“Culture Moves Before the Politics:” Comedy’s Lessons in Cultural Organizing Around Reproductive Health

by Michele Alexander

With nearly seven out of 10 Americans in support of upholding Roe v. Wade, NARAL Pro-Choice California’s Rebecca Griffin is far from being in the minority as she works to protect women’s access to reproductive health care. Currently, more than 55 million women have no out-of-pocket costs for birth control and other preventive services — coverage that employers could deny under an October 2017 executive order and would be lost if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. As reproductive health issues remain on the public and policy agenda, at both the state and national level, Griffin and her colleagues have gotten creative in their advocacy.

This creativity has given way to what Griffin calls “cultural organizing.” This twofold approach involves both engaging with comics and writers to change the way issues are portrayed in the cultural narrative and using comedy and storytelling to engage, organize, and activate supporters. What started as brainstorming sessions about reproductive health has since transformed into much more as the comics and writers work with Griffin to shape timely and hilarious sets informed by NARAL Pro-Choice’s data and research.

Over the years, Griffin and other comics, such as Nato Green, Zahra Noorbhaksh, and Kurt Braunohler, have built long-lasting partnerships that pair comedy with calls to action to reach audiences in new and more engaging ways. For instance, as part of NARAL Pro-Choice America’s All Access events, NARAL Pro-Choice California hosted Stand-Up for Choice, a night of stand-up featuring Bay-area comedians sharing their humorous criticisms of anti-choice policies while building support for reproductive health access. To support NARAL’s work exposing Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Griffin once again turned to comedy, launching the #CPCAdvice campaign, where comedians shared their fake reproductive health advice to call attention to how CPC staff misinform and manipulate women. From videos to written pieces, Griffin and her team are weaving comedy and pro-choice advocacy together to change the narrative and engage and organize supporters.

Griffin’s cultural organizing fits with how we here at The Laughter Effect see comedy affecting change: She is opening the door to complex issues like reproductive rights and breaking down barriers to action. By pairing comedy with pro-choice advocacy, Griffin and the comics she works with are creating memorable messages about a traditionally taboo topic and reframing abortion in a way that is more relatable and personable for audiences. And, they are doing it by putting a twist on frequently used advocacy and outreach tactics like publishing videos and articles, hosting events, and running social media campaigns.

I recently sat down with Griffin to learn more about her cultural organizing and how her successes and lessons learned can provide greater insights into comedy’s role in social change:

(Interview edited for length and clarity)

Laughter Effect: Tell me about your role with NARAL Pro-Choice California.

Rebecca Griffin: I am the Associate Director for California Programs, for NARAL Pro-Choice California. Most of my work is around our proactive organizing in California, so I lead our legislative campaigns to pass pro-choice legislation at the state and local level and I do a lot of our California-based communications work. I’ve taken on this cultural organizing piece– in terms of working with comedians on plugging into our campaigns and thinking about longer term cultural organizing around the issue of reproductive freedom.

LE: Tell me about this work — this cultural organizing and how you are incorporating comedy and humor into NARAL’s advocacy.

RG: I think that we see time and again that the culture moves before the politics do. We are the majority in this country — NARAL has done significant polling and research that shows that 7 in 10 Americans support access to abortion — and that’s in red states, blue states, it’s everywhere. The cultural conversation on these issues is still really steeped in stigma — there was some research that was done that showed women are 7,000 times more likely to die after having an abortion on TV than in real life. I think that there have been some really significant strides in terms of changing that conversation but we’re still in a place where a lot of people don’t realize how common an experience abortion is. That they know and love people who’ve accessed abortion care.

In terms of the cultural conversation, comedy is a really important way to access people’s thinking about this issue — to open them up to examining their thinking about these issues. Comedy obviously has a history of taking on taboo topics and breaking down that kind of stigma. It’s a way to reach people and activate them beyond maybe just agreeing with us to actually taking action and being more involved in the organizing around these issues.

LE: Let’s build on that further: how do you feel comedy is a powerful tool for reducing the stigma and engaging new activists?

RG: I think that there are people who maybe would go to a comedy show that aren’t going to go to a panel discussion on reproductive rights. For one thing, it’s a way to get people thinking about an issue that maybe they wouldn’t go out of their way to engage with. Personal stories are really important in the discussion around abortion and reproductive freedom: A lot of comedy is very personal, and hearing from people talking about their own experience in a way that, you know, people can laugh, and feel comfortable, and enjoy it, but also think about it in a different way. I think our issues can be very heavy — especially in the current situation where reproductive freedom is just under attack in such significant ways and so many different places — and just engaging on that or watching a documentary about that are all very important but can also be very depressing. So, I think that [comedy] is a way reach people and open them up to new information in a way that they might not do otherwise.

LE: You mention the current climate — and abortion access and reproductive rights are often hot button issues. How have you dealt with some of the criticism that’s emerged in response to pairing pro-choice advocacy with comedy? How do you walk the fine line between funny and potentially taking it too far?

RG: There’s some people who hate everything we do — whether we’re serious about it or we joke about it — and I don’t think that’s an audience we need to be too concerned with. I think in terms of the people who are our supporters, or who are in agreement with us, an important factor there is who’s the target of the comedy and that’s what we’re really mindful about and the people we work with are mindful about. The jokes are talking about the absurdity of the situation, talking about what these experiences are — but, the women who are accessing this kind of care are not the target of the jokes. I think that’s the most important thing that we think about. The comedians that care about these kinds of issues, they understand who they’re really making fun of and who they’re using their comedy to expose. It’s very much in line with the way that we would want to talk about these issues.

LE: You started describing your audience — tell me more about who this ideal audience is that you really want to bring in to these comedy shows, with this type of advocacy and outreach.

RG: I tend to think about it as a mobilization tactic. It’s a way to get people from being passively pro-choice to being actively involved in the campaign. A lot of our target audience is people who maybe agree with these issues but for whatever reason that’s not their top priority for what they’re doing to take action or they’re not thinking about it or aren’t as aware of the current threats and what they can do about it. This can be a way of getting the issue on their radar and then we’re there to give them opportunities to get active after they’ve just enjoyed this comedy that makes them think about the issue in a different way.

LE: Do you present any calls to action alongside the shows and events?

RG: Any time we’ve done a live event, we always have some kind of action. One of the ones that we did was this all access event — it was actually a nationwide network of events that were happening all on one day to really increase the visibility of support for abortion access and get more people involved. We decided to make our event a comedy show, so we had this sold-out show in San Francisco and then we also had people in the lobby signing our petition to the governor to sign our bill that made birth control more accessible in California. [At the same time], the comics on stage were talking about tweeting as part of the nationwide campaign that was showing support for abortion access. We want to make sure we’re not getting up there and lecturing people because it is a comedy show — so we have to find that balance — but we want to make sure that people leave there knowing who we are and knowing what kind of action that they can take to get more involved, and then we can follow up with those people and make sure they stay engaged in the work.

LE: You mentioned a little bit about working with the comedians — tell me about how that outreach started, how you’re building partnerships with them, and what has the reception been like when you do approach them?

