Sunday, April 10, 2016

Favorite Comedian (Blog #5)

When it comes to comedians, I don’t have the slightest problem picking my favorite. Dave Chappelle has shown me a side of comedy that doesn’t need to be fully based on inappropriate jokes in order to get people to laugh. I love Dave Chappelle’s work because not only does he make his audience laugh, but he also wants them to think beyond the surface. He wants them to understand his underlying message. Immanuel Kant, a German Philosopher, described humor as "...the talent of being able to put oneself at will into a certain frame of mind in which everything is judged in unusual (even opposite) ways, yet in accordance with particular principles of reason that characterize this frame of mind". I believe that Dave Chappelle possess this talent by getting his audience to think about political and social issues using his comedy. While he still gets a laugh out of everyone, the sketches he does will stick with people and they could possibly have been shown a new view by watching his comedy. In his sketch titled “Black Bush”, he combines president Bush with a stereotypical African-American. Chappelle does an excellent job at being absurd in this sketch by highlighting what many Americans were thinking, as well as other countries, when Bush wanted to go to war with Iraq. Chappelle made Black Bush incongruous by making him vulgar and African American. At this time there had yet to be a black president, let alone a vulgar one, so this was not congruent with how Americans envisioned their presidents. With that being said, I feel that Dave Chappelle does a great job using humor.

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