Many people know him as the funny and rugged face of comedy. He is Dane Cook. Sort of the anti-Mitch Hedberg. For others, he is a posterboy for an altogether different type of comedy: the plagiarizer, the man without a punchline. Personally, I have long held that Dane Cook is a performer and not a stand up comedian, in the way that Bob Villa was a TV show host and not a licensed contractor. For the better part of a decade, you couldn't be handed a transcript of a Dane Cook set, read it, and think it was funny. There just weren't any JOKES in the conventional sense, just a lot of stage direction and exclamation points where the punchlines should be. This technique, of course, has made Dane very successful, frequently selling out stadiums and…
Humorists are people who are skillful in using humor for writing, talking, or acting. Their works bring laughter and elation to people. In Botton’s book, Status Anxiety, he believes that humorists not only entertain audience, but also convey important messages that cannot be said directly. Thus, he argues that humorists play a vital role in the society. In most cases, Botton’s claim is justified in that since the early nineteenth century, humorists express their thoughts about the society through humor. Some of these humorists do play important roles in the society by revealing crisis or events happening during that time period to bring awareness from the society.…
Speaking from experience, if students found out that there is a famous comedian performing, they would be a lot less inclined to just watch a documentary. At first, they will participate just because they believe that it’ll be funny and not because they’ll receive anything educational out of it, but that will change once they walk out of the room. Comedy is much more than just laughter; the comedians want their audience to feel challenged, something that Wanda Sykes does by talking about the social injustices that we face on a daily basis (Powers and Carr). By feeling these challenges, students, especially college students, will then want to go out there and make a change. An example of such a challenge is when Wanda Sykes makes a joke on how our current educational system doesn’t work because all we do is retain information, take the test, pass the test, and forget all about it (McCarthy-Miller, “Wanda Sykes: I’ma Be Me”). Any student can and will relate to this because that is how grades and schools everywhere function now, and such a joke will certainly spark a light in the students that want to make a change. Another reason why comedy is a good way to educate the students is because of the way that comedy is overall. Many comedians will use stories, sometimes their own personal stories to tell jokes, and stories are powerful because they can “be used to empower…
1) Some students read through their revision notes lots of times before an examination, but still find it difficult to remember the information. However, the same students can remember the information in a celebrity magazine, even though they read it only once.…
Humorists are entertainers; even before written history they have always been essential to society. Comedians such as Chris Rock, have never been and are praised for their entertainment. Humanity has standers, where a person with high expectations in society cannot say personal comments due to their status in the social order. Nevertheless, humorists are allow to say anything they can and without any consequences. This idea allows comedians to speak out and say what they please with impunity messages. These comedians who speak their word are found hilarious since they speak truth that we as a society can not say or we would be shun by our classes. Furthermore, humorist’s shows such as Tosh.0 or even Silent Library aren’t a threat to civilization or any political figure. They are the jesters of society. These shows help alleviate the amount of stress an individual contains from their hassles in life. They also help to maintain balance in society by providing decent enjoyment and relaxation. Humorist’s impunity messages are not always sympathetic but they still catch the audience attention by providing unnecessary attention to themselves and others as entertainment.…
As Chappelle walks out onto the stage the crowd whoops and hollers as he takes his place in front of the microphone. As the camera scans over the audience it becomes distinct that the demographic for this show is African American. Chappelle knows that his jokes are appropriate only to this audience because of the way the jokes push boundaries. He understands that his audience will be able to understand his jokes because most of them grew up in the same neighborhood and experienced the same racial stereotypes that he did. For example during his performance he commonly refers back to the audience and waits for their agreement. When talking about a very good friend of his who is white he jokes about how this friend of his would be constantly under the influence when he would cross paths with a police officer. Chappelle then turns to the first row audience members and says “now we all now what would happen if one of us walked up to a police officer high” continuing on to make a joke about police brutality. Now if the audience had been predominantly white then they would have not been able to relate to that joke as well. This shows that Chappelle understood whom his audience was and how to engage them because of his prior experience growing up in a predominantly African American community.…