RG: We really started this out with a partnership with Nato Green, who’s a comic based here in San Francisco and who’s also a union organizer, so he really understands both sides of what we’re trying to do. We started a few years ago bringing some comics together for sort of a strategy and brainstorming session as a way to get people thinking about our issue, getting them learning more about NARAL, and what’s going on currently. We’ve built a network of comics that we’re continuing to build that I’ll send periodic updates to — of “this is happening, this is a really urgent issue, maybe you want to pay attention to this” — you know, trying to give people fodder without being too prescriptive about what it is that we want them do.

LE: So, you essentially give the comedians the facts and data and they take it from there.

RG: Yeah, and I think that’s an important factor in doing this kind of work. They are bringing skills to the table, just like any other person that you collaborate with on a project. They are the experts when it comes to being funny. If we try to tell them how to be funny, then we’re going to end up with a much worse product. Understand that the partnership needs to be a partnership and for it to actually increase the awareness and the engagement, it has to be funny first — it can’t just be a slightly humorous PSA that we put together.

LE: Has there been anything that has surprised you?

RG: One of the things that’s been really important is thinking about this kind of work as a long-term campaign. And, that’s really challenging because, in organizing, we’re used to metrics and the outcomes are really clear and pretty straightforward: did this health care bill pass or did it not, and we know that we need to get calls into senators’ offices. When we do the cultural organizing, there’s some sort of marketing metrics you can look at (how many people viewed this video, how many impressions did this hashtag get) but, in terms of the longer-term work of changing the cultural conversation, that’s hard to measure.

When a lot of people think about comedy and working with comedians, they think of sort of one-off things with really well-known people. But, I think that what a lot comedy nerds like myself know, is that there’s so many really talented people up there who are already talking about these issues and want to be helpful and involved, especially right now. This is something Nato Green, who we work with, has talked about a lot: Comics are a community that can be organized like any other and if you can give them a way to do that — that works with them and uses their skills and creativity — then I think that you can get a lot done that way. You never know what the next thing is that people are going to do and how your work might influence that.

LE: Tell me about your upcoming projects and what’s next.

RG: We’re thinking a lot about the relationship piece and how to maximize that. We want to be a resource to people. We’re talking to more writers and people who are working on TV shows to help [them] understand that they have the support [of the majority of Americans], and they can help solidify that support, by having these more realistic portrayals of the issue that are more relatable to people’s lived experience. We’re also looking at events and shows and how we can connect that to what’s going on: Next year is going to be a big election year in California, and that’s something we want to get people involved in. It’s an ongoing process of evaluation and thinking about next steps and how we can put a twist on typical organizing actions.

“Culture Moves Before the Politics” was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

W. Kamau Bell’s United Shades of America

W. Kamau Bell’s Emmy-winning show United Shades of America (CNN) takes him to places he’d really probably rather not go — like down a dark country lane to meet with hooded Klansmen deep in the Kentucky woods. But for Bell, an African-American comedian whose work often examines race in America, it was all in a day’s work.

“I’ve always been a fan of [Parts Unknown host Anthony] Bourdain,” Bell said on NPR’s Fresh Air in 2016, just before the series debut. “I always thought if I had a show like that, you would replace food with racism. Instead of sampling the food, I would sample the racism!”

Like fellow comic Sarah Silverman in her Hulu show I Love You, America, Bell says that one of his goals with United Shades is to understand other people. To do this, Bell told Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, he travels around the United States “to all sorts of different places that I’m either afraid to go, or you wouldn’t expect me to go.” Clips of Bell’s stand-up comedy routines are sprinkled throughout the hour-long show to help shed light on his inner monologue during some of these encounters.

“My agenda…is to learn about people,” Bell said in Paste magazine. “I’m not trying to take anyone down with what I do; they may take themselves down. But I try to put a human face on these people.”

Searching for Common Ground, Beneath the Hoods

Bell is realistic about the limits of his show to race relations in the country. “I think we have false notion that people get changed in one conversation…We should know by now that it doesn’t happen so quickly,” he said. He does, however, argue that some of his one-on-one interactions have moved the needle, if just a fraction. He cites his experience taping the first episode, in which he visits a KKK cross-burning, as an example.

“We were there for hours,” Bell recalled on Fresh Air. “We’d sort of have conversations, and for a little bit we’d all sort of forget where we were. We were just people working outside, working on a thing, together, in a weird way. And I know by the time I left, there’s this one guy in particular, I’m like, ‘That guy likes me!’ And I know that some of them went to sleep that night, and they were like, ‘I think I like a black guy now. Huh.’

“That’s what I walked away with: feeling like, if we actually sit down and have a conversation, we are not necessarily going to agree on everything — and this is true of the entire country — but we can at least leave room for each other’s humanity and see each other as humans at the end of the conversation.”

Like Silverman, Bell employs humor — good-natured ribbing, sardonic satire, and occasionally straight-up silliness — to make connections to both his interview subjects and his audience. In one particularly bizarre segment, Bells asks a hooded Klansman about getting materials for the “cross-lighting” ceremony:

Bell: What about just going down to the Home Depot and just buying the wood?

Klansman: We tried that before, but the wood goes up pretty fast.

Bell: So don’t get your cross at Home Depot for the cross-lighting?

Klansman: We don’t have anything against Home Depot. We’re not racist against Home Depot, whatsoever.

Bell: I love that you have all that sensitivity around Home Depot.

Klansman: Absolutely, man.

Bell effectively uses humor to engage and disarm his subjects and to gently draw attention to their hypocrisy. “We have to understand that the reason why we laugh is because we’re being tickled in a place we weren’t aware was there, and sometimes it’s a naughty place,” he said in an August 2017 discussion at the Chautauqua Institution.

There are also occasions — such as when he’s driving down that dark road in Kentucky — where you can watch Bell use his humor to self-soothe. But there are notable instances when his trusty tool fails him. When a Klan Imperial Wizard refers to “mud-races” when talking about non-whites, Bell goes for the punchline in the voiceover: “Mud races? There’s gotta be a funny comeback for that! [Sigh] I got nothing.” But it is Bell’s expression of disappointment and discomfort in the moment that is the most moving part of the exchange.

What’s underneath that rock?

Another goal of the show, Bell has said, is to expose ideology and behavior that many of us would prefer to ignore.

“When we filmed the premiere episode of United Shades of America, it was like we were turning over a rock in the woods. The KKK was not part of the national conversation. They were really just a punchline for comedians when you needed to let the audience something was really, really, really racist.

Even if the KKK isn’t the outsized presence it once was in this country, many of its principles and ideas are alive and well… the images, history, and potential for violence is still alive,” he wrote in a CNN opinion piece.

Humor, says Bell, is a good tool for focusing one’s attention.

“If you have someone laughing, you have them paying attention,” Bell said in an interview with The Root. “Comedy doesn’t care about political affiliations, and comedy doesn’t belong to a political party. I admire the work of people like Dick Gregory, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce and Chris Rock. They operate from the top to the bottom intellectually: You always feel like you’re learning something, but you’re laughing at the same time…Laughter is a great equalizer that way. It brings us closer together, without us even realizing it.

Not Everyone is Laughing

Critics have hammered Bell’s show for giving a platform for voices that deserve to be marginalized, like white nationalist and alt-right founder Richard Spencer. In a Paste article titled, “W. Kamau Bell Should Have Punched Richard Spencer in the Face,” Seth Simons writes, “Although CNN promoted the stunt as some sort of tête-à-tête, it’s a largely substance-free dialogue in which Bell laughs uproariously at Spencer’s jokes and offers little in the way of a counterpoint beyond that immigrants make good food.”

