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[SleeperCylon]

Back when South Park turned Comedy Central around from just being some campy repository for third rate guffaw flicks, it did so because it was disgusting and touched taboo topics in a clever, insightful way.

Comedy Central got the message that to be funny all you had to be was disgusting and touch taboo topics without being clever.  So they started pushing crappy shock value comedy after crappy shock value comedy like TV Funhouse, Mind of Mencia, and Drawn Together whose modus operandi seem to be just to take the most disgusting, 'offensive' things they can think of and throw them on screen in any order.

Now network shows are doing that too, especially on Fox.  Family Guy, a show that used to be clever, is now just about being as disgusting and 'offensive' as possible without putting any real thought into it.  And movies are not only doing it, it's getting them critical acclaim. 

A lot of this has to be just kickback from the 'politically correct' movement.  People are so annoyed at hearing about people being offended they automatically react positively to things that are 'offensive'.  But does that have to mean applauding everyone who takes lame shortcuts in storytelling?  Throw a bunch of guys obsessed with sex into a room, brainstorm what you think might get Christians to complain the most, put it on screen, and everybody says it's brilliant.

I keep putting offensive in quotes because if you're doing it just because you think it will get you ratings, it's not offensive.  It's pandering and cheap.  Carlos Mencia isn't 'edgy'.  He doesn't say what's on his mind.  His producers put a focus group of males age 13-29 in a room and said a bunch of dirty words and racial stereotypes, then measured what made them laugh the most, then told him to say it.  That's the *opposite* of being edgy and saying what's on your mind.  I heard his real name was 'Ned Holeness' and he wasn't even Mexican.

I can't wait for the whole 'political correctness' thing to end, because when it does, comedy writers won't be able to get away with these cheap shortcuts anymore.  (They'll have to find new cheap shortcuts.)

[SusurrusIgnoramus]

Agreed.

But at the same time, this is nothing new... even Shakespeare pandered to the lowest common denominator with "bawdy" jokes about flatulence and double entendres (sp?) about sex and the like.  He was trying to cram people into his theatre, just like Comedy Central is trying to get people to watch its shows.   It's never going to "end" it'll just change forms.

Somone who is "pushing the envelope" in a new and creative way will get noticed, and will either be given a break by some big exec or get lucky, become a hit, get emmulated, and it'll start all over again.

Don't worry.  We'll all have something new to be entertained by and then annoyed with soon enough.

[Inlander]

The difference being, Shakespeare did the low-brow stuff while also doing the high-brow stuff. There are precious few people doing that at the moment.

[SusurrusIgnoramus]

True.  There are precious few who will be doing that at ANY moment.  If there were more, it wouldn't be so special.

[Tehz]

The worst part of it all is that people still not only watch the shit they put out there, but they enjoy it and praise it.

While smutty, cookie-cutter gross-out comedies will make millions of dollars at the box office, intelligent, you-have-to-think-to-understand-it comedy flicks get little to no attention, especially from the young adult crowd. Sure, they'll get tons of critical acclaim, but the box office will pale in comparison to the that of the teen-aimed shock comedy.

Bleh.

[Jimmy the Squid]

Yeah but take a look at young adults today. I know we have some fine individuals here in this forum and I know there to be a number of fine individuals outside of this forum who will enjoy and appreciate good quality satire, irony and comedy that does not rely on the simple "cock/boobs/racial slur lawl" formula that so many comedies (both on television and in the cinemas) are now relying on. Unfortunately it would seem that these people are the minority, the majority being a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Alternatively they are people who are sucked in by the stupid, the vulgar, the offensive and the inane. These are the people who will continue to laugh at the tired rehashed insults that people like Mencia and Larry the Cableguy (or whatever) use as jokes. I know that humour is subjective but it is disappointing nonetheless.

For shame, young adults of today, for shame.

[Tom]

Yeah but take a look at young adults today. I know we have some fine individuals here in this forum and I know there to be a number of fine individuals outside of this forum who will enjoy and appreciate good quality satire, irony and comedy that does not rely on the simple "cock/boobs/racial slur lawl" formula that so many comedies (both on television and in the cinemas) are now relying on. Unfortunately it would seem that these people are the minority, the majority being a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Alternatively they are people who are sucked in by the stupid, the vulgar, the offensive and the inane. These are the people who will continue to laugh at the tired rehashed insults that people like Mencia and Larry the Cableguy (or whatever) use as jokes. I know that humour is subjective but it is disappointing nonetheless.

