Saturday, August 8, 2015

I'm not the biggest fan of those 'sex jokes'.

It seems that in today's entertainment world the easiest way to get recognized is to write about sex. For some reason people both in the industry and the media think that the more vulgar you get, the more unique you are.

When it comes to them, it doesn't matter whether the stuff that you write is any good or not. As long as you are supposedly 'pushing the envelope', you are a special talent who has a voice that everyone should be envious of.

In reality though, in most cases being vulgar for the sake of it isn't a good thing at all. Too many times it just shows that you're coming up with this 'raunchy' material because you don't have anything else to say.

For example, lately I have been trying to watch Comedy Central's 'Inside Amy Schumer'. It's supposed to be this sort of an edgy sketch show that a lot of people are currently talking about. It's getting a lot of favorable press.

However, the problem with the show is that it just isn't funny. Not only is the show not funny, but based on the sketches I've seen, it seems that 99% of its material revolves around dick & vagina jokes. It's pretty much the weakest stuff that I've seen in some time.

What's supposedly original about it - but really isn't - is that this time it's a female comedian Amy Schumer who is regurgitating these tired old tropes. Considering that the stuff is also a bit dirtier than what we're used to doesn't make it any better either.

It also doesn't help that Schumer herself isn't much of a performer. She doesn't have enough range and can't express herself well. If you have watched her stand-up specials, it's quite obvious that her delivery is pretty bad (for example, all those 'ums').

Based on all this, I think it's rather weird that people would say that this kind of comedy (somewhat like Key & Peele's) is somehow subversive or groundbreaking in any way. I'm not sure what all the buzz is really based on.

Let's not forget that comedy like this doesn't even work very often. It's really difficult to be low-brow and smart at the same time. Pretty much the only people who have managed to pull that off consistently have been South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

In any case, at least when it comes to me, I can't stand when someone on purpose sets the bar this low. I think we already have enough of that lowest common denominator material out there and we don't need any more of that.

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