Bell defended the episode in a CNN op-ed: “I put Spencer on TV for the same reason that I put the KKK on TV. We all need to make sure that we fully understand our country.”

It’s true that Bell often doesn’t push back against his subjects’ outrageous comments. He lets bigots and racists spin out their ideas, occasionally dropping in a wisecrack in the voiceover, but often just letting the audience witness the inanity for themselves. Because, as Bell writes, “As much as I disagree with Richard Spencer, I know that more people need to be aware of these ideas because, again…There. Are. People. Who. Vote. That. Believe. Them.

“Ultimately, I’m not afraid of these people or Richard Spencer’s ideas, because I know my ideas will win. My ideas are better.”

Plus, as Bell noted in the The Root, he has the power of comedy on his side:

“Chris [Rock] would say, ‘If it’s not funny, then it’s just a poorly organized speech.’ I believe comedy is the best way to communicate, no matter what you’re doing, no matter what your job is or what you’re trying to convey. Politicians, musicians, actors — all of us use comedy to connect.”

Comic Diplomacy: Breaking Down Barriers One Laugh at a Time was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

John Oliver’s use of metaphor and analogy as a framing device

by Dannagal G. Young, Ph.D. with Morgan Pfister (M.A., University of Delaware)

In a 2014 episode of Last Week Tonight on HBO, John Oliver engaged in a 7 minute exploration of the issue of the “wage gap,” the gap that exists between the earnings of women and men in the United States. To open the segment, Oliver expressed frustration with media coverage of the issue, especially the fact that news coverage tends to debate the size of the wage gap, rather than exploring how and why its mere existence is a problem. Oliver introduces footage of media correspondents disputing the exact monetary amount and percentage of cents earned by women for every dollar earned by men (Do women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn? Or is it 88 cents? Or 96 cents?). But, to quickly and efficiently illustrate that the problem is not the size of the wage gap, but rather the existence of the wage gap, Oliver used a short, pointed analogy (as he often does).

Look even if 96 cents [cents on the dollar] is the number, which it isn’t, it’s still terrible. Let me put this in terms that are perhaps easier to understand. If someone takes a dump on my desk, the size of the dump is not the issue. I’m not going to say, “Well how big of a dump is it? Eight inches? Ten inches? Oh, just three inches? Well, that’s almost like you didn’t take a dump on my desk at all”.

John Oliver tapped into a humorous vehicle that he has perfected as a way of simplifying and distilling complex policy issues: the humorous analogy.

Analogy and humor are both rhetorical devices that result from a form of semantic incongruity, making them a naturally compatible pair. Incongruity is at the heart of humor. Incongruity theory is the fundamental theory of humor that most cognitive psychologists apply when examining its construction and effects. In Arthur Koestler’s 1964 work, The Act of Creation, he explains how humor results from the simultaneous activation of two seemingly incompatible schemas, or frames of reference in the mind. We “bissociate” the two schemas momentarily, and then must activate some additional piece of information to reconcile the two and make then fit together. This incongruity, followed by reconciliation, is what results in an explosion of mirth or laughter.

Analogies and metaphors lend themselves to the efficient construction of humor, as they explicitly rely on pairs of schemas or frames of reference that seem incongruous on first glance. Like humor, analogies require a resolution of that incongruity to be understood. According to Osborn and Ehninger (1962), “By relating divergent ideas, objects, or qualities, the receiver reduces the semantic distance between them, and they are brought into proximity of meaning sufficiently close so that the common base or ground upon which they rest is recognized” (p. 231). In analogies, the first schema (or frame of reference or mental model) pertains to the new thing you’re trying to understand (e.g.; the wage gap), and the second is the schema of the thing you already understand (e.g. taking a dump on a desk). By looking at the first thing (wage gap) through the lens of the second (defecation), not only is that first thing suddenly simple and distilled, but it is also encoded with valence:

Defecation on a desk = bad, regardless of the size of that defecation.

Wage gap = bad, regardless of the size of the gap.

According to Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), the second frame of reference — the one that is familiar and tangible (the dump, in this case) — serves as the “source domain.” It consists of attributes, processes, and relationships that are directly experienced, and so are familiar and accessible to the listener. When processing such experiential analogies, listeners will access the source domain and attempt to use it to impose order and meaning on new or lesser-developed schema, known as the “target domain.” As Deignan explains, “the way we mentally organize the target domain is partly determined by the organization of the source domain” (Deignan, 2010, p. 45).

So powerful are metaphors, argued Stanford Communication Professor Arthur Hastings (1970), that a shift in the base domain (or language) used to understand a target domain will change all accompanying perceptions and beliefs accordingly. “In satire, a consistent but emotionally appropriate framework is superimposed on a situation in contrast to the normal interpretation” (Hastings, 1970, p. 185). When a metaphorical situation is introduced, the appropriate framework moves into consciousness and provides a new interpretation and emotional response. And once a situation (e.g., the wage gap) is understood in terms of the base domain (e.g., defecation on a desk), the target is forever changed. Linguistics Professor, Jonathan Charteris-Black (2011), suggests that, “Rhetorically, metaphors contribute to mental representations of political issues, making alternative ways of understanding these issues more difficult and in so doing ‘occupy’ the mind” (p. 28).

In other words, once an audience has imposed “desk-defecation” on top of the wage gap schema, the “size” of the wage gap fails to matter, as the “size” of the dump doesn’t matter at all.

And perhaps this is the most important aspect of the strategic use of analogy and metaphor in satire. Such devices are not used merely to help illuminate the internal logic or dynamics of an unfamiliar and complex domain. Instead, analogies and metaphors can be used to deliberately impose evaluative meaning on contested issues or topics (Zinken, 2007), making them a useful tool to reframe those issues. Robert Entman (1993) proposed that framing involves “selecting some aspects of a perceived reality and making them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (p. 52). Frames are lenses through which communicators help to define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgments, and suggest remedies (Entman, 1993). Strategic communicators, including John Oliver, make conscious framing judgments when deciding what aspects of a subject to highlight in such a way that will shape audience’s perceptions of the causes, evaluations, or possible solutions to said problem. Due to their unique capacity to illuminate a lesser known target domain in light of a more familiar one, analogies and metaphors help comics simplify, clarify, and reframe lesser known political realities, all the while naturally satisfying humor’s need for two seemingly incongruous — even ridiculous — schemas.

In this example, by focusing on the vile nature of desk-defecation itself, Oliver moves the conversation away from the size of the dump to the existence of said dump, thereby shifting audiences away from the contested “size of the wage gap,” to the existence of said wage gap. Once this emotionally charged (disgust) frame has reoriented us to the issue altogether, the next logical questions (based off of the defecation frame) become: Who is responsible for the gap (dump)? How do we get them to stop paying women less (dumping)?

And voila: Oliver has successfully “…selected some aspects of a perceived reality [the existence of the wage gap] and made it more salient in a communicating text [his comedy show], in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition [the size of the gap isn’t the problem, it’s the existence of the gap], causal interpretation [the people paying women less than men are responsible], moral evaluation [Any gap is bad, no matter how small], and/or treatment recommendation [pay women the same as men] for the item described.”

