My opinion, Comedy

Throughout this entire assignment I have seen comedy used in many different ways, from insulting the entire city of Philadelphia, to showing absurdities in religion comedy takes many forms. It's pool of subjects is limitless, you can and should be allowed to joke about anything. What makes a joke offensive whether that comedy comes from a good or a bad place. Comedy is meant to not be serious, it's meant to take it down a notch from serious. Some people who take themselves to seriously need a good roasting every now again, sometimes more than others, but as long as it's done in good spirit. If you happen to take offence to someones lightheartedness to something you may hold dear to yourself then the only thing you have to do is not watch it. you can control what you hear, choose not to listen. No one shouldn't be allowed to not talk about something just because you don't like what they have to say. Someones always going to be offended no matter what you say. If I said cat's suck, I just annoyed every person who likes cats. "How could he possibly hate the thing that I love so much?" "I don't hate it, so I shouldn't have to hear anyone talk bad about something that I love so much" That's generally what I think goes on in ones head when hearing a joke about something they like. But I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to disagree you have that right, I just think you shouldn't try to stop everyone's enjoyment just because you didn't care for it. You can joke about anything.

Same subject, Different style

So for this blog post I was supposed to find 2 articles that were about similar topics. I found two separate ways to use chat-roulette (I'll assume you're all familiar with it.) Anyway while these two are not traditional articles they do get across different points in comedy. The first Post was made by an Australian humorist, author, and internet personality David Thorne. David decided that he wanted to test out the site and see what the craze was about at the time. All for the purpose of comedy he braved his way through the horrors of the site and humorously chatted with some people he found. Pulling their legs with little comments about their surroundings or what they were wearing or their appearance. He quickly got bored of the site and never went on again. This used the actual chat-roulette as a tool for his comedy. The next blog was a video from the tv show The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Here Jon merely uses the idea of chat-roulette to mock the style that it's just a place where some people go to get their "entertainment". However instead of just taking screenshots of his endeavors and posting them on his blog Jon did a 6 minute set on his tv show.

A question I don't care to answer right now.

OK, this may seem a bit religion focused but at it's roots this is a problem related to comedy. The article I read was an Op-ed by Ricky Gervais where he talks about his faith, or lack of there of, in god. Ricky is an atheist comedian who routinely puts god into his routines. He has taken passages directly from the bible, interpreted them and tried to understand them. He was... I'm actually not sure of the right word to use in this case so I'll just list all the possible words that I think fit what he was doing: Mocking, disproving, scoffing, breaking it down, wait... that works. He broke down the bible as seen by a modern day atheist who doesn't believe in the bible. Now in the article he's asking why should he have to believe in a god in which he's already disproved to himself. He points out the hypocrisies of how depending on your religion, that god is the one and only god. From the article Ricky gervais asks.

But what are atheists really being accused of? The dictionary definition of God is “a supernatural creator and overseer of the universe.” Included in this definition are all deities, goddesses and supernatural beings. Since the beginning of recorded history, which is defined by the invention of writing by the Sumerians around 6,000 years ago, historians have cataloged over 3700 supernatural beings, of which 2870 can be considered deities. So next time someone tells me they believe in God, I’ll say “Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…” If they say “Just God. I only believe in the one God,” I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869.

. The crux of how this relates to comedy is that should he be allowed to joke about something that so many people hold dear and close to their hearts. My personal answer is a wholehearted yes. Oh I almost forgot... here's the article

Start the show.

Hello, my name is Hunter Rosenthal, and I'm an appreciator of comedy. First though we have to ask, what is comedy? Is it that moment when someone trips, falls down, and hurts themselves? Is it when after carefully retelling a story with such skill that the audience is captivated enough to completely relate to your situation and find humor in it? Or is it just a fart joke? The answer is it's all of them and none of them. Comedy is relative to the beholder. Some people would be dying on the floor of laughter at the person who fell down, others would be horrified and try to help that person back onto their feet. Comedy has many forms: Television programs, movies, jokes, how you're dressed, a simple noise, and much more. It's everywhere, and it's impact is greater than one can suspect. George Orwell once said each joke is a tiny revolution, and I believe he's right, within the right context. Comedy can be a weapon to unsuspectingly disarm your opponents before they even notice. In 2007 during an Opie and Anthony comedy tour, the tour had stopped in Philadelphia, and throughout the entire time they were there the crowd was drunk, rude, booing every performance while enjoying themselves (kind of like how like pranks in the classroom are funny to the students and not the teacher). After every other comedian before him was booed, comedian Bill Burr was already pissed off, and as soon he got on stage too boo's and hisses, he wasn't going to take any of their crap. He started insulting the whole audience. From criticizing their weight, to their mothers, to their sports team, if people started cheering he'd insult something else. He took a group of people who were booing the whole day and got the biggest cheers of the night once he was finished. Comedy slayed this audience before they even noticed. I'll leave the link to the bashing right here... Viewer discretion is advised for people who appreciate certain language.

