The topic I chose to talk about was comedy and how it fits in an era of cancel culture and a

prevalence of political correctness. This was a thought I have been pondering on for the past
few months as my interest in comedy, which was already one of my main forms of
entertainment, had a sudden spike due to 1) the sheer amount of time I had on my hands due to
the quarantine situation, and 2) the things i would hear other people, outside of the “comedy
world”, about certain comedians, jokes and people laughing at those jokes.

I did my best to explain my sentiments to the others who showed interest in the topic at that
point in time because as I am writing this now having thought about it even more and asking for
other opinions outside this class, it is a pretty layered things in my head that is tough to
concisely explain, especially over chat. The point I wanted to bring up at that time was trying to
defend the art of comedy and how it does not deserve the extent of scrutiny it has gotten from
society. I wanted to point out how there are situations that comedians face that I feel are unfair
ranging from taking things they said out of context, or misunderstanding a joke that touches on
a sensitive topic and finding it offensive without analyzing the joke in its entirety to find out
whether or not it was mean spirited in the first place, and if it was making people of a certain
discriminated group of people at a social or economical level the butt of a joke.

The others’ opinions were not necessarily opposing my own perspective, but more on
questioning the validity of certain sentiments about comedy, particularly offensive or “dark”
humor, and how there should be repercussions on certain things. Some had sentiments of limits
that there should be when it comes to comedy and questioning what should be considered
funny. Some of them even agreed with me and my disdain for cancel culture and how it
promotes a toxic environment for everyone involved and how it does not solve any problems.
Looking back at some of their responses, there are some sentiments that I feel I do not agree
with, but I realize that it was because at that point in time, I was not able to articulate exactly
what my sentiments were regarding comedy because comedy is such a giant melting pot of
different modes of expression (stand-up, sketch comedy, theatre, etc.).

Now that I have been able to think on these ideas that have been plaguing my mind and look
into more things and process others’ opinions about comedy, I have a better understanding of
where comedy is rooted in, and in turn where my sentiments regarding it are rooted in. To my
understanding, based on my interpretation of things comedy veterans and philosophers have
said in the past about comedy, it is that humor is critical in nature about everything, and it
reveals truths about life and the inconsistencies within the human experience that people are
able to laugh about because they believe it to be, to some extent, true. If the comedy content
isn’t rooted in some truth, or if people are not able to see the truth embedded in a joke people
won’t laugh because it is not something that they can recognize to be true and therefore cannot
understand why it is funny. People laugh at things ranging from slapstick, to satirical, to even
“dark” content because there is some aspect of truth of the incongruity of the things within those
topics in relation to the human experience within the jokes. Humor is born from the recognition
of the fact that anything to do with the human experience is imperfect through laughter.