• 🇬🇧󠁿 🇸🇪 🇿🇦 🇮🇪 🇬🇭 🇩🇪 🇪🇺
    European & African
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

Why is there such a disconnect between European and American humor? In your opinion

felix said:
...The UK and the US both have a sliding scale of shit > genius comedy stuff on TV. Many of my favourite comedy performers & shows are American.
Click to expand...

To be sure, but it's not really about whether it's shit (one man's shit...) - there are overall cultural differences in our humour (with individual variation obviously) that i find interesting - i don't think one's superior; british people could do with a bit of american optimism as much as american people could have some of our (faux) humility.

Eg Think about 'America! Fuck Yeah!'; taking the point that an american wrote this about americans, it still has to ring true in some sort of way. I can't imagine 'Britain! Hell Yeah!' having the same resonance (maybe 'Britain! Not too Bad!')

Interestingly, these sort of difference would in other situations often be ascribed to race; but we're the same race, and so we don't have the usual easy xenophobic get-out and so have to think about culture itself (using race when you mean culture is like saying 'you're naughty' instead of 'that's naughty' to a child (soz for the tangents :))

Edit: Droppersneck - is unilaterally declaring yourself top for media and entertainment a form of american exceptionalism ;)
 
Hmmmmm a lot of people do that on here tho - criticise the person when it's really the behaviour that needs criticising. I guess we live in a society where we don't really think we of the words we using / should be using in specific contexts.

Evey
 
^^
Vurtual I've experienced similar humour across race with other women whilst travelling (fuck that sounds horrible... oops), even with language and other cultural barriers we could all still have a laugh at lazy arsed men and housework jokes, regardless... it was a wonderful commanality!:D
 
koneko said:
^^
Vurtual I've experienced similar humour across race with other women whilst travelling (fuck that sounds horrible... oops), even with language and other cultural barriers we could all still have a laugh at lazy arsed men and housework jokes, regardless... it was a wonderful commanality!:D
Click to expand...

I agree - there's so much more that unites us as human animals than separates us as cultural beings - on a personal level the desire to just get along can surmount most of these cultural differences.
 
I think part of the difference is that America is such a big and diverse country that any humour that gets wide distribution will be necessarily homogenised, whereas there's more scope for individuality in a small country. What's more, we've had a tradition of licence funded tv, as opposed to it all being commercially driven, so risks have been taken when they might not otherwise have been.


I think there's likely as broad a range of types of humour in both countries at ground level
 
Droppersneck said:
Yep America is on top when it comes to media and entertainment in general.
Click to expand...

Well, here's an example of Scottish Humour, which is a subset of British Humour: Get it right up ye, ye fucking bellend. Don't talk shite.

Droppersneck said:
Outside of 60-70s British rock,top gear,couple aussie bands, and donovan I cannot think of a single piece of media I consume that is not American.
Click to expand...

That's because you are but a child who hasn't actually discovered the world very much. :)

EDIT: BTW: Me and the wife are going to see Donovan live in concert at his hometown of Glasgow in October. Always nice to meet another Donovan fan! :D
 
Naw bro I'm 30 an have read an watched a lot and just know what I like. Books are another story I'm just talking media. See and I didn't get that Scottish humour Bc I wasn't offended in the slightest if I am being honest. Maybe if I got to travel more I might change my tune on the subject.
 
Droppersneck said:
Naw bro I'm 30 an have read an watched a lot and just know what I like. Books are another story I'm just talking media. See and I didn't get that Scottish humour Bc I wasn't offended in the slightest if I am being honest. Maybe if I got to travel more I might change my tune on the subject.
Click to expand...

Why's laugh been infracted n when's he back?

Evey
 
koneko said:
I like John Oliver: The Last Week Tonight. It's a good edge.
Click to expand...

I've been watching that too recently and enjoying it. A very English Englishman doing very American-style comedy and doing it rather well I think. In similar vein, I also like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (when it was on). Think the reason I like these shows is that they are essentially all the same - like one and you can hardly fail to like the others cos they are all but indistinguishable bar the host. I do find US comedy tends to be more generic in that way but there's plenty of generic Britcom stuff too (nothing like to the same extent though in my view).

I mostly agree with Felix though: whilst there is certainly such things as "US comedy" and "UK comedy" (and if speaking in such ultrabroad terms then I would certainly prefer to watch UK stuff every time) but that really doesn't give the whole picture. There are so many aspects within each general category that I find it hard to imagine that anyone could be overly rigid in deciding which they prefer (assuming access to good examples from both countries).

I like some US comedy and I loathe some US comedy. Exactly the same applies to UK comedy. I do also agree that UK comedy tends to have a much darker streak which seems to be extremely rare in US comedy - I'd struggle to think of anything from America that would be loosely equivalent to The League of Gentleman, for example. And in relation to the above mentions of US shows being remade for a British audience and almost always dying on their arse, that works both ways - US versions of many "classic" (and not so classic) shows have also mostly tended to be horrendous. The humour just gets lost in translation completely in most cases.