Now excuse me, but I need to go craft some metaphors and analogies based on fraternity parties and keg stands to help my students understand digital technologies and the redistribution of political and cultural power.

Turning The Wage Gap into a Dump was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sarah Silverman’s I Love You, America

By Jennifer Golden

Sarah Silverman — stand-up comic, actor, bedwetter, Bernie Sanders supporter — is in love. With America. All of it.

In her new show, I Love America (Hulu), Silverman ventures outside her self-described liberal bubble to parts of the U.S. her coast-dwelling friends might derisively call “flyover country.” There she meets with her fellow Americans on their own turf to find out what makes them tick.

“I’m hoping to, with this show, connect with unlike-minded people,” Silverman said during a Hulu-sponsored panel discussion in July.

With a reputation for edgy, taboo-testing humor and, more recently, vocal support of progressive political causes, it might be surprising to hear Silverman profess her love of Trump supporters, but on her publicity tour touting the new show, that’s just what’s she’s been doing.

“I fell in love with them. I had a great time with them and I felt comfortable,” she said at LA’s Vulture Festival in November.

Silverman’s approach is to meet people, quite literally, where they are. Through field segments around the country and in-studio interviews before a live audience, Silverman peppers her guests with questions about how they came to hold their worldviews.

Whereas some comedians — like Jon Stewart, for example — use comedy as a foil when pressed to engage on serious social issues, Silverman’s approach is almost the opposite. She plays the role of comic host dutifully, delivering jokes with a professional precision particularly when before a live studio audience. During the interview segments, however, she seems to take off her comedian’s hat. She is engaging and witty, for sure, but the edginess that she’s known for takes a back seat to an earnestness that may surprise fans who have followed her long comedy career.

Hug it out

When talking about issues on which she and her subjects disagree, Silverman will, on occasion, gently push back. More often than not, however, she relies on good-natured ribbing and hugs to make a connection.

“People don’t change from facts. You can throw facts in their faces and poll numbers and it doesn’t change people’s beliefs. What changes people are feelings,” Silverman told fellow comedian Bill Maher on his eponymous HBO show. “Making people feel stupid even with true things doesn’t change them. They are more changed with that first hug hello. To me, it’s more about getting people’s porcupine needles down.”

This theme of engaging with people who have different backgrounds, experiences, and ideologies is a major driver of the show. But it’s not all about changing others’ minds, Silverman notes. It’s about changing herself as well.

“I live in a bit of a bubble,” she admits at the opening of the series’ first episode. “And as a result, it’s possible I may have some unfair, preconceived notions about what people are like in the rest of America, but that’s the [expletive] part of me I’m trying to change with this show.”

Silverman carries this kind of self-awareness and self-deprecation into her interviews with her subjects, making her a more approachable interlocutor than those familiar with her acerbic wit might think.

Food for thought

Such a sincere approach to dialogue isn’t exactly laugh-out-loud stuff, and Silverman acknowledges this in her first episode.

“Sometimes [the show] is going to be totally earnest, and you’ll go into it expecting it to be funny and you’ll be like ‘he he he’ and then you’ll be like, ‘oh.’”

But Silverman, known for her irreverence and vulgarity, peppers her sociological experiments with a good dose of irony, salty language, and poop jokes.

“I like to sandwich the thoughtful stuff with aggressively stupid, ridiculous and silly bread and serve that sandwich,” she told CBS News.

In the October 19 episode, for example, Silverman speaks with conservative voters in Mineola, Texas. At the end of a wide-ranging discussion of hot-button issues like gay marriage and climate change, Silverman poses this question:

“We’ve talked about blue states, we’ve talked about red states. Let’s talk about brown states,” she said. “Have you all ever sh*t your pants?”

After each person in the segment shares his or her own embarrassing story of incontinence, Silverman comes to a happy, if not tremendously insightful, conclusion. “We all are the same, really. We all love our families. We all care about our friends. And we all have humiliating stories that involve sh*tting.”

But Silverman’s “silly bread” might be sliced too thick for some audiences. Citing her idol Mr. Rogers’ maxim, “If it’s mentionable, it’s manageable,” Silverman begins her November 2 show with a six-minute monologue describing her preferred masturbation techniques.

“We’re on episode four, and her outrageous attempts to keep pushing the envelope further and further are already getting, dare I say it, boring,” writes conservative commentator Lindsay Kornick. “That is one among many downsides to living in a ‘sex sells’ culture. Sooner or later, people will stop buying. That is unfortunately the most we can hope for when this is considered comedic material.”

The (time) limits of comedy

Silverman recognizes that her reputation both as a notoriously un-PC comic and an outspoken liberal makes her a hard sell as an ambassador capable of bridging America’s political divide.

“Listen, I obviously have very firm opinions and beliefs,” she has said. “I’m not begging Republicans to watch [the show], but I hope that if they do they’ll be able to enjoy it.

“[Because] when you get a chance to be intimate, to be one-on-one with someone whose sets of beliefs are different than your own, there’s an opportunity for our defenses to be down.”

Silverman also acknowledges that comedy is a difficult space in which to remain politically correct.

“Comedy… is not evergreen.” she told Bill Maher. “There are things that I’ve said in my comedy that I’m sure will be held against me, that I don’t stand by, that I’m embarrassed by.”

For now, however, the funnywoman seems content with building bridges one hug, laugh, and fart machine at a time. The approach seems to be working, at least on an individual level.

“It felt so great to talk to somebody with different views, to sit in a room and not be judged,” said Trump supporter Brandi Stander, who Silverman interviewed at her home in Chalmette, Louisiana, in the first episode. “We could have just kept her here forever!”

Comic Diplomacy: Breaking Down Barriers One Laugh at a Time was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Master of the Coming Out Story: Thanksgiving with the Watkins Family on Netflix’s Master of None

by Amy Bree Becker

All across America, Thanksgiving is rich with tradition. We eat the same foods year after year, gather the same extended family members around the same table, and for many engage in those awkward conversations about difficult topics — from religion to partisan politics. But for some, Thanksgiving is also about change, trying new things, and new faces around the table. We’ve finally let go of that green bean casserole recipe in our house (you know the one with the mushroom soup and fried onion strings), we had some new faces around the table this year, and we managed to make it through both dinner and dessert without too many awkward conversations about taboo topics.

Master of None’s Thanksgiving episode (Season 2, Episode 8, released May 12, 2017) offers a humorous yet in many ways both classic and groundbreaking take on the American family Thanksgiving. In the Emmy-award winning episode, we witness the evolution of the Watkins family Thanksgiving, from the 1990’s to present day. Throughout the 34 minute episode, we watch as Dev Shah (Aziz Ansari) repeatedly sits down with the Watkins family–friend Denise (Lena Waithe), mom Catherine (Angela Bassett), aunt Joyce (Kym Whitley), and grandma Ernestine (Venida Evans) — after first fulfilling his duties as the macaroni and cheese tester. In truth, Ansari’s character blends into the background in this episode — apart from a hilarious back and forth with a Thanksgiving 2016 visitor, Nikki — — a girlfriend of Denise’s who is obsessed with her Instagram account — — NipplesandToes23. Yes, that is correct, NipplesandToes23. NipplesAANNNNDDDToes23.

It almost goes without saying that the real stars of this episode are Lena Waithe and Angela Bassett as we watch them both come to terms with Denise’s awareness of her sexual orientation and as a result, redefine yet continue to maintain the terms of their mother-daughter relationship.

