over free speech and political correctness. For comedians too, entry into popular media now follows the familiar neoliberal script of the celebration of self-help with the increasing admonishment of those who fail to win in market terms. Laughter plays an important role in shaming and valorizing (often at the same time!) the precarious subject in the aftermath of global recession. Doubling down on austerity, self-help policies and equivocation in the face of extremist challenges (right and left), politics foils the critical comedian’s attempt to satirize and parody its object. Characterized by ambiguity, mixed genre and the increasing use of anti-humor, political comedy mirrors the social and political world it mocks, parodies and celebrates often with lackluster results suggesting that the joke might be on us, as audiences.

Only a Joke Can Save Us

Only a Joke Can Save Us PDF Author: Todd McGowan
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810135825
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book

Book Description
Only a Joke Can Save Us presents an innovative and comprehensive theory of comedy. Using a wealth of examples from high and popular culture and with careful attention to the treatment of humor in philosophy, Todd McGowan locates the universal source of comedy in the interplay of the opposing concepts lack and excess. After reviewing the treatment of comedy in the work of philosophers as varied as Aristotle, G. W. F. Hegel, Sigmund Freud, Henri Bergson, and Alenka Zupancic, McGowan, working in a psychoanalytic framework, demonstrates that comedy results from the deployment of lack and excess, whether in contrast, juxtaposition, or interplay. Illustrating the power and flexibility of this framework with analyses of films ranging from Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers classics to Dr. Strangelove and Groundhog Day, McGowan shows how humor can reveal gaps in being and gaps in social order. Scholarly yet lively and readable, Only a Joke Can Save Us is a groundbreaking examination of the enigmatic yet endlessly fascinating experience of humor and comedy.

The JOKE

The JOKE PDF Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006099505X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book

Book Description
All too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence. The present edition provides English-language readers an important further means toward revaluation of The Joke. For reasons he describes in his Author's Note, Milan Kundera devoted much time to creating (with the assistance of his American publisher-editor) a completely revised translation that reflects his original as closely as any translation possibly can: reflects it in its fidelity not only to the words and syntax but also to the characteristic dictions and tonalities of the novel's narrators. The result is nothing less than the restoration of a classic.

March of the Lemmings

March of the Lemmings PDF Author: Stewart Lee
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571357040
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 423

Get Book

Book Description
As a Metropolitan Elitist Snowflake, Stewart Lee was disappointed by the Brexit referendum result of 2016. But he knew how to weaponise his inconvenience. He would treat all his subsequent writing, until we left the EU, as interrelated episodes of a complete work. The cast of characters include Lemming-obsessed Michael Gove, violent tanning-salon entrepreneur Tommy Robinson and Boris Piccaninny Watermelon Bumboys Letterbox Cake Disaster Weightloss Haircut Bullshit Johnson. A dramatic chorus is made up of online commenters and Kremlin bots. And Lee himself would play the defeated, unreliable narrator-hero, whose resolve and tolerance would gradually unravel as the horror show dragged on. Until the 29 March, 2019, when it would all definitely be over Drawing on three years of newspaper columns, a complete transcript of the Content Provider stand-up show, and Lee's caustic footnote commentary, March of the Lemmings is the scathing, riotous record the Brexit era deserves.

The Gigantic Joke Book

The Gigantic Joke Book PDF Author: Joseph Rosenbloom
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
ISBN: 9780806975146
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book

Book Description
Over 1,000 jokes, 96 drawings. Index. "Gr.4-6. A gigantic compendium of rib-tickling, giggle-inspiring one liners, puns, funny stories, put-downs...Clever and witty."--SLJ. "True kid appeal."--Learning. 256 pages, b/w illus. throughout, 5 3/8 x 8 1/4.

Something Fishy at Macdonald Hall

Something Fishy at Macdonald Hall PDF Author: Gordon Korman
Publisher: Apple
ISBN: 9780590255226
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book

Book Description
Just as the Headmaster of Macdonald Hall is on the verge of retirement, a wave of practical jokes hits the school, and roommates Bruno and Boots become prime suspects.

The Joke's on Me

The Joke's on Me PDF Author: Laurie Boris
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781723741289
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Get Book

Book Description
When a mudslide plummets her hopes, her home, and her entire collection of impractical footwear into the Pacific, former actress and stand-up comic Frankie Goldberg takes the only possession she has left - a cherry red Corvette convertible - and drives east to her family's bed and breakfast in Woodstock, New York. This begins a journey into the family she left behind, the family she joked about in her act. But the joke's on Frankie. While she was doing impressions of her slightly menopausal Jewish mother and her sister the serial divorcee, her family was slowly leaving her. And maybe that joke is just too new to be funny. Travel along with fearless Frankie as she puzzles through that eternal dilemma of coming back home to find that nothing is where you left it.

The Joke's on Us

The Joke's on Us PDF Author: Gordon Korman
Publisher: Scholastic Canada
ISBN: 9780439967211
Category : Boarding schools
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Get Book

Book Description
There is nothing new about practical jokes at Macdonald Hall. The latest round includes water in the swimming pool being turnedblue, the statue of Sir John A. getting a snazzy new outfit, and extra soap being snuck into the dishwasher just for fun. Of course, all fingers point to the usual suspects – Bruno Walton and Boots O'Neal. The funny thing – they are not the ones pulling the pranks this time! But they are unsure just who the new prankster is, and they have to prove they're innocent before they get expelled.

The Extremely Silly Joke Book

The Extremely Silly Joke Book PDF Author: Sally Lindley
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
ISBN: 9781784282110
Category : Wit and humor, Juvenile
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Collects jokes on such topics as monsters, food, animals, and outer space.

Macdonald Hall #7: The Joke's On Us

Macdonald Hall #7: The Joke's On Us PDF Author: Gordon Korman
Publisher: Scholastic Canada
ISBN: 1443128074
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book

Book Description
Gordon Korman's classic, bestselling series celebrates its 35th anniversary! Macdonald Hall's ivy-covered buildings have housed and educated many fine young Canadians. But Bruno Walton and Boots O'Neal are far from being fine young Canadians. The roommates and best friends are nothing but trouble! Together they've snuck out after lights-out, swapped flags, kidnapped mascots . . . and that's only the beginning. There is nothing new about practical jokes at Macdonald Hall. The latest round includes water in the swimming pool being turned blue, the statue of Sir John A. getting a snazzy new outfit, and extra soap being snuck into the dishwasher just for fun. Of course, all fingers point to the usual suspects — Bruno Walton and Boots O'Neal. The funny thing — they are not the ones pulling the pranks this time! But they are unsure just who the new prankster is, and they have to prove they're innocent before they get expelled. Join two of Gordon Korman's most memorable characters in seven side-splitting, rip-roaring adventures! Macdonald Hall is the series that started it all, and thirty-five years later it remains a must-read for old fans and new, the young — and the young at heart.