Episode 553 - Out of date humour?
Oct 18, 2021
I was reading an article the other day about the comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen and how that style of comedy is now out of date, along with The Hangover and Hot Tub Time Machine. The idea is that the day for this sort of masculine, bawdy, sleazy humour has been and gone and that we're more advanced, sophisticated and enlightened now. Personally I took issue with this, I think this style of comedy is extremely relatable and eternal because of it. You can see examples of it going back thousands of years across all cultures because many factors of it are universal to the human cultural experience.
Topics and Show Notes
It's inappropriate to make fun of people for things they can't change about themselves. We should never “punch down” by making fun of groups who don't have power in society, like the homeless, ethnic, sexual and religious minorities. But sex based humour, or humour based around a masculine point of view, even if it's tawdry and immature, is not wrong or inappropriate. At least that's my feeling on the matter. It's a complex subject and Banes and Tantz had slightly differing points of view and we touch on things like satire as well, you'll have to listen to the Quackcast to hear them! :)
When people talk about crass, “out of date” humour they usually reference Married With Children. This is another thing that really gets to me because they totally ignore the cultural context of that show. When Married With Children came out in the late 80s is was a breath of fresh air and sharply contrasted with the predominant style of comedy coming out of the USA at the time, it was completely dominated by glurgey semi dramatic sickly sweet comedy with a message, shows like Golden Girls, MASH, Family Ties, Growing Pains, Different Strokes etc. The list is HUGE because that was the main style of comedy and it continued well into the 90s. Those examples were all very good shows, but they has a massive dose of sentimentalism which Married With Children totally eschewed and that make it very different and special. Today that kind of cynicism is not a rare thing anymore but back then it was and we have the popularity of Married With Children to thank for reintroducing it into our culture. Its bawdy, raunchy comedy is just as relevant today as it was then because the archetypes it's based on are just as universal.
What's your opinion on so called “out of date” comedy?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Designersaurs - Rocking, bopping, pop! Finger-snapping fun. This joyous, light, bright ditty is designed to make you happy and ready for fun. A good piece of synth electronica, reminiscent of 80s future music.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
EVA of Asgard - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/oct/12/featured-comic-eva-of-asgard/
Featured music:
The Designersaurs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Designersaurs/ - by Jotravers, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 549 - Love stories
Sep 20, 2021
In today's cast we're chatting about LOVE stories! This isn't a subject we get into much but it's a huge genre so we thought we'd tackle it. We thought none of us even WORK in that genre till I belatedly realised that Banes and I sort of DO with Bottomless Waitress hahaha! There's all sorts of love in there… Sorry for the sound quality with this one I've no idea what went wrong.
Episode 538 - Fashion and Trends in Webcomics
Jul 4, 2021
We chat about the styles and trends in webcomics and what causes them, whether it's people copying stuff they like, working with the limitations of the technology they're using or other reasons.
Episode 530 - What is SciFi?
May 10, 2021
So what IS SciFi? Well it's a pretty wide umbrella term and contains a lot of different things. In some senses it's just an imaginative fiction story where science replaces magic. SciFi can simply be a sciencey setting where genre stories take place (romance, adventure, nior, horror). It can be a magical fantasy space opera with a futuristic skin (Star Wars), it can be “hard SciFi” where the story is set in the future but the science is completely plausible, it can be written with strong themes that examine philosophical questions and make interesting points about the nature of humanity, and it can be so many more things too. It's a broad church!
Episode 522 - The fall of a politician and a furry, The ballad of Grey Muzzle
Mar 14, 2021
Today we chat about the disappearance of another Drunkducker. This fellow was a politician in his daily life and a furry in his downtime. On DD he was the author of the adult furry comic Tina's story, an exceptionally well written slice of life comedy comic with adult elements, staring an anthro poodle lady and her human partner. This man had his online activity taken and used to destroy his political career. The comic which was his passion was used as ammunition to ruin him. We chat about this in our Quackcast! In light of what happened to Gina Carano for her silly words this is interesting.
Episode 513 - Mask of the Mandalorian
Jan 10, 2021
The Mandalorian is pretty unique in that he keeps his face hidden almost the whole time. This is very rare in TV and movies, the rule is that we HAVE to see the actor's face, so they rarely even keep on hats let alone remain fully masked! Yes, there are examples of it but they're few and far between. It's very cool that they've allowed the character to remain hidden for most of the show and he's much cooler for it because it allows the audience to fill in what he really looks like or just imagine him as a cool faceless avatar of awesome.
Episode 499 - Life's worth?!
Oct 5, 2020
What is the worth of human life in your stories? This isn't something people often consider, we just tend to have a fairly accurate guess based on our experience of the real world, but sometimes stories get it really wrong and that can harm suspension of disbelief.
Episode 494 - No antagonist is the best antagonist?
Aug 31, 2020
Does a story always need an antagonist embodied in the form of an active character? I don't think they do! We chat about examples of stories without antagonistic characters that work just as well, if not better than the reverse! This is based on Bane's newspost from last Thursday (link in the notes). Tantz and I have a long argument about what the main antagonist in Wall-E was! I think that a lot of the better Pixar movies don't have their main antagonising force embodied in characters- Inside Out, Moana, Coco, Wall-E etc, and we they do they're not quite as strong or as touching. Even in Up the villain in that only plays the main antagonist for a short time. What d you think?
