I would argue that in the last 15 years or so, we haven’t had comedies (in the mainstream, anyway) that punch up in the way and to the degree Blazing Saddles did. What made it so groundbreaking was not that it was offensive, but that it was a potent commentary on race relations (sadly) still relevant today. Comedy on film and television these days either is neutered of any commentary or only punches down. Mind you, I’m more familiar with stand up than cinema, so I could be off on this.
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Parasite punches up. It isn’t a comedy, but it does contain quite a bit of comedy. It’s also Korean. However, the old white guys from the academy did nominate it for a ton of Oscars. It is just so powerful, even they can’t deny it.
I think comedies in cinema in general have atrophied pretty hard. There’s no contemporary Airplane or it’s ilk. I think a lot of that has moved to television and in general has tried to be more optimistic instead of aggressive (although still satirical), stuff like Parks and Rec, the Good Place, Brooklyn 99, Big Mouth, etc.
Standup seems pretty fractured, or at least there’s a very vocal old guard that’s kicking a fit because they’re style of “aren’t people not like your demographic weird?” comedy is increasingly irrelevant.
Comedy has not atrophied, it’s just evolved in different directions. Unless you get a farcial situation, you have to become a lot more inventive because a majority of people are not as shocked by vulgar or even offensive comedy. Probably the biggest weakness is most comedies this days is the line-o-rama (pioneered by Judd Apatow) where you just film improv actors say lots of funny lines then stitch a funny movie together from that.
Comedy films still exist; you’ll just have to search for them. It’s really hard to predict if a comedy will be successful or even still be culturally sensitive (Cause comedy relies even more on timing/context than any other genre). If anything, I’ve seen less straight-forward comedy and a lot more genre-mixing comedy.
What We Do in the Shadows for example is a hysterical comedy from this decade. Very innovative, very clever, great mix of genre. Though on the opposite side of things you have a more straight-forward comedy like Horrible Bosses which was in 2011 but has already aged kind of horribly with some inclusion of sexual assault/toxic masculinity.
To be honest, I don’t think there’s ever been a time where films were consistently as scathing as Blazing Saddles, see again my post about Mel Brooks saying that you couldn’t make Blazing Saddles then either.
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That depends on whether you believe the Golden Globes and also classify “Get Out” as a Comedy (or possibly musical).
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Aha, more Twitter Threads That are just reposting other people’s blog posts without credit.
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Well where’s the blog post then?
Thread OP says he got them from a french site, over here, but the article Luke is referring to is probably this one at Gizmodo from 2011, which uses all the same images, and links back to the same obscure french site as a source. And is also probably the original source for the thread poster, considering they list the same original source, but the Gizmodo one is much easier to find with English search terms, and was familiar to a lot more people.
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I’d seen the original website before, but didn’t look it up again. It seems the Twitter thread contained eventual credit.
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Polyphonic is finally releasing his (formerly) Nebula-exclusive videos on Dark Side of the Moon to YouTube.
Not to get too meta, but considering that the Video Essay is the most common form of critique posted in this thread, I find it it perplexing that so many creators are releasing new content almost simultaneously. In the last couple of days there were new ~30 minute videos from Lindsay Ellis, Philosophy Tube, Pop Culture Detectives, Super Eyepatch Wolf, and Sarah Z. I guess it’s just because of the month switching over from January to February and it’s not that I’m complaining about these people creating new, interesting videos, but it does feel like a bit of an avalanche at times.
I wonder if Patreon’s monthly pay schedule is to blame.
Nerdstalgic did the most comprehensive video on Family Guy I’ve ever seen. The show is infamously criticized for its cutaway gags, so what does he do? He does the math–he counts every gag the show has had up to the point of the video’s release and even breaks down the number of gags per season (complete with graphs), and he shows how the frequency of these gags affected the show’s writing over time.
So, um … Remember Angry German Kid?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy4mztkndHk
Turns out this video got him in trouble with the police. Wavy Web Surf makes documentaries on obscure Internet sensations (very similar to Fredrik Knusen, but his videos are much shorter and thus take less time), and he shows how this video made his life a living hell for the next decade.
YouTube’s almighty algorithm recommended me to a nice lady named hezuneutral and her video detailing the insane lore of Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog comics. If you thought the games were wacky…oh, boy…
Lindsay Ellis’ series It’s Lit has returned after a long hiatus. It’s not on PBS Digital Studios’ channel anymore, though (they seem to have junked it, since it hasn’t updated in over half a year). It’s now on a new channel called Storied.
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I really enjoyed that the film was willing to deflate itself with well timed comedic moments that stopped it short of being camp and kept the drama and bombast together.