Could you survive your enemies death?

Could you kill a man? Could you live with yourself after taking away something that can never be brought back. Something you have also, something you wouldn't want to lose as well. The answer for me is yes because if I can justify it for myself then I should be fine. Taking a life isn't easy, the question is can you move on. You're taking on a role that you have never had before, it's a huge psychological weight.

Next would I tell someone if I did something bad? It depends, do they need to know? Why should I tell them something that either doesn't pertain to them, or I don't want to tell them. It's up to m whether or not to tell you my problems, if I think they're that bad. Why should I tell you the truth if it's bad for you and me. Doesn't help either me or them. I'll keep it to myself until I decide when not too. Don't try and make me feel bad for this, it's my choice.

Reading group assignment

1)In the Sweetheart of the song Tra Bong there are a lot of figurative language that help the reader to understand better the text.  A lot of them are very strong, but they still give you the idea of what you should actually feel.

“Greenies were not social animals.  Animals, Rat said, but far from social”

“She had long white legs and blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream.”

“Mark and Mary Anne strolled through the ville like a pair of tourist”

“This seventeen-year-old doll in her goddamn culottes, perky and fresh-faced, like a cheerleader visiting the opposing team’s locker room.”

“The seven silhouttes seemed to float across the surface of the earth, like spirits, vaporous and unreal.”

“The girl joined the zoo.  One more animal.”

“At the girl’s throat was a necklace of human tongues. 

“It’s like trying to tell somebody what chocolate tastes like.”

“She seemed to flow like water through the dark, like oil, without sound or center.”

2. After Mary Annie came to Vietnam, she changed a lot. She got used to blood, weapons, and she was able to deal with the wounds calmly. These all made her became cold and sack less. Never as naiveté and sunny as she first arrived Vietnam, Mary felt her blood burned and was excited affected by the war. She had curious for everything in Vietnam, she joined the Greenies, she wore a necklace that was made up of tongues and broke up with Fossie. She said she wanted to eat everything there, because she was sick of the war here, which made her cruel and changed a lot. But she immersed in Vietnam, in war, and cannot leave.

Rat Killey tells this story because he thoughts a lot from Mary.  Rat helped Fossie to find Mary after she disappeared, thus he witness the whole story of Mary. Rat thought Mary Annie was just like every of them, ignore the gender, Mary was not a stranger, everyone changed a lot after they came to Vietnam, became boring, cold and sack less. He even said that he was fall in love with Mary. Mary was just like a mirror, which let them see their selves.

3)The reader sees Vietnam as a deadly place where nothing has a sense.  All the things that I can see is the soldiers point of view and they see only deaths and the happiness of being still alive after all those missions.  I can understand how difficult it is to live in a world completely different from the world where we are use to live and Mary Anne just got into it too quickly!

4. “Transformation” and “gender” are tied to perspective of the reader, Rat Kiley, and even Mary Ann’s boyfriend Fossie. Since Marry Ann is a woman, coming to Vietnam has a different effect on her. Before arriving to Vietnam she had all the characteristics of a pretty and soft woman, having long flowing hair and a motherly personality by taking care of everyone. And after Mary has been in this setting for a while Fossie and a lot of the other men are noticing some changes in her behavior. It starts on her appearance and she starts to cut her hair short, learning some of the Vietnamese language, she starts going on sort of night missions, and even took part in some the rituals and bonfires. To top it all off Fossie caught her during one of the gatherings and she was wearing a necklace with tongues on it. Marry Ann had gone through a complete transformation from a prime example to a house wife to a downright savage.     

5. Rat Killey added many his own view about Mary Annie, which explained why Mary changed such a lot during those several weeks. Rat gave us the point that Mary Annie was just like every man here, not as sunny as before, became cold and sack less. The only difference was she changed more quickly. Sanders Mitchell thought Mary’s disappearance and being one of the Greenies was just like an animal went into the zoo.

6. The ending of this particular story does matter. At the end of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”  Mary Ann had completely become one with the land. “She was wearing her culottes, her pink sweater, and a necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill.” This would affect the reader by suggesting that war changes people to a great extent.

Hopeful Expectations

I don't have any worries for this group discussion, so that's good. I don't expect anything to go wrong, you know people arguing pointlessly, people slacking off. I don't think we'll have those problems, we have a good work ethic in the group we have planned. I expect for us to expand on some discussions in the book, to a point where we can just riff at it without really having to even open up the book. Just have such a familiarity with the book and it's characters that we can have meaningful discussions. I expect you as the teacher to be there, to listen to us when we tell you where we stand in the discussion. Basically who thinks what and why, that sort of of thing.So be available when you can for when we need you. I think this will be a good project that will be fun.