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Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: pmcd9 on December 31, 2013, 05:42:22 pm

Title: Who Cares if it's True of Not, It's Funny
Post by: pmcd9 on December 31, 2013, 05:42:22 pm

Okay, I'm over the mega hyperbole link bait issue so I've found something new to rail against.

"Who cares if it's true or not. It's funny." You know what I'm talking about. Someone post on Facebook something outrageous, It's always either somebody doing something stupid, or awesome, either way. The most famous recent example of this is the one of Jean Claude Van Damme straddling two moving semis.

How do you explain to someone that if it's not true it's not funny, or awesome?

Title: Re: Who Cares if it's True of Not, It's Funny
Post by: jaydub on January 01, 2014, 11:24:20 pm

Movies aren't true, and are sometimes awesome and funny - but the audience is always aware it's a movie.  Except Blair Witch and the ones like Amityville Horror.  But still.  The things you're talking about are presented as true, and doctored up to hide their falsity.  This is more like magazine covers where the models have been photoshopped into something the fashion industry can sell.  Its deception, and you feel foolish when you fall for it - and it makes truly awesome things less remarkable because the reality has to compete with fantasy.

Title: Re: Who Cares if it's True of Not, It's Funny
Post by: pmcd9 on January 02, 2014, 12:25:43 am

Quote from: jaydub on January 01, 2014, 11:24:20 pm

Movies aren't true, and are sometimes awesome and funny

Yes, of course, I've thought about that and like you've said the audience goes in to the experience aware that they are looking at a fantasy. And most of it is a mirror of reality, but one buys into the movie fantasy (and every other form of visual entertainment) , because it speaks to greater truths about the human experience. Granted most of it is a lowest common denominator kick in the nuts, but people who buy magazines about car stereos need to be entertained too.

Title: Re: Who Cares if it's True of Not, It's Funny
Post by: ianmalcolm2 on January 04, 2014, 02:44:10 am

Some variation of this problem makes it impossible for me to ever watch a TLC show and experience an event it portrays as 'a thing that happened.' It's like the camera is an observer in a quantum experiment, and anything it touches I can no longer assess on terms the same as reality.

And then I get yelled at for 'being classist' because i can't consider the protagonist on 'My 600 Pound Life' as a real person.