MURDERING A NATION'S SENSE OF HUMOR; GHOULISH JOKES OF 1990S TARGET EVEN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE.Byline: Joseph Honig Next month, it will have been five years since a young Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. mother and her male acquaintance were slain in cold blood while her children slept. Back in June 1994, the tragedy was in the headlines, in the news broadcasts and on the lips of millions of very ordinary Americans who had never dined at a place called Mezzaluna, sported Bruno Magli Bruno Magli is an Italian shoemaker, designing and handcrafting high quality luxury shoes and accessories. History After learning the art from their grandfather, Bruno, Marino and Maria Magli started crafting women's shoes in a small basement in Bologna, Italy in 1936. shoes or heard of a place called Brentwood. And after a while many of them, maybe most, laughed. Laughed at the notion of Orenthal James Simpson The name James Simpson can refer to:
Laughed at the Montessori justice on view during a Los Angeles County Superior Court criminal case. And laughed, sometimes heartily, at the cast of misfits, morons, authorities and opportunists who darted in and out of the People vs. O.J. Simpson story. It seemed that nowhere in the annals of American crime had there been a funnier double homicide. On the talk shows, in print and on stage, wise guys and comics proved what few could have ever imagined: You can wring laughs out of murder. American humor American humor refers collectively to the conventions and common threads that tie together humor in the United States. It is often defined in comparison to the humor of another country - for example, how it is different from British humour or Canadian humour. had made the sharpest of left turns. When it came to punch lines, nothing was out of bounds. Never before had network television featured comedy grounded in such personal, violent death. There was, apparently, profit in murder. Never mind that a couple of motherless children may have felt otherwise. All this while anti-violence claques kept insisting it was motion picture mayhem that threatened to desensitize de·sen·si·tize v. 1. To render insensitive or less sensitive, as a nerve or tooth. 2. To make an individual nonreactive or insensitive to an antigen. 3. and entire nation. Who was - and still is - kidding whom? While American humorists A humorist is a person who writes or performs humorous material. The material written and/or performed by humorists tends to be more subtle and cerebral than the material created by stand-up comedians and comedy writers. lambaste people and institutions, ranging from the pope to organized crime, the truly deplorable development in comic affairs is our willingness to laugh at tragedy. The joke men claim, and rightfully so, they should be able to say anything at any time. That's why a top-rated Washington, D.C., disk jockey, Doug ``The Greaseman'' Tracht, could make light of a poor African-American dragged to his death by racist toughs in Jasper, Texas Jasper is a city in Jasper County, Texas, on U.S. highways 96 and 190, State Highway 63, and Sandy Creek in north central Jasper County. The population was 8,247 at the 2000 census(2006 estimate-7,465). . (Tracht was fired shortly afterward.) That's why radio's Howard Stern could wonder aloud about the sexual activities of two teen-aged gunmen before the Columbine High School Columbine High School is a secondary school in unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado. The school is located at 6201 South Pierce Street, one mile west of the Littleton city limits and half a mile south of the Denver city/county line. murder spree. That's why the L.A. riots of 1992, the most deadly civil disturbance in American history, were, along with pitiful, sad Rodney King, staples of sketches and monologues. This isn't, however, about comics or their rights to skewer famous and infamous public figures. It's about us. Yes, the comedic landscape has been enlarged to the extent that prime-time television is replete with jokes about private parts private parts n. men or women's genitalia, excluding a woman's breasts, usually referred to in prosecutions for "indecent exposure" or production and/or sale of pornography. and sexual positions. But America's funny men have been trading on sex since the first Keystone Kop tugged a young girl's bloomers. Sure, storylines and exposition have changed, become more candid, more graphic. But sex is, well, sex. It isn't tragedy. And no matter how much or how often we're told that laughter educates, eases tensions and defuses powder-keg emotions, you'd think there'd be something unseemly about finding brutal misfortune funny. Should be. But isn't. For we are now living in what has become the United States of Entertainment. Diversion seems everyone's goal. Laughing toward the millennium, we rarely think of the cruelty, racism and sheer sadness of the stories that send us happily reeling. The comics, though, have a defense: They're just making fun of what's before their eyes. No one has to listen, smile or laugh, as they turn to murder for material. Audiences have no such excuses. A lot of us are growing more and more blase bla·sé adj. 1. Uninterested because of frequent exposure or indulgence. 2. Unconcerned; nonchalant: had a blasé attitude about housecleaning. 3. Very sophisticated. , almost inured in·ure also en·ure tr.v. in·ured, in·ur·ing, in·ures To habituate to something undesirable, especially by prolonged subjection; accustom: , to the notion of sudden violence in improbable places - in our neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. Some of us, no doubt, will die laughing. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos Photo: (1) America collectively laughed at the notion of Orenthal James Simpson, all-American huckster turned killer, trying to tell his version of The Story. Michael Owen Baker/Daily News (2) We laughed at the misfits, morons, authorities and opportunists who were the O.J. Simpson trial. John McCoy/Daily News |
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