"Comedy"

I would like to preface my thoughts by stating that it is my firm belief that books cannot deliver comedy well. It's not that I have a bias against books, rather, I feel that one major weakness of stories told through books is that comedy is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deliver effectively. After all, there are only so many ways one can deliver emotion through strings of text without having a third person narrator tell the reader how the character projected himself or herself, breaking the flow of any attempted comedy.

With that out of the way, it should not be surprising that I have not found "The Importance of Being Earnest" to be especially entertaining. I do feel that there are plenty of well thought out ideas in the story, and Oscar Wilde definitely deserves recognition for them, but the medium itself limits said jokes from achieving their full comedic potential. I will admit that the closest the book came to being humorous was the scene on page 25 in act one in which, after Lady Bracknell leaves the scene, having rebuffed Jack's requests to marry Gwendolen, Algernon immediately begins loudly playing the "Wedding March," infuriating Jack. Jacob chastises him, demanding that he stops. Algernon does, and then "enters cheerily." Rarely do my imagination and the story itself sync up well, but for one reason or another, the simple descriptions used allow my mind to conjure up the image of a man sauntering in, knowing what had taken place, and smiling, much like the infamously more widespread than use of the word "epic" "troll face." While, in general, I dislike the use of "rage faces," it would, in my mind, work especially well for this scene. Not only that, but Algernon has the nerve to pretend that he is unaware of Jack's new predicament, rubbing salt on the wound.

If I had to point out a figure that I do find humorous, I suppose that I would point directly at Jon Stewart of the "Daily Show." While I don't enjoy every moment of that show, what I do enjoy is when Stewart points out the hypocrisies of political figures as well as obvious flaws made by public figures in general. While the "Daily Show" does have a liberal bias, I appreciate that Stewart is not afraid to criticize figures of the Democratic Party, either. Anyone is fair game on the show. I suppose I simply just love the juxtaposition that Stewart often employs, where he will often share a clip of a politician stating something they may try to implement or support before immediately presenting evidence where the politician completely goes against the previous statement or supports a law that does the exact opposite of what was promised (basic example: raising taxes a year after stating he or she would lower them).

A television comedy that I would enjoy is easily "Watashi ga Mote Nai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!" or "Watamote" for short. The title more or less translates to, "It's your fault that I'm not popular!" The manga follows a girl named Tomoko Kuroki who has played a ton of dating simulation games and is just going into high school, believing that playing those games has given her years of high school experience already. Of course, she finds that actual high school is nothing like what she saw in those games. Not to mention she can barely even talk to others. At first, she believes people will flock to her, but she is sorely mistaken. From that point on, she attempts to try several things to become popular, most of them being passive. For instance, she believes that if she waits in the library, hoping that another lonely person will come in and ask to see fireworks with her. Of course, this doesn't happen, so she tries to even fake a phone call in which the "person" that she was going to see fireworks with cancelled on her. Of course, no one cared, and they simply ignored her. At the end of the chapter, she went to the top of a building to watch the fireworks alone, but she was joined by two middle school kids who hung out there occasionally, but... for something other than fireworks. Being someone who suffered a similar issue with talking to others, I was able to immediately relate with the protagonist, but at the same time, distanced myself from her as she had some rather undesirable traits, such as thinking herself to be superior to her peers as well as cheating against children at a card game in order to hold her title as "queen." Because of this, the author is able to make her a character that you kind of want to see succeed and fail at the same time. You pity her because she is so inept socially, but at the same time, you sort of feel that she deserves it. Being able to empathize with the protagonist as well as be critical of her behavior so as to still be amused when she fails is what really made "Watamote" such an appealing and comedic series to me. So, I suppose one could say that I also find humor in stories that make light of shortcomings that I myself suffer from.