As others have written, the Thanksgiving episode of Master of None is a truly trailblazing, heartwarming, and representationally important coming out story at its core. Notably, the story of Denise’s awareness of her sexual orientation is told over time, as we see her evolve from a little girl in a frilly flowered dress who thinks her Indian friend Dev is also black, to a “Lebanese” teenager (she’s not yet comfortable with the word lesbian) with a crush on “mixed Erica,” to a woke young college student telling her mom she’s gay in a Queens diner back in 2006.

As Denise grows, we also see how the world around her changes — from the days of watching Fresh Prince with Dev on television to discussions about O.J. Simpson, Clarence Thomas, and Sandra Bland at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Denise and her entire family are indeed influenced by what developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner termed the macrosystem (the larger institutional structures of our world) and the chronosystem (the evolution of human and historical time). As my own research has shown in an exploration of the hit Amazon Studios show, Transparent, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory offers a useful framework through which to view coming out stories and narratives exploring gender identity, sexual orientation, and family dynamics. Much like Maura Pfefferman on Transparent, Denise Watkins’ declaration of her sexual orientation does not happen in a vacuum. Rather, it happens over time (in this case from the 1990’s through the present day) and in relation to other institutional structures, values, and family norms.

As Denise tells Dev back in 1999, for members of the black community, being gay is often seen as a choice. In her own African-American family (and presumably in Dev’s Indian-American immigrant family), children are seen as “trophies.” Being gay “tarnishes the trophy.” Early on, we see Catherine (Denise’s mother; Angela Bassett) explain how hard it is for minorities in America (she tells a young Dev and Denise that a minority is “a group of people who have to work twice as hard in life to get half as far,”) and how much harder the struggle is for black women in America (“it’s three times as hard”). Taking the unique dynamics of race and gender into account is what helps to make this particular coming out story so real and relevant. Because there are so few stories of black women coming out on television, it’s also what makes Master of None important as a tool for engagement, activism, and awareness. Don’t take it from me when Lena Waithe’s Emmy acceptance speech says all this and more:

“I love you all and last but certainly not least my LGBTQIA family,” she went on. “I see each and every one of you. The things that make us different, those are our superpowers — every day when you walk out the door and put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it.

“And for everybody out there that showed so much love for this episode, thank you for embracing a little Indian boy from South Carolina and a little queer black girl from the South Side of Chicago,” she said. “We appreciate it more than you could ever know.”

Master of None presents us with a Thanksgiving dinner that in many ways mirrors our own. There is the same food, the same aging relatives and the occasional new face, the same often uncomfortable discussion about race, politics, and the news of the day around the dinner table. But there is also a diverse coming out story that is still too infrequently seen on television. For that reason alone, I’m thankful for Master of None. And of course don’t forget that delicious looking macaroni and cheese.

Amy Bree Becker, Ph.D. is an associate professor of communication at Loyola University Maryland. She is a lover of television and researches the effects of entertainment television and political comedy on attitudes, behavior, and engagement.

Master of the Coming Out Story was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How Asian-American Sitcom, “Fresh Off The Boat” Is Using Humor and Wit to Battle Universal Themes Like Race and Identity, 22 Minutes At A Time

By Megan Rummler, The Laughter Effect

Increasingly, new voices on cable, broadcast and streaming networks may be leveraging comedy to engage audiences and weigh in on difficult and often polarizing social issues like racism, bigotry and prejudice.

“An informed racist is a better racist,” sarcastically declared stand-up comedian and actor, Kumail Nanjiani, in his opening monologue as host of Saturday Night Live on Oct.14, 2017. Pakistani-American Nanjiani used his seven-minute monologue to deliver a searing, albeit humorous, speech against all forms of racism.

Likewise, ABC has received critical acclaim for its groundbreaking family comedy sitcom, “Fresh Off The Boat,” that manages to address race, culture and identity with cutting humor, grace and finesse. Perhaps more importantly, it is the first show in over 20 years with an Asian-American cast since Margaret Cho’s 1994 sitcom, “All American Girl,” which aired for one season.

“Fresh Off the Boat” premiered on February 4, 2015, debuting to nearly 8 million American viewers on a Tuesday evening at 8:30 p.m. EST, placing it as the second-highest rated comedy premiere that season. Now, almost three years on, the show has been renewed for a fourth season and continues to use its comedic platform to subvert Asian-American stereotypes and launch nuanced conversations about awkward cultural differences and otherness.

The series is loosely based on celebrity chef and restaurateur Eddie Huang’s memoir of the same name. Set in the mid-1990s, viewers follow the Huang family, a Taiwanese-American family as they move from Chinatown in Washington, D.C., to Orlando, Florida, as their father opens a steakhouse and pursues his version of the American dream.

The sitcom revolves around five main characters and the Cattleman’s Ranch steakhouse. Randall Park plays Louis, the mild-mannered, easy-going father. Constance Wu plays Jessica, the sharp-tongued, aggressive mother and Hudson Yang plays the eldest son, Eddie — portrayed as the family outlier.

Eddie’s younger brothers, Emery and Evan, are played by actors Forrest Wheeler and Ian Chen, don lovable and tame personalities.

As viewers follow the lives of the Huang family, it becomes clear the experiences of this Taiwanese-American family invite a multifaceted way of understanding the assimilation process even as they depict varied cultural experiences and differences. And that is wherein lies the magic of the creative comedic content. The sitcom helps to widen viewers’ mindsets to see an Asian-American family with nuance and complexity, all while garnering laughs along the way.

Highlighted are some powerful past moments from “Fresh Off The Boat.”

Season 1 — In the pilot episode, viewers watch as a young Eddie, the protagonist in the sitcom, fights back after being called a “chink,” by a classmate. The use of this word is groundbreaking for a prime-time show.

Season 3 — As Louis and the Cattleman’s Ranch staff prepare to serve as a polling place for the 1996 election, Jessica suspects that one of the restaurant employees may be an undocumented immigrant. When Jessica reports her findings to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, she learns her immigration status is also questionable. This episode explores the meaning of citizenship and addresses the topic of immigration.

Season 4 — The season premiere episode took the bull by the horns and leveraged comedy to tackle the weighty matter of budding teenage sexuality. Eddie Huang’s neighbor, Nichole, came out as gay in a hilarious, awkward chip-eating confession scene. Then she poses a set of questions to Eddie:

When do you turn gay? And, does it affect what kind of jeans you wear?

Using sharp, thoughtful comedy to break down barriers and encourage dialogue is a classic hallmark of the creative writing deployed in the sitcom.

Melvin Mar, who executive produces “Fresh Off the Boat,” knows firsthand about breaking down barriers and what it means to be an outsider. A Taiwanese-American, he has had to fight his way to the top echelons of the closed network of the mostly white-male dominated Hollywood executive ladder. Mar’s Hollywood career began more than 15 years ago in an unpaid internship at Kopelson Entertainment. He then turned his role into jobs at DreamWorks and Scott Rudin Productions. He worked his way up and through the ranks where he met Jake Kasdan, director of “Orange County.”

Kasdan and Mar have worked together since and currently have an overall deal at Twentieth Century Fox Television, where they are developing comedies and dramas for cable and network television. Their latest feature “JUMANJI: Welcome to the Jungle” (Columbia Pictures), starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black, opens in December 2017.

