By the choosing of the three videos that I post in the blog, I want to show a little bit of what British humour is.
As you can notice, British humour is based in some particular aspects as nonsense, black humour, sarcasm, irony, satire and self-deprecation, that make it effective and hilarious.
By the way, I consider humour to be a wonderful way to know more about the culture and the people of any place and of its language, in this case about Britons, but a point to consider is that it can be very difficult to understand because the cultural and language differences that exist.
Here are the three videos that I chose, I hope you enjoy it!
“A Bit of Fry and Laurie” is a comedy television program starring by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, who is better known for his perfomance as Dr. House in the American Medical drama Dr. House MD.
Dylan Moran is an Irish comedian whose work has been very well taken and been awarded many times.
Rowan Atkinson is an English comedian who is very famous for his character Mr. Bean.
Just to finished, I want to say that I love British comedy and I do consider it a perfect way to know Great Britain´s culture.
1. Rosenthal, Angela y David Bindman. “No Laughing Matter: Visual Humor in Ideas of Race, Nationality and Ethnicity.” Fannie and Alan Leslie: Center of the Humanities. 2007. Dartmouth College. 25 de octubre de 2008.
3 comentarios:
You made me laugh with that videos!, some jokes mentioned in them are very great.
About the British humour, I liked what I saw in the videos, there are many good jokes. I wasn’t into that kind of humour but you did that I searched more videos. The only contact that I have had with that kind of humour was with the Rowan Atkinson’s TV show: Mr. Bean. I grew up with that program and I liked so much, because he made me laugh with simple things. I compare the comedy of Mr. Atkitson with the comedy that “Chespirito” did in the 80’s here in Mexico, free of double senses.
In México we have a good sense of humour. Some foreign people don´t noticed it, but we make fun about everything all the time, but usually in a way of puns which heavily rely on our own Mexican variant of Spanish. There’s also “albur”, it’s some very specific kind of pun joke which is persistent in the whole country and even among different social classes. We, Mexicans, are very sarcastic and ironic. We make fun about the death. Even, we have a special Day of the Dead in which we remember our lost beloved ones and we think about them as if they came back from their graves.
I think that humour is a good reflect of the social aspect of any country. It show us, by parodies, jokes or acid comments, the topics in what people are into, but is local. The next videos show us what I'm trying to say; the first one is about the electoral process in the USA, it shows us two women that are in the public eye: Sarah Pallin and Hillary Clinton. The second video made a parody of a social group in Mexico, the ones we called "Fresas", it makes jokes in the way they talk or the way they think.
Hillary and Sarah:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDqSvJ6aHc
Joke about "Fresas"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Juut9bV7gI&feature=related
The jokes in these videos are local, because you won’t be able to understand anything if you aren’t up with the news about the electoral process or if you haven’t been in contact with the Mexican culture.
As a conclusion, It doesn’t matter if humour is local or global, the only thing that is important is to laugh, laugh relieves about your concerns. I want to finish it with a joke, a classical British Humour:
Two prostitutes standing on a street corner. One says to the other, "Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz?" The other replies, "No, but I've been swung around by the tits"
Humour is relative like time, you may think that something is hilarious whereas others may think that this was offensive…
I really liked the videos you just showed us. I find really amazing that Hugh Laurie was a well known british comedian, because I only knew him from the House series, and what amazes me the most is that I didn't realize he was british!
I agree with the fact that humour is a great way to known about some culture, and the social consecuences it has, make the humour a milestone in the popular culture of a country.
What can I say about Rowan Atkinson?, Mr. Bean has been one of the most underrated sitcoms ever, and I don't mean that in a bad way, I really like the show, but I think at least in Mexico, the show never got the attention it deserves.
I think there are about twelve episodes of Mr. Bean, and even I may saw them all, when I have the chance, I see the show again and again, and continue laughing at the silly character.
I once saw a video of Rowan Atkinson as a stand up comedian (as the video in the post) where he plays an invisible drum set, I think that performance is hilarious; the link is shown below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sf_pogZ8jE
-Miguel Ángel Benítez Torreblanca
It's been a pleasure to read all your participations guys!.
I like the fact that you do some research about the topic first (that is what it seems to me at least). This shows that you take things seriously.
Well, this time the topic was not serious at all! I am not into humour as much as you Norma, but I do agree on the fact that humour refelcts people's culture and idiosincracy.
Please, do not forget (Miguel) that countries and gentilicios (British) take capital letters in English.
Mark: 10
Veronica
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