Filed under: Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comedians, Communication Strategy, Context, Creativity, Culture, Cunning
Years ago I wrote a post about how Borat was deeply prejudiced and yet – because it was done for humour – it was totally fine to use the worst stereotypes to define and express a culture, heritage or community.
Now of course that’s something comedians have hung onto for years.
The ability to leave no subject on the table.
To let humour challenge myopic beliefs and attitudes.
And, to be honest, I’m a big believer in that – as I am with art – but sometimes you can’t help but feel some people use it as a convenient excuse to purposefully profit from notoriety.
Where instead of adding to the conversation, they just exploit it.
Taking rather than adding.
I say that because I recently saw this:
Yes, I know it does no one any harm.
And I appreciate that London is not the sunniest place in the World.
But it all feels a bit lazy … not to mention confusing given they have called yellow, ‘bumblebee’ when surely they could have named it, ‘LA sun’.
Or something.
But by the same token, I not only remembered it, I wrote about it – so maybe this highlights the reason we need to allow humour to challenge our perceptions and perspectives because maybe the biggest thing that this post has actually revealed is my English fragility, and I’m not even from London!
Wow, I’ve got whiplash from the turnaround of this post.