Mar spoke to us recently from Los Angeles about the power of comedy as a platform for social issues and impact.

Laughter Effect:
How would you describe your approach to “Fresh Off The Boat?”

Melvin Mar:
My favorite thought in all of this is that people tend to listen when they’re either laughing or crying. I prefer the former, you know, that is the sort of business I’m in. When people are laughing and having a good time, they are listening to you. The secret is nobody wants to watch a show about an Asian-American family where they are constantly talking about how they are being discriminated against. We know what that is like. We know what prejudice is like. We know what racism is like. So, the key is to figure out a way to address it — in the midst of everyone being entertained and having a good time — you say something about it.

Laughter Effect:
When you and your team are behind the scenes, influencing and shaping the content for the show, what is the conversation around how to decide what is funny?

Melvin Mar:
I think there is a thin line between things that are stereotypical and things that are true. And, you have to look for these sort of uplifting elements in all of it. Basically, you sort of analyze that nuance.

A very good example is in season one. One of my favorite episodes is the subject of superstitions. I grew up hearing the superstition about the number four, right? In the Chinese language, it sounds like death. That to me was something fun that you can poke fun at and basically points out how ridiculous your family is for thinking that. I will continue to talk about that and poke fun at it, but at the same time there’s sort of a reason for it and you appreciate it. It comes off and you have to present it in an appreciating manner. It just becomes sort of a thing. It is part of the identity of the people that are behind the show, of the show and people involved in the show. It becomes part of the authenticity.

Laughter Effect:
Can you shed some light on how the creative process works? How do you come up with the material?

Melvin Mar:
It’s a writer’s room and it’s headed by my partner on the show, Nahnatchka Khan. She is a Persian American woman who has worked on a lot of comedy shows. She started in the Seth MacFarlane animated world, and she is a first-generation Persian American. She, in the beginning, did not understand the authenticity and intricacies of a Chinese Taiwanese family. But, she understood what it was to be the first generation of a minority in America, and that was the common thread that we pulled out. Everybody that is writing on the show — and the thing that we are most proud of — is that it is a room full of 15 people: seven are women, [three are gay and seven are non-white] half men and woman, which is usually not a thing that exists in Hollywood. It is usually very sort of Harvard-lampoon Caucasian-men heavy, which is the history of comedy rooms. We have endeavored to make the rooms very diverse in terms of minorities, women and even sexual orientation. Another great example is, last night was the premier and it was the set-up to one of the kids coming out, not one of our kids but Marvin’s daughter, the girl next door. She comes out to Eddie. And, that is a very good example of it, and I link it all the way back to, Nahnatchka Khan, this is organically who she is. She is a first-generation, Persian American, lesbian woman, comedy writer. It’s a culmination of everything that makes her up is put into the show. The one thing she needs help on is the authenticity of Taiwanese-Chinese family in America, you know, like those details. I help with those details, there are a couple of other Taiwanese people on the writing staff. That is how you mix it up and actually get the formula to create something like this.

Laughter Effect:
Some say comedy is inherently personal. Maybe this is a good time to pause and talk about your personal background.

Melvin Mar:
I grew up in Montebello, Los Angeles and in elementary school, I was one of two Asian kids in a class of predominantly Latinos. The thing with “Fresh Off the Boat” that sort of stuck with me is that in season one the Huang family are the only Asian-American family in their neighborhood. That’s exactly how it felt for me growing up. In the show, it changed a little bit to where it was Orlando in the 1990s surrounded by Caucasian people. But for me it was all Latinos and just myself. Being very small in stature — I still am — it was not easy. That was the quintessential childhood. You are picked on a little bit and there were the playground experiences. It really gives you some perspective and at the time it was terrible. But, when you get older and you choose to work in the field of comedy these memories are where you find golden stuff.

Laughter Effect:
How do you address stereotypes?

Melvin Mar:
In talking with Nahnatchka very early on, we talked about the areas we wanted to tackle. We said to ourselves, we don’t know how long we’re going to get to make this show so let’s look at the things we want to tackle. The pilot tacked the word, “Chink.” The other thing was the Long Duc Dong stereotype, which for me being a fan of John Hughes, I’ve always been very conflicted about it. I love those movies and I think those movies are great, but there was always this one thing. For me, in a very personal way, I was directly picked on that way. They thought it was so funny that he showed up, upside down, from the bunk bed up top, so I was held upside down on the playground to try and mimic that. Our haircuts looked the same, when I was a little boy. It was one of those things where we had the chance to tackle these stereotypes and we just figured out how to do it. I spoke to Randall about it, and it was a very heavy Randall episode, and he grew up in LA, and is very active in the Asian-American community and I remember saying to him this is one of things that we should do. We should figure out a way tackle the Long Duc Dong stereotype without telling people John Hughes sucks, and that was the dance and because he doesn’t suck and it was just the thing of the time. The key is to figure out how to address the idea that Long Duc Dong is racist, the idea of it is racist. Do you want to be taught and told that one of the quintessential movies of the 1980s has this horrible thing in it and you are horrible for liking it. That is not the message, that is not it. Even though it offended some people you have to point that out in a much more nuanced way.

Laughter Effect:
“Fresh Off The Boat” has over 7 million viewers. How does that break out? Who is the audience for “Fresh Off the Boat?”

Melvin Mar:
Obviously, Asian-Americans and what I’ve been told is that we are tracking very high amongst the African American and Latino audience followed by the Caucasian audience. And, it really speaks to minorities in America.

Laughter Effect:
How do you write content to a massive audience that is shifting in real time and make it relevant to them?

Melvin Mar:
It’s interesting because I think the social issues aren’t shifting as much, you know. The show was set in the 1990s and eerily we didn’t plan out any of the things that happened in Season 3. We just knew we wanted to talk about Jessica becoming a citizen, and how most of our parents have some sort of immigration story, especially for Asian-Americans. There is some version of it, there is either your parents came over to study or came over because some family member brought them, there is always some story. At the time immigration was relevant in the 1990s when the show is set and it’s still a thing now, more than ever. Depending on how you look at it, good or bad, we are still dealing with it.

Laughter Effect:
Do you feel like you are making a difference?

Melvin Mar:
I hope so in our own sort of little way.

Laughter Effect:
One of the things we wanted to touch on is metrics. Is there a way to know a difference is being made?

Melvin Mar:
You know it’s interesting, I was talking to somebody the other day about this, which is, there are many, many different metrics. Unfortunately, the network television business still runs on Nielsen, which isn’t the most accurate version of measuring. On occasion I have people come up to me and talk to me about the show and how much it is impacting them. But on a very personal level, I measure it this way: I have a young daughter and her whole lifetime there has been an Asian-American family on television. The writers do an amazing job of coming up with things that not only speak to Asian-Americans but I think speak to immigrants and minority groups in America as a whole.

Laughter Effect:
What shows do you like to watch that are an example of using humor to address pressing social justice topics?

Melvin Mar:
I was a huge fan of the great Norman Lear shows. The purest form of inspiration for me with television is when I was a kid and watching television shows. It goes back to when I was in high school. I watched them because I loved them and it was the thing that I did after school, instead of doing homework. I’ve seen all of “Good Times,” “All in The Family,” “One Day At A Time,” and “Family Ties.” All that stuff to me at the time was quintessentially what an American family was. Those Norman Lear shows was where he was able to teach America something but also make them laugh. That culminated for me and that was it. The sort of genesis for “Fresh Off The Boat” was that idea.