In the article titled “What Is the Ideal Age for a Comedian’s Persona”, Jesse David Fox touches on how ages affects a comedians jokes and how the audience perceives it. Fox primarily begins by giving an example of Marc Maron, a comedian in his early 50’s who cracks joke about death and dying which his audience find comical since he drags it out throughout the special. The audience also resonates with it since he is older and puts a light-hearted spin on a topic more dark. Fox goes onto explain that the context of a joke greatly influences the audience's reaction towards it describing it as not existing, “in a vacuum”. To back this up, he provides example of comedians who didn't become big until they were in their 60’s due to them not being…
Throughout Born Standing Up, we see Steve Martin go from a child with a fascination for magic, to an amateur comedian working as an opener and at local venues, to a famous comedian selling tens of thousands of tickets for each performance. Steve is very passionate about his craft and without this passion he wouldn’t have been able to advance nearly as far in the field of comedy. Through analyzing other’s acts and what works and doesn’t work in their acts to his willingness to experiment in his own acts, you can see that he is dedicated to furthering himself in the comedic world. Steve isn’t shy in carefully scrutinizing his own work either, and through the trial and error of new acts he is able to decide which ones to drop and which ones to expand upon.…
These acts would range from people performing stunts to playing the piano, to dancers and tumblers, actors would put on shows, and magicians displayed great feats. The shows could go on for hours at a time. Often there would be a dozen or more acts in a single showing (“About Vaudeville”). However, as many act different acts as there were, comedy often brought in the biggest crowds. Comedy acts such as Witt and Berg were the most popular. Vaudeville appeared to be nothing more than different acts of entertainment, this however was not the case. It was much more than entertainment, it was the changing of an era. These shows were the symbol of cultural diversity at the turn of 19th century America. It was the product of centuries old cultural traditions. These which included, the English music hall, minstrel shows of antebellum America, and the Yiddish theater (“About Vaudeville”). However not completely free from its times prejudice, it was the first form of entertainment to cross racial and class barriers. For many people, it was one of their first exposure to people of other cultures, many of which they may not have even known…
3) Describe what publicity materials you will need to generate to effectively market your act e.g. web site, social media profiles, fliers, logo and artwork design, bio…
Often times we choose not to read a book or an article because we are not intrigued by the cover, or the title. We choose not to acknowledge others because they are unkempt, and we choose not to enter places because they are uninviting. The Soloist is a book that relates to the issue of not judging a book by its cover, or profiling people wrongly because of the way they present. Nathaniel Ayers is the main character in the Soloist, a book that is based on a true story about a reporter who befriends a homeless street musician. Through further investigation Steve Lopez discovers that Nathaniel was a gifted student at Julian – a school of the performing arts in New York. The story is sad and poignant because as the writer assesses Nathaniel demise, he realizes that Nathaniel is a victim of not only schizophrenia as a mental illness but also a victim of his social and economic status. It is evident throughout Nathaniel’s life starting from his early years, in the school system at Julliard and as an adult.…
A World of Art, Sixth Edition, by Henry M. Sayre. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2010 by Pearson Education, Inc.…
The terms exotic dancer and exotic dance can have different meanings in different parts of the world and depending on context. In the erotic sense, "exotic dance" is a often used to refer to practitioners of striptease. In a non-erotic sense, it can mean many forms of foreign or cultural dance.…
Giacometti was a key player in the Surrealist art movement, but his work resists easy categorization. Some describe it as formalist, others argue it is expressionist or otherwise having to do with what Deleuze calls 'blocs of sensation' (as in Deleuze's analysis of Francis Bacon). Even after his excommunication from the Surrealist group, while the intention of his sculpting was usually imitation, the end products were an expression of his emotional response to the subject. He attempted to create renditions of his models the way he saw them, and the way he thought they ought to be seen. He once said that he was sculpting not the human figure but "the shadow that is cast."…
Some days, I am a trapeze artist, who delights effortlessly, graceful and uncaring above the petty affairs of plebeian land-dwellers. On those days, I dream. I see beyond the obtrusive technicolor big top and into whatever skies I imagine loom above. As a trapeze artist, anything is possible because the future of a trapeze artist is a fluid, delicate thing--not a grand gesture on a solid stone foundation, but a floating gauze of wisp built on nothing but the wind. Soaring above bagatelles, one day, I could look around and find myself surrounded by cerulean sky and pacific clouds, no longer bound to the confines of the big top, free of the constraints of quotidian details. Each space between the trapezes is a heartbeat moment of sublime possibility, when the wind threatens to veer sharply, when the sheer number of futures I could experience threatens to overwhelm my solitary present.…