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Comedy = Shock value for shock value's sake?

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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.

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