Laughter Effect:
How did you persevere in a Hollywood environment that is slow to the idea of minority leads?

Melvin Mar:
You have to look for your opportunities, that is just it. If you’ve done this long enough, you’re used to rejection and in all forms. It’s nothing personal. Think about it this way, working in film and television is like you are starting a business every single time you start one of these things. It’s a multi-million dollar business. If you take it out of the spectrum of Hollywood and you give yourself a little bit of levity and you think about it in layman’s terms — you’re starting a business. Often things don’t work out ninety percent of the time because of variables. It has nothing to do with anyone attacking you, you know what I mean? You just have to figure out a way to do it. If you are starting a restaurant and you don’t get the location, it’s not because people are against you, it just didn’t work out. I’m not saying Hollywood is not racist, it is just the lack of exposure and knowledge and the lack of people working behind the scenes to tell these stories. There is a lack of writers wanting to write these stories. And they are out there. In the time that the show has premiered and in the time that I started working in this business as an assistant until now, it’s changed a lot. It becomes people like myself and people behind the scenes that need to step up and come up with ways to tell these stories and it’s really changing. It’s not quick but it is really changing.

Laughter Effect:
What lessons have you learned so far in your career?

Melvin Mar:
I choose to think of it this way. No is just the beginning of the conversation. It’s how I think about everything. They will tell you no, for whatever reason, and it has nothing to do with you. You just have to reassess and figure out what your next move is. You are constantly sort of looking at your hand again. It’s like playing poker all the time. Look for leverage, look for opportunities. Keep looking for new angles.

Laughter Effect:
During this season, what social issues will be addressed?

Melvin Mar:
Well, we are starting this year with Nichole coming out, which is a big thing. About the chip scene, yeah, that is all Nahnatchka Khan. I got a text message from her that said, “I feel like Eddie should eat a chip, because it’s like muscle memory with Eddie.” The real sort of meat about the storyline yesterday was about not saying thank you, and it was about explaining that whole thing and that we [Asian-Americans] don’t have to. It’s sort of the east meets west and this is how you culturally understand each other. As far as the rest of the season, there will be a Chinese New Year episode with some cameos. Oh yes, I’ll give you a little hint that the episode after Chinese New Year will be about 1998 Winter Olympics.

Laughter Effect:
Do you ultimately think comedy can be a unique force for change in pressing social issues?

Melvin Mar:
I think it can help. Is it going be the end all, be all answer? No. It’s going to be a combination of a lot of things that help us achieve meaningful progress and it will be an ongoing conversation. As things shift, as life shifts as society shifts, it’ll never be done. But, that’s the beauty of it, right? I think comedy is a big factor in just the way people are when they are laughing. It’s a huge thing. Everybody wants to laugh. Everybody just wants to have a moment where they can, sort of, get away from it all and if we can do it in 22 minutes at a time, make them laugh and maybe give them something that they don’t know, then it’ll be worth it in the end to me.

How "Fresh Off The Boat" Is Using Humor and Wit to Battle Universal Themes Like Race And Identity was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Using Humor to Raise Awareness — and Dollars

The Radi-Aid Awards help celebrate the best — and worst — in charity fundraising

by Jennifer Golden

We’ve all seen them… those heartrending commercials featuring hungry children in desperate squalor, asking us, the viewers, to help. Do you reach for your wallet, or do you, like many of us, quickly change the channel?

“These repeated images of poverty, violence, and war…It comes to a point when we as human beings are unable to take it all in,” said Anja Bakken Riise, past president of the Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH) in a 2013 TEDx Talk. “These campaigns, these stereotypes — they create apathy, not action.”

In 2012, SAIH made headlines with a satirical video that highlighted what they saw as a tendency in predominantly Western aid agencies’ fundraising campaigns to portray the poor “as passive recipients of help, without the ability or desire to make their country a better place to live.” The video, “Radi-Aid: Africa for Norway” featured African rapper Breezy V calling for Africans to donate their radiators to the freezing peoples of Norway:

“People don’t ignore starving people, so why should we ignore cold people. Frostbite kills, too,” the rapper says with great sincerity. “Africa, we need to make a difference in Norway. We need to collect our radiators, ship them over there, and spread some warmth, spread some light, and spread some smiles. Say ‘yes’ to Radi-Aid!”

With more than three million views and counting, the video touched a nerve, highlighting a need for a debate about Western representations of developing countries. Beathe Øgård, current SAIH president said the group was shocked by how much attention the video received.

“I think in the beginning, attention was coming from everywhere and I think it was because we had this alternative way of portraying it and using humor, which made the message more accessible, not only to those engaged in the aid communication field,” she said. “We also found out that we had to do something with the crowd of people who suddenly showed a lot of commitment to start working on these issues.”

Thus, the Radi-Aid campaign was born.

And the Radiator Goes To…

Each year, in an effort to promote “more nuanced information about development and poverty,” SAIH, through its Radi-Aid initiative, sponsors a contest that highlights and analyzes the best and worst of charity fundraising videos. In recent years, the group says, fundraising campaigns “have shown increasing examples of creative and engaging portrayals in charity ads, demonstrating the many various ways a charity campaign can succeed without traditional and stereotypical representations.”

The 2017 winner of the Golden Radiator award — given to the video campaign that “moves beyond stereotypes, describes tangible and achievable solutions to issues, and inspires rather than provokes guilt” — was a campaign from the nonprofit group War Child Holland. In the video, a Syrian child is shown playing around a refugee camp with Batman. Amid the dusty tents, the duo play hide-and-seek, arm wrestle, and generally pal around to the happy tune of “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen. At the end of the video, the Caped Crusader turns into the boy’s father, and the video reminds us “Fantasy is often the only way for children in war to escape their reality.” The Radi-Aid jury, comprised of humanitarian activists from around the world, applauded the video for its use of “effective humanitarian crisis imagery” while still “showing the kid as a kid.”

By contrast, the jury labeled a video featuring Ed Sheeran visiting homeless children in West Africa “poverty tourism” and awarded it the Rusty Radiator — the distinction for the video with the worst use of stereotypes. (Ironically, the video was produced by Comic Relief, an organization historically committed to using comedy as a philanthropic tool.) This video, as well as the two other 2017 Rusty Radiator nominees, are outdated and overly simplistic, according to SAIH’s Øgård.

“We have been presented with these kinds of images since the 1980s,” she said. “People are so used to them that for many they reinforce that feeling of hopelessness and apathy — and even a negative view of development in that nothing is going in the right direction.”

The Power of a Chuckle

Like it or not, haunting images of the poor and sick, still raise money.

“Pity and shame are easy emotional levers to pull,” said Jennifer Lentfer, communications expert at Thousand Currents, a grant-making organization that supports grassroots initiatives. “They are proved to bring in the dollars.”

But SAIH’s Anja Bakken Riise thinks humor can be similarly effective.

“The best way of getting people to think is by making people to laugh,” she said. “Humor and surprise [are] great. It makes people let their guard down. It’s like giving a gift. And if you give me a gift, I want to give you something back.”