For shame, young adults of today, for shame.

Aw shucks. I don't know about other people at my school but I'm certainly a minority. Unfortunately in Australia our youth culture is heavily reliant on main-stream-US-media representations of life and society. I think i can relate to the song "mtv makes me want to smoke crack".

[Johnny C]

Superbad was hugely successful though, so there are good things happening in mainstream comedy right now.

[KharBevNor]

I rather enjoyed Drawn Together. I thought that the way it got its cheap fross-out laughs, by, essentially, deconstructing childrens animation, was funny. It wasn't up there with the greats or anything, but hey. Not seen any of the others you mentioned. I would say I generally (or maybe completely, I don't know) dislike 'teen' comedies. But I don't know what you guys would count as that.

I get a very similiar form of enjoyment out of something like Drawn Together (apart from the defence I offered) from the sheer audacity of the transgression. Much in the same way as I enjoy excessively violent films, or just excessively crap films.

[SusurrusIgnoramus]

Superbad was hugely successful though, so there are good things happening in mainstream comedy right now.

Even then, the movie had a HUGE low-brow element.  Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with low-brow comedy, but from the previews, it looked like just another stupid high school/ college comedy, which is not what it ended up being.

I rather enjoyed Drawn Together. I thought that the way it got its cheap fross-out laughs, by, essentially, deconstructing childrens animation, was funny.

I would agree that the concept of deconstructing various types of animation was pretty cool, but the follow-through left somthing to be desired; especially after the first season.

[Narr]

Carlos Mencia isn't 'edgy'.  He doesn't say what's on his mind.  His producers put a focus group of males age 13-29 in a room and said a bunch of dirty words and racial stereotypes, then measured what made them laugh the most, then told him to say it.  That's the *opposite* of being edgy and saying what's on your mind.  I heard his real name was 'Ned Holeness' and he wasn't even Mexican.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Mencia

Just figured you might want this in a more factual way.  He is Mexican, and Ned Holness is what he went by for the first 18 years of his life out of respect for his birth father even though it says "Mencia" on his birth certificate.

Wikipedia for the win.

[Thrillho]

Don't get me started on Family Guy. That show has just become a caricature of itself. 'Hey, let's take our most notable offensive characters - the deaf guy and the paedo - and beat the shit out of their one joke!'

[Orbert]

Experts disagree on what exactly makes something funny, but one element of humor that's always present is that it's unexpected. Normal and everyday is boring, so to be funny, at the very least you must be hit with something unexpected. Some people will laugh every time, because laughter is also a defense mechanism. But for most people, once the shock value wears off, so does the humor. TV execs, however, are stupid and haven't figured this out yet.

[Cartilage Head]

 The only thing disgusting about Family Guy is how awful it is.

 "Hey Lois, remember the time I farted?"

 *Five minute scene of Peter farting.*

[ALoveSupreme]

South Park, to me, has emerged the absolute best of the best at combining low brow, depraved humor, with sophisticated story lines and the usual social commentary.  I challenge anyone to watch the recent three part "Fantasyland" episode and claim differently.

[Westrunner]

I've found actual highbrow comedy to be a rare beast. Even classics like Bill Cosby or the conservative favorite "Everybody loves Raymond" contain a decent amount of innuendo, if not plain dick and fart jokes. I can't think of an example of pure highbrow at this point, but Southpark does seem to be the most intelligent thing on television at times. Certainly not the cable news shoes with Paris/LiLo/Britney running around everywhere.

I whether shock value will exist for our children. I mean at this point the only things I can't watch are probably snuff films and "2 girls 1 cup". If the inertia of sensitive culture continues in 10 years comedy central is going to be showing baby snuff films with liberal amounts of excrement every day at noon. Come to think of it, using babies totally eliminates the need to justify the feces.

I wonder how international of a problem this is amongst the free countries of Europe and Asia.