Monday, November 03, 2008

Election 2008, Comedy, SNL, & A Fist Bump

Saturday Night Live is hardly a show that everyone talks about like they did "back in the day." Is it because the writing is less funny? Maybe. But maybe even more so, it's harder to be "intellectually" funny with mass-appeal.

I've outlined before the concept that with some many diverse forms of media (multiple new outlets, magazines, online media, etc.) it's hard for people to be able to play with and find humor in references that ever will find accessible.

If anything part of the reason that SNL has picked up so many renewed viewers during this political election is because when they make fun of McCain/Obama/Biden/Palin they are making fun of personalities most people have had various degress of exposure to. Plus, Fey as Palin certainly created blogosphere/water cooler chat...and if people missed out, there was always YouTube.

I thought I would share one of my favorite comedic moments of the this years campaign...below is a series of pictures that Jeremy Baker calls The Evolution of Satire that resulted in an Entertainment Weekly cover that was very creative...with a reference surely, many people missed (I didn't get it first)...but when you look at these pictures, I think you might laugh.
Barack & Michelle Obama "fist bump" on June 3rd.
The New Yorker in July recreates this moment commenting on fears of people that the Obama's are extremist. Barack with Muslim ties, and Michelle as anti-American. Entertainment Weekly Creates a Cover that recreates the cover of The New Yorker with Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart recreating the entire scene in every detail (except the burning flag)
That's creative comedy in my opinion on the part of Entertainment Weekly. Again, as I mentioned though, I didn't get it at first.

This election in many ways has shown that people care in a collective more than ever. It also has proven that more than ever we can get our news and information, true or untrue from a variety of sources...with 800 Channels of TV, billions of magazines, e-mail forwards, facebook groups, and online ads and videos the information is vast and wide...and of course, that impacts many things...even our comedy.

Let's hope we can still find comedy in it all come November 5th, when hopefully we know who the 44th president of the United States is, and let's hope those who voted for the non-winning candidate don't find themselves in too much dispair.

2 comments:

Dad said...

Now there is YouTube, Digg, Delicious, FaceBook, that help popular content reach a greater audience. As these communities grow, I wonder if we will begin to have more common experiences instead of less.

Michael Parsons said...

"and let's hope those who voted for the non-winning candidate don't find themselves in too much dispair. "

Everyone is so afraid to say it in case it becomes a reality. Even I can't and I am not American. Lets just say I hope all crazy fanatics with guns experience backfire.