And I'd also agree that Teh Lounge doesn't represent US humour in any way that I recognise. Represents a very narrow and specific type of humour that is perfect for those that like to spend time there. I think EADD is probably fairly representative of the British character (including humour) but humour is not specifically the focus of the forum and EADD is obviously used mostly by a relatively small proportion of BLers and is certainly not a complete encapsulation of British (I say British as Brits do make up the bulk of posters simply as a matter of fact) culture and humour. It's not such a bad snapshot though.
 
Amen to all of that, except:

Shambles said:
I've been watching that too recently and enjoying it. A very English Englishman doing very American-style comedy and doing it rather well I think. In similar vein, I also like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (when it was on). Think the reason I like these shows is that they are essentially all the same - like one and you can hardly fail to like the others cos they are all but indistinguishable bar the host.
Click to expand...

What makes Last Week Tonight with John Oliver slightly different is that he doesn't pause every 5 seconds for rapturous applause and all those fucking annoying and tedious "whoop whoops" you get all the time with Colbert and Stewart. I really want to like and watch their shows but the audience makes it unbearable. John Oliver constantly shushes the audience to get more stuff in and keep things moving. He also covers many subjects the other two wouldn't even touch. :)
 
Vurtual said:
They tried to introduce american sitcoms in britain various times in the past and it just hasn't taken in the same way - eg 2.4 children (a copy of rosanne), coupling (copying friends), the upper hand (copying who's the boss (old fogey memory test: did you know the little girl in the upper hand (joe mcgann's daughter) is Linda off of eastenders? (she actualy looks just the same (in here somewhere if you care))).

There's something in the cultures that makes us (generally) different audiences i think (discuss... ;)). I agree the tastes are converging - though this globalisation of culture is a worrying thing too (danger of hegemonic american/english culture with all the lesser cultures going the way of the aztecs or maoris).

Partly i think the attitude americans in general have to authority and the mainstream is largely different to the more cynical british default - this alters how we both think of big telly shows - americans (in general) seem to love their big shows in a way british people wouldn't. All my twisted subjective viewpoint of course :)

Edit: i agree with you curious (though i do like curb your enthusiasm sometimes)
Click to expand...

I think that's more about copies never being as good as an original. A few British sitcoms like The Office were remade for the USA & sucked.

I don't think there have been any worthwhile British sitcoms since The IT Crowd, wasn't that over 5 years ago now?

Actually there's nothing at all on TV these days since Top Gear was killed.
 
Shambles said:
And I'd also agree that Teh Lounge doesn't represent US humour in any way that I recognise. Represents a very narrow and specific type of humour that is perfect for those that like to spend time there. I think EADD is probably fairly representative of the British character (including humour) but humour is not specifically the focus of the forum and EADD is obviously used mostly by a relatively small proportion of BLers and is certainly not a complete encapsulation of British (I say British as Brits do make up the bulk of posters simply as a matter of fact) culture and humour. It's not such a bad snapshot though.
Click to expand...

But EADD is hardly a snap shot of typical Britians. It's a collection of miserable drug addicts, most who despise drinking a pint and fail to explain the offside rule let alone Leg before wicket. A healthy sense of humour is the last thing I would use to describe this place.
 
DrGreenthumb said:
I think that's more about copies never being as good as an original. A few British sitcoms like The Office were remade for the USA & sucked.

I don't think there have been any worthwhile British sitcoms since The IT Crowd, wasn't that over 5 years ago now?

Actually there's nothing at all on TV these days since Top Gear was killed.
Click to expand...


That sez it all really... 'The IT Crowd' was a pathetic attempt at humour, and had more in common with American sitcoms than British.. :|


OTW, it's 'Britons'.... also, Fuck Off! ;)
 
wibble said:
There was a thread on reddit the other day about which recurring jokes people think are funniest and Arrested Development and Always Sunny kept cropping up. Arrested Development is great on the second run through because of them.

Just went to look at gifs of Gob and was reminded of Franklin, oh god lol.

Edit: Coincidently, I also enjoyed Will Arnett as Devin in 30 Rock.
Click to expand...

Will have to look for that thread, always seem to find new stuff every time I watch both shows. And Will Arnett is great, not seen much of 30 Rock but am watching him in Bojack Horseman at the moment which is fairly excellent, need to look up David Cross' stuff too, the scene in AD where he jumps off the stairwell and crashes through the coffee table dressed as Mrs Featherbottom is probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

ScotchMist said:
LOL.. I read that as Chandler and was about to make a right tit of myself and tell you he was in friends. :D
Click to expand...

Haha, I'd probably get disowned if I made that kinda mistake ;)
 
F.U.B.A.R. said:
That sez it all really... 'The IT Crowd' was a pathetic attempt at humour, and had more in common with American sitcoms than British.. :|


OTW, it's 'Britons'.... also, Fuck Off! ;)
Click to expand...

Still, there are no better sitcoms that have been made since. I thought it was OK, watchable, some of the jokes were pretty good.

'Not Going Out' is dire.

TV is dead.
 
I never watch TV anymore - I spend most evenings watching comedy podcasts online to get my daily dose of lulz.

Tends to just be comedians shooting the shit / getting high / making me feel like I have a social life.

Infinitely better imo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top