Humorists: A Satirical Analysis

Comedy is seen and enjoyed by many all around the world, claiming its place as a staple of human culture. Comedy has but one rule: it must be funny. Other than this, humorists can take any and all liberties to fundamentally change the affect of their art; resulting in a wide array of comedic styles. The “comedy” umbrella somehow shelters the slapstick fun of Laurel and Hardy, the deadpan observations of Steven Wright and the surrealism of Monty Python. These comedians, along with all of their colleagues, do much more than simply make us laugh though. In accordance with Alain de Botton’s principal philosophy on humorists, and their ability to “convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly”, it is absolutely true that humorists serve a vital role in society. Humorists are uniquely positioned to both call attention to problems, and to attack the source of them. Comedians have a dramatically wider audience than most politicians, and can address issues in a manner far more entertaining to a larger portion of the population. Comedians can be seen almost constantly on television and …show more content…
Satirical comics are published in news papers across the country every day; the Los Angeles Times, among other newspapers, publishes “Non Sequiter” by Wiley, which has satirized both religion and politics. Going beyond comics, satire can succeed in written forms where other forms of comedy struggles. Satirical books have been published by Stephen Colbert and fellow late night host Jon Stewart, and satirical novels are extremely common in the literary world. Aristophanes wrote satirical plays in Ancient Greece, and many have followed suit. In 1726 Jonathan Swift satirized human tendency to make war in Gulliver’s Travels, and in 1961’s Catch 22 Joseph Heller satirizes World War II; satirical novels have shaped modern literature and have had a deep lying affect on our