Boo_Radley said:
Now here's something funny for you...I totally disagree with everything Optimus just said, but I'm from the same country.
The simple matter is that comedy, like anything else in life, is relative. What's not funny to some is downright hilarious to another.
Obviously you didn't "totally disagree" with everything I said, since what I quoted above is essentially what I said in my post.
Perhaps you just didn't understand what I wrote.
If you've never stubbed your toe in your life, then a comedy wherein someone does won't register as funny with you. But if you have, then seeing someone do it in a movie will make you crack up and think, "Yeah, stings, doesn't it!? Ha ha!"
The fact that you wrote that AND actually believe it is incredibly hilarious to me. Now, THAT'S funny.
If it doesn't make you laugh, then it's only because you don't understand it for whatever reason be it cultural, ironic or what have you. But other folks laugh at it, so that kind of throws the whole "I didn't laugh so it's not funny, period" argument right out the window.
It has little to do with not understanding the material. It's more a matter of not being able to fully appreciate the material within its culture-specific or generation-specific context.
I'm pretty well-read and I understand 99% of the jokes/gags/references in Brit humor. But, I haven't been raised within a culture which has socially programmed me to find that type of material funny.
These types of debates always dwindle down into cultural snobbery. The argument is always that Yank humor is "stupid" or "unintelligent" or "low brow" and that Brit humor is somehow "sophisticated" and "nuanced" and "intelligent" and that if you don't get it, then you're somehow not any of those things.
Bollocks.
Also, the defenders of Brit humor always pull out the very best of what they have to offer as proof/defense of its superior quality (while conveniently leaving out all the utter sh!t that the Brits have supplied the comedic world with...like that idiot who plays Bean) and contrasting it only with the crappiest that America has to offer (Home Improvement, etc.).
How about mentioning some of the truly good American comedies? Someone in this thread mentioned Frasier. It was good (not great, but still good), but we have had more great comedies.
Seinfeld is classic. The Simpsons (in it's first 5 years) was superb. Arrested Development is US writing at some of its best. Family Guy even has promise.
My point is: this is an unwinnable debate. Both groups have produced good comedies. However, the Yank sense of humor and the Brit sense of humor, overall, is different, for socio-cultural reasons. Doesn't mean that one type of comedy is "superior" to the other. It just means that the consumers of such comedy approach it from different perspectives. It's all subjective.
And, in the end, who f-ing cares anyway?
However, I'll put Arrested Development up against any current Brit comedy and AD will kick all a$$!!!