Comments on Chad's blog

If mocking racism means the humor that is racism, then I think mocking racism is not appropriate. Racism is viewed as evil thing in today's society, so mocking racism which is racism must be bad as well. Furthermore, I think mocking racism is inappropriate despite the race of the maker of the mocking racism. To be specific, I think the behavior of Key and Peele which is considered as mocking racism is inappropriate even though Key and Peele are African American. They indeed hurt people of certain race even though they just want to make people laugh instead of attacking people by racism. Their behavior is a kind of showing no respect to the victim of the mocking racism. So I think the mocking racism of Key and Peele is inappropriate in terms of respect. However, to me, the mocking racism of Tosh. O is more inappropriate than that of Key and Peele because he standing on the side of the white makes fun on people by their race.

Comments on Madeline's blog

I do laugh at serious and sad time and my point of view towards this phenomena is that laugh is a cure. Life is full of reality, which is so painful that the only way to deal with it is to laugh. There are many examples that use this concept of 'shock humor'.

In Moliere's drama Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), he chose to mock at the dark side of human beings in the form of comedy. He brought the audiences with laughter with mockery. The protagonist Argan, believes that he could not survive without a doctor, which leads him making a decision that he would spend his whole property on the doctor. In order to reduce the cost of the bill on the pharmacist, he commands his daughter to marry with the doctor's nephew. The exaggeration of the sound of the cash falling on the ground and the endless running of Argan amused the viewers. Later, when the drama reaches its climax, Argan pretended to be death and the rest of the characters show various reactions, exposing the ugliness of human nature. His wife Beline becomes overjoyed and feverishly takes off all her clothes. The audiences are amused by her exaggerated facial expression and behavior and at the same time being surprised when they find out that Beline is actually a male after taking off the clothes. This ridicule scene makes viewers burst out laughing; however, beyond the laughter, is the betrayal and emptiness. There is no other better way to present the dark side of human nature. Moliere created this comedy as a cure.

Comments on Noah's blog

I quite agree with Noah 's point of view that we now live in an age of information rather than intelligence. The world develops so rapidly that people are facing with more and more information. For example, with the purpose of boosting the economy, companies come up with numerous brands just for one product in order to compete with each other and earn the highest profit. In this situation, consumers who want to buy milk could face with Borden, Organic Valley, Horizon, etc. How could they figure out which brand is the best for them; if they find out that, for instance, Horizon, is the best one, which specific type of milk should they purchase when there are even more types of milk.

The above example is just one small thing that is needed to be considered in people's daily lives; the perfect way to face it is to try every single type of milk in every single brand and make records on the taste of each one. In this way, people could keep in mind that which one is more nutritional or tasty while doing the purchase. However, people deal with issues from their study, work and families. If they need to figure out each thing they face in the way as they buy the milk, life would be so difficult and time consuming. Therefore, what people need is information rather than intelligence.

I read an interesting story that a business man wants to sell his emerald during the traveling season. However, even the price is cheap enough, nobody intends to buy his emerald. He feels so disappointed that he decides to cut the price of his emerald by half and sells other products from then on. His employee makes a serious error that he looks at the price wrongly and thinks the business man wants to double the price. However, miracles happen and the emerald is sold out in one day. How could this be possible? This is due to the fact that people live in an age of information, not intelligence. Generally, not many people have great information about whether an emerald is good or bad, therefore, in order to save their time, they automatically connect the price of the emerald with its quality. Before the business man raises the price, people think the emerald is cheap. After the employee accidentally raises the price, people drops into a trap that high price means high quality.

Comments on Jessica's blog

My favorite oldie television show is Mr.Bean. Mr.Bean was first aired in 1990 and it was so popular through all ages at all time. Even people nowadays still watched this show with passion no matter how many times they have watched. 

The episode below is my favorite episode, in which Mr.Bean made his lunch by himself while seeing others eating sandwich. 

When I was young, I watched Mr.Bean and laughed because this character was so dumb and funny.  His facial expressions, weird behaviors and embarrassed situations made me burst out laughing. For example, in this episode, he pulls out everything he needs for making a sandwich from his magical coat. The way he made his lunch made me laugh the most. He slices the bread using scissors; covers the bread with butter by using his credit card; dries the cabbage by putting it in his sock and waving it in a circular motion, etc. Mr.Bean keeps the audience being curious about what he would do next; no one could possibly do anything that he does in this show. I laughed because of the incongruity theory as his sudden behaviors of something weird and his small misfortune.

However, I watched Mr.Bean when I grew older, I had an understanding different to that of my childhood. In each episode of Mr.Bean, he is faced with an embarrassed situation and he spends all his time dealing with this awkward situation. The thing that interested me the most is the way that he deals with his misfortune. Normally, when people do not have lunch, they could just go to a shop and buy themselves something to eat rather than behave like Mr.Bean. Every time when Mr.Bean is facing misfortune, he chooses to challenge it rather than just walk away. Of course, it would not be such funny if he just walks away. What I understood and learned from this show is the positive mind when facing with embarrassed situations.