I found this article super interesting: Seeing “Bridesmaids” is a social responsibility. Though it frames Bridesmaids as good for women in movies, it doesn’t allude (as much as I’d like) to the fact the movie is empowering because it’s a straight-up comedy.
Female comedians are starting to become the women our society idolizes…
Check out this article by Gizmodo that discusses new computational humor software, which recognizes double entendres (which are linear distant cousins of the visual pun!).
There seems to be a fine line with what people can and can’t say about “how to be funny.” While I have tried to extraordinarily emphasize that my project nowhere near touches on “how to be funny,” the idea that it could be confused as such bugs me a bit. I gave a presentation recently to a design firm and this explanation popped out of my mouth, which is a good analogy (for now):
People teach us the elements and structures of a sentence, but it doesn’t mean we will write prolific sentences. Thus we can learn the structure of humor but it doesn’t necessarily mean we can be funny–It just provides us with a framework and a starting point.
I’m sure there are holes, but at least I’m not the guy from this article. He breaks down humor genres (which is fine) but then concludes by saying, and I quote,
“It’s that simple. If you follow these nine rules (especially the ninth one) you will be funny and people will love you for it. More likely, people will be annoyed by you, resent you, and not want to hang out with you. That’s what happened to me and most other comedians I know. But don’t listen to them. Keep making jokes. Never stop. No matter what is going on or how serious the situation is, joke about it. You’ll quickly find you’re constructing jokes as if it were an innate talent. And that’s nothing to joke about. Oh, wait, it is.”
His joking tone does the avoid/confront paradox with the statement, so it doesn’t seem as committal to really stating how to be funny. But, I guess he’s never done research on the subject…
What am I doing:
I would describe the state of humor in Design’s relationship at the beginning of my thesis project as a playful use of goofy type, amusing color, and quirky graphic elements. But, this account sounds only mildly accurate for whimsical communication design and not much else. Its purely visual reference points demonstrate the superficiality of what the description considers “humor in Design.” Humor as rhetoric—as an intangible but hearty driving component–had not been notionally explored as a common thread throughout the whole of Design. To a person who treats humor as an all-encompassing medication, this fissure, in the era of its fledgling discovery, was a gap that absolutely begged for unity via theory. However, in order to visualize the obscured boundaries and complexity of how humor functions as a Design approach, I also needed a Design problem to employ as a guinea pig.
…sounds like a hipster bluegrass band name.
But, yeah, here are two from my target audience. The other two are currently in the works of getting new stock photos. And by currently, I mean, I don’t want to pay money for a picture of a stranger, so I’ll be harassing people within the next week or so.
thisisnotagoodsign has galleries upon galleries of signs that people upload and have the option to redesign. It’s an interesting way of making mobilization a crowd source type of activity… No “sign” of a comedic sign gallery yet, HA. HA. HA.
Never hurts to have a little flashback, eh?
From “Britain shows it can still stage a decent demo – pity about the mob:”
“We started marching at 12.30, through Parliament Square, Whitehall and Lower Regent Street. The mood was light-hearted, almost carnival-like,” they said later, gleefully recalling witty banners and outfits.
One group had dressed up as members of Oxford’s Bullingdon Club, albeit chained to two blood-stained public spending “butchers”. A small girl’s placard proclaimed: “When the situation is as dire as this I don’t mind my parents using me as a political pawn.” On the reverse side it added: “They told me there’d be biscuits.”
Amid the flags and earnest “save our libraries”, “cut war, not welfare” and occasional “hands off Libya” posters, there was plenty such wit. “Down with this sort of thing,” proclaimed one placard. “Down with the cuts, up with the skirts,” said a young woman’s T-shirt. The tone was light years from “fuck the rich” already scrawled on banks (and an Ann Summers sex shop) down the road.
From UK Uncut’s reaction article, “Our protest against the cuts was peaceful:”
Hundreds of people marched as UK Uncut and, instead of attending the main rally, went to Oxford Street, the heart of London’s shopping district, to occupy for the alternative. A diverse mass movement has been born.
The UK Uncut actions included people dressing as doctors to transform tax avoider Boots into a hospital, in protest against the £20bn cuts to the NHS. BHS on Oxford Street (part of Philip Green’s empire) was closed as actors and musicians gathered outside to protest against arts cuts, with Sam and Timothy West staging an extract from The Voysey Inheritance by Granville Barker.
In nearby Soho Square an open air comedy venue was created, where Josie Long and Mark Thomas performed to an audience of nearly a thousand. These actions continued in the creative, fun and inclusive vein that UK Uncut has become known for, highlighting the tax gap and the injustice of bailing out the banks that caused the financial crisis and are awarding their bosses grotesque bonuses.
The UK Uncut actions were organised to work in tandem with the TUC March for the Alternative in order to make space for people wanting to engage in creative civil disobedience as their way of expressing opposition to the cuts. It was positive. It was in solidarity. We were not seeking to grab headlines – we did what we always do, engage in creative sit-down protest. We are all in this together.
Images from the event:
