My choice of media that I feel would have a part in this
class is the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000. What brought me to this
series, which I have always had a strong attachment to, was the debut of the
reboot this past weekend (which, if you are interested, is very true to the
original feel of the show). What I feel
is so important about MST3K is the way that it has influenced a specific style
of humor since its original creation. As a child I grew up listening to my father’s
jokes, which were definitely based on the riffing done for the show. This type
of humor, in which you comment on something while watching it, has permeated
into our culture, even influencing the internet culture of Let’s Plays. In
today’s culture, MST3K is the perfect show to make a comeback. In the past few
years, a large amount of humor has centered on ironic enjoyment. Millennials are
watching terrible things for fun, making this the perfect environment for a
show about watching terrible movies. What I find most interesting about the
phenomenon of watching bad things for enjoyment is the fact that you don’t have
to find media particularly good to get some enjoyment out of it. While the
perception of “good” is entirely opinion, there are certain aspects of media
that much of the public would consider universally bad. Still, since good and
enjoyable aren’t mutually exclusive, there is a continuously growing amount of
purposefully bad comedy, which could technically then be considered good
comedy. MST3K as a series provides “good” comedy to go with bad movies, but the
show truly works because the movies are bad enough to be funny in a good way.
I find it interesting how the perception of good humor has changed for this generation. Now there's this new thing of lame-cool where things are so bad that it's good. It's really interesting and I don't think a lot of older generation people will get it. Maybe even the generation younger than us won't get it either. I think we can appreciate it because our generation is pretty cynical and tired of the BS. The good bad jokes are genuine and embrace how bad they are. As long as the audience can enjoy them, it counts as good comedy.
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