David Cross "Jesus Talks"

David Cross "Shut Up, You Fucking Baby" Portland, Oregon and Atlanta, Georgia. Youtube 2.25.09

In David Cross' stand-up comedy he often talks about religion (Christianity, Judaism, Science in relation to religion, reason, etc). As an atheist jew who grew up in the south, he clearly has an opinion on religion and he shares it frequently: religion is ridiculous. Usually he flat-out mocks religion, referring to the bible as something similar to dungeons and dragons and citing and pointing out other ridiculous aspects of christianity and Judaism (like how it's not fair that in Judaism, no matter what you believe, whether you're an atheist or think that God is a unicorn and babies taste like lemonade, if your mother is Jewish, then so are you). In this youtube audio clip David Cross takes a less risky, less offensive stance on religion. He observes how in all depictions of Jesus, actors attribute him to having a somber, knowing voice of reason and wisdom, but in reality nobody really knows what Jesus sounded like. Jesus could have had any number of voices, and David Cross wonders what if Jesus spoke in a really effeminate southern voice. His humor here is potentially offensive, but for the most part it is innocuous. It makes no groundbreaking observations about religion or christianity, all Cross does is ponder a what if and runs with it. The absurdity and unfamiliarity of this "what if..." is what makes it so hysterical.

The Catherine Tate Show: Did You Hear about Our John?

The Catherine Tate Show was a multiple award-winning television sketch comedy program created by and starring Irish Comedian Catherine Tate that ran for three series (seasons) on BBC Two from 2004 to 2007. The program primarily deals with situations in everyday life. Recurring characters in the series include Lauren Cooper, a typical "punk" teenage girl, and Joannie "Nan" Taylor, an Irish grandmother who often swears and criticizes those around her. This particular clip deals with a smaller character, John Reilly, and his mother. John is a teenager in Northern Ireland, who decides that it is finally time for him to "come out of the closet." He comes out to his mother, expecting her to reject him, or worse, throw him out of the house. To his surprise, she accepts him fully, perhaps even a little too enthusiastically. The rest of the skits that deal with the story show how much John's mother tries to accept him. This particular skit deals with two subjects in identity politics, specifically, sexual identity. First of all, it makes fun of the fear that many gays and lesbians may have about coming out in this day and age, while also poking fun at a sort of "sympathetic homophobia" that some people may have (i.e. they attempt to hide their homophobia by attempting to treat those they subconsciously don't accept nicely through stereotypes).

Tate, Catherine, prod. The Catherine Tate Show. BBC Two. 26 Oct. 2006. YouTube. 11 Jan. 2008. 31 Mar. 2009.

Peet Guercio - Flirting on Myspace

Peet Guercio is a 24 year old comic who is most famous for being a prominent comedian on the website “Funny or Die”.  In this bit, he discusses courting rituals on myspace, the reality of who browses the internet, the ridiculousness of profile pictures, and an encounter he had with a homosexual man over the internet.  The purpose of this piece was to make fun of the different characters that one sees while browsing myspace.  Although it does have a subtle warning to stay away from these people, he brings in a comedic aspect to them so that we laugh at them instead.  The audience for this is anyone who has used the social networking site myspace.com.

 

Guercio, Peet.  “Flirting on Myspace”.  September 29, 2007.  Online video clip.  YouTube.  Accessed on March 31, 2009.  < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6tRFAxbh04>

Prop 8- The Musical

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... from Jack Black


The website Funny or Die, founded by comedians Will Ferrel and Adam McKay, is a viral video website that broadcasts comedic content. The name comes from the fact that as soon as a video is uploaded, users get to vote on whether it is funny or it should go to the 'crypt.' It is also very common for comedic celebrities to make guest appearances and to upload their own videos as exclusives to the site. This particular video got 1.2 hits on its very first day after it was uploaded on December right after California's Proposition 8 was passed, and is one of these exclusives.

Marc Shaiman, famous film, tv, and Broadway composer and lyricist, got together with director Adam Shankman to make the video in only a few days right after he learned that the musical director of the California Musical Theater had donated to a Yes-on-Prop 8 campaign (Itzkoff). The video begins with a group of people reveling on the "brand new, bright Obama day" only to be interrupted by 'Proposition 8'ers' who think it's time to "...spread some hate and put it in the Constitution." The video continues as a musical fight between the 'Proposition 8ers' and their opposers as a way to satirize California's Proposition 8 and those in favor of it, Christians that pick and choose which parts of the Bible to uphold, and people that use religion-based arguments to pass a state law. The video also pokes fun at the stereotyping of homosexuals (the Proposition 8ers sing: "...now make our clothes and fix our hair") and the importance placed on money, exemplified by Neil Patrick Harris singing that "every time a gay or lesbian finds love at the parade, there's money to be made" leading everyone to end the song with "gay marriage will save the economy!"*


*This point was included by Marc Shaiman after he learned of a study by UCLA stating that legalization of gay marriage would really stimulate the California economy (California Proposition 8). The article about the study can be found here: http://articles.latimes.com/p/2008/jun/02/business/fi-wedding2



Just for reference, some of the comedians in the video include:

• Margaret Cho, stand-up comedian (for more information go to http://humor-database.blogspot.com/2009/03/margaret-cho-christians-have-lost-their.html and http://humor-database.blogspot.com/2009/03/margaret-cho-asian-americans-and-racial.html)
• Maya Rudolph from SNL (http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/bios/Maya_Rudolph.shtml)
• John C. Reilly (Step Brothers, Walk Hard, Chicago, The Aviator, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_c_reilly])
  
• Neil Patrick Harris, from Doogie Howser, Harold & Kumar (http://humor-database.blogspot.com/2009/02/harold-kumar-go-to-white-castle.html), and How I Met Your Mother
• Jack Black as Jesus (Tenacious D, High Fidelity, School of Rock, Nacho Libre, etc.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_black])
  
• Rashida Jones from The Office (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashida_Jones)
  
• Sarah Chalke from Scrubs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Chalke)

WORKS CITED


"California Proposition 8," Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, accessed March 31, 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)#Proposition_8:_The_Musical>

Itzkof, Dave "Marc Shaiman on ‘Prop 8 — The Musical,’" The New York Times, Dec. 4, 2008, <http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/marc-shaiman-on-prop-8-the-musical/?hp>

"Prop 8- The Musical," Funny or Die, online video clip, December 3, 2008, accessed March 30, 2009, <http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones>

Xavier: Renegade Angel

Xavier: Renegade Angel is a 15 min show on Adult Swim. Its first airing was November 2, 2007. Adult Swim is currently airing the second season.

Xavier: Renegade Angel's loose story line is that Xavier, who is a grotesque creature that is the combination of a man, a snake, a bird, and maybe a monkey, is traveling through the desert in search of the meaning of life. The show is very random in nature with odd characters appearing and crazy flashbacks happening consistently. The show's humor comes mainly from altering reality, which it can do easily through its use of computer animation. This "altering of reality" comes from Xavier travels through space and time. He is goes forward and backward in time, seeing things in his own past while also witnessing things like the destruction of Earth. His time travel is sometimes explained, but most of the time is not. These random jumps in time provide humor because the audience is never really sure where Xavier is going to end up and whether what they are seeing is real or not. Xavier also breaks the audiences normal perception of space; leaving our normal sense of reality in favor of abstract worlds that are far removed from any part of human existence. An example of this removal from human existence can be seen in the following clip.

For context, in this episode Xavier is stuck in a circular room with different colored doors, each one transporting him to an abstract place. That clip leads to my next point about how Xavier provides humor. At its core Xavier is a show about philosophy and religion, and that clip, along with many others throughout the series, touch on the belief in God and the search for some purpose in existence. The clip can be taken on the surface to be making fun of belief in God, but more importantly is the way it conveys religion as a viewpoint that is black and white. When asked the question "do you believe in God?" Xavier goes into his own views on existence and a higher power. The bar-code man is there to represent religion(from what I can tell the Judaic God) with the belief of God being either yes or no. Xavier on the other hand takes the role of philosophy, not only questioning the belief in God but going as far as questioning belief itself. I think the humor comes from showing how narrow minded religion can be while also highlighting how abstract philosophy can become. Bringing up philosophical questions is a common theme in Xavier and contributes greatly to its abstract humor. But Xavier: Renegade Angel's humor is not always so abstract in nature. The show also touches on the cultural issues of race, religion, and sexuality. The following clip touches on all these issues. On a side note, this show is made by the same people who did Wonder Showzen on MTV2; the following clip is very reminiscent of Wonder Showzen in its use of race, religion, and sexuality.

Naked: I Like Guys

After the success of his first collection of essays, Barrel Fever, and his subsequent numerous appearances on Public Radio International's This American Life, David Sedaris released his second collection of essays, Naked, in 1997. This collection contains stories that are a little more personal, and a good number of them on his experiences growing up as a gay teenager in Raleigh, North Carolina. This particular essay focuses on a month-long summer trip to Greece he took after he completed the eighth grade, designed for American kids who have Greek ancestry. He starts off by relating his experiences during not only the eighth grade, but also in previous grades, with homophobia. While he had realized at a young age that he was "different" from the other boys, he also knew that, given the time and place that he grew up in, he had to hide the feelings he had towards other boys. Many teachers in the school even went out of their way to make fun of homosexuality. For example, his Spanish teacher told Sedaris' class once that she wanted to have a boy first, because she felt that if she had a girl first, any boy she had after the girl might "turn out funny." Another one of his teachers used to occasionally prance around the classroom, limp-wristed and all, making fun of homosexuals. Of course, the only way that Sedaris could deal with this was to separate himself from the other boys who were "different" (they could all identify themselves because they all had "speech problems" (i.e. lisps) in elementary school, and had to see a speech therapist to deal with the "problem"), and also being the one to laugh the longest and hardest at any jokes that had to do with sexuality. Anyway, when school lets out, Sedaris and his older sister Lisa fly up to New York with their father to meet up with the rest of the kids who are participating in the trip. Lisa immediately abandons Sedaris, leaving him to fend for himself on a trip that he really didn't want to go on in the first place. While in Greece, however, he realizes that his bunk mate Jason might have similar feelings towards guys. Upon hearing one of the counselors use a derogatory term for gays towards the entirety of the boys on the trip, Sedaris and Jason turned it into a game, calling each other by the same derogatory term. Their friendship starts to turn somewhat physical, and upon realizing what this could mean for them, Sedaris and Jason suddenly turn on each other. Jason finds a girlfriend, and even claims to have found Sedaris' (non-existent) journal, and shares a page from it that says "I Like Guys." Upon his arrival back in the United States, Sedaris goes home, and after another month of summer break, goes back to school, which has been integrated. Most of his former teachers had left, and one of his new teachers, a black man, not only made fun of gays, but also people like Albert Einstein and the host of a popular local television show. Sedaris ends the piece saying, "this [ridicule] is something we each have in common, proof that we're all brothers under the skin."

Sedaris, David. "I Like Guys." 1997. Naked. Paperback ed. New York: Back Bay, 1998. 81-94.

Image pulled from Wikipedia. I claim the same non-free/fair use media rationale as used on Wikipedia.