Humor has certainly worked for SAIH. They followed up their initial “Radi-Aid” video with several more spoof videos including one called “Let’s Save Africa — Gone Wrong” and “Who Wants to Be a Volunteer?” based off the popular television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Each video has had more than one million views on YouTube. In late 2017, SAIH launched an animated satirical campaign educating overseas volunteers on how to be more culturally sensitive with their social media use.

SAIH’s satirical campaigns have earned recognition across the political spectrum. Martin Morse Wooster, senior fellow at the conservative Capital Research Institutes admits, “I wouldn’t normally pay much attention to this group, but the video they created, ‘Africa for Norway,’ is brilliant.

“The message is quite clear,” he continues. “Videos where white people go to the Third World and save helpless black people send the wrong message.”

SAIH’s Bakken Riise attributed much of the group’s success to their use of humor to engage their audience.

“Humor challenges apathy,” she said. “It gets your mind working.”

Jennifer Golden has been working in the field of international communications for nearly two decades. Outside the office, she is a writer and blogger whose work has been featured in the Washington Post, Scary Mommy, and The Best Women’s Travel Writing (2007), and she was the recipient of a scholarship to the Aspen Words literary festival in 2017.

Using Humor to Raise Awareness - and Dollars was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Lessons I’ve Learned Teaching Entertainment, Media, & Politics This Semester

By Amy Bree Becker

In the Spring of 2016, my colleague Celia Paris and I sat down to gather our thoughts on co-teaching a new course at Loyola University Maryland that would mix perspectives from the disciplines of communication and political science. The course title: Entertainment, Media, and Politics.

The objective: engage upper-level undergraduates in the study of the exciting, often curious intersection of entertainment and politics by critically examining a whole range of media content: late-night comedy, political satire, sitcoms, national security melodramas, film, dystopian fiction, and even the wonderful world of Harry Potter.

Over the course of a 15 week semester, we’d work with students so they would walk away with an understanding of the effects of consuming this politically entertaining media content on knowledge and learning, civic and political engagement, and the health of our American democracy more broadly. We’d also take a closer look at how entertainment influences our perceptions of the political process and our resulting attitudes toward politicians.

In between our proposal for the joint course and the semester we were slated to teach it (Spring 2018), a little thing called the 2016 general election and the first year of the Trump presidency happened.

We weren’t necessarily expecting to be teaching in such a fast-paced and ultimately uncivil media environment — one driven by Presidential attacks on Twitter, a seemingly endless discussion of alternate facts vs. fake news, and hyper partisan cable news and late night political comedy content.

As Brian Stelter so aptly noted in his CNN Special Report: Late Night in the Age of Trump, the Trump presidency quickly turned the world of late night comedy upside down and made teaching about entertainment, media, and politics in this new era an interesting, fast-paced, and dynamic challenge.

We are midway through the semester at this point, and we’ve already learned so much from our students. I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to deeply engage with their thoughts on the intersection of entertainment, media, and politics. I’ve also taken note of the varying outlooks of students and professors from two related yet distinctly different academic disciplines: communication vs. political science.

There are a few takeaways that have been so significant and so striking this semester that they’re useful to all who are thinking about the ways that comedy and entertainment can spur engagement and activism.

• First, while our students enjoy political comedy because it can make them laugh and teach them a little bit about what’s going on in the world, much like research by Danna Young has suggested, they see comedy as entertainment, first and foremost, not news. Comedy is color commentary, not fact. For some, the proliferation of anti-Trump comedy is promising because they see it as a tool that helps keep the administration in check. For others, it’s just too much of a constant attack on the President and his authority. Not surprisingly, these students tend to be in the minority in our class and seem to have a harder time speaking up. But it’s important that we really continue to hear their voices and take their perspectives into account.
• Just because our students see comedy as comedy, doesn’t mean that they are happy with what they classify as traditional news content. In class, we asked students to list the news sources they trust and rely upon and those that they don’t trust and try to avoid. The size of the two lists, separated by a thin line on the chalkboard were about the same. In many respects, they are mapping news outlets in the same way that Vanessa Otero did in her now viral Media Bias Chart. Interestingly, we have some students who actively avoid networks like Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN given their perceived partisanship and the hyperreality that’s emphasized in their coverage of political events. Other students make a conscious effort to consume this cable news content as a way to be exposed to varying, often personally contrary points-of-view. Students who have spent a semester or more studying abroad are more likely to select BBC News and other international outposts as their top news outlets.
• While most students are okay with the fact that late night comedy has gotten more political in the Trump era, it is not always okay when events that are traditionally entertainment-oriented get political. While one student shared Hillary’s Clinton’s cameo at the Grammy Awards with the class and there was a lot of discussion of Oprah’s speech at the Golden Globes, there’s a general consensus that some areas of everyday entertainment life — like professional sports — have just gotten too political.
• While we are reading a text called Political TV by Chuck Tryon (a great primer for undergraduates in a course like ours), students have recognized that classifying what counts as “political TV” is a tricky business. These days dramas like Grey’s Anatomy tackle the political with a recent episode about police and gun violence and one about domestic abuse and the political themes in cartoons like Family Guy abound. While a lot of what our students watch doesn’t fall into the explicit category of “political TV,” almost everyone in the class notes that it’s increasingly difficult to find entertainment programming that doesn’t at least touch on or occasionally address political issues and themes.

Underlying all of our discussions is the reality and presence of social media. So much of the content these students are consuming comes to them in the form of short clips that their friends share on Facebook and other social media platforms. In a class of about 30, everyone has a Netflix account.

While there is cable in the dorms, they are effectively cord cutters at heart. In truth, what they consume is often as important as how they consume it. While many are certainly up during the late night comedy live window, they are not tuning into Stephen Colbert or Seth Meyers in real-time, except perhaps when it’s assigned for that week’s out-of-class watching.

Oh and that funny political science vs. communications divide? It seems that communication students are more likely to see social media as a mostly positive addition to our political life in that it enables connections and opportunities that weren’t there before in a truly offline world. Political science students are a bit more skeptical, concerned about the ramifications and implications of all this online (as opposed to offline) engagement for our democracy.

All in all, it’s been a really wild time to co-teach this course. It’s by far the most exciting part of my time on campus each week. And it’s not just because we are looking at some really cool stuff. Though, I mean who doesn’t want to go to a class where we talk about Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, The Circle, Homeland, and Parks and Recreation as part of the regular rotation? It certainly beats Cicero (though I loved when Loyola’s common text was How to Win an Election and was honored to help lead that university-wide discussion).

Overall, the best part of this course is not the content for me, but rather learning from my students. I like hearing their media likes and dislikes, their fresh perspective on our national political conversation, and their experiences with social and entertainment media.

After all, they are the heart or core of the late night comedy audience, and even more importantly, they are the newly enfranchised citizens that represent our country’s political future. A few years from now they will be the ones making media content, running for political office, or working to fix our broken democracy. From where I stand at the lectern, rest assured America, we are in good hands. And this new generation of skeptical, critical thinkers might just get us to laugh along the way.

Amy Bree Becker, Ph.D. is an associate professor of communication at Loyola University Maryland. She is a lover of television and researches the effects of entertainment television and political comedy on attitudes, behavior, and engagement.

The Lessons I've Learned Teaching Entertainment, Media, & Politics This Semester was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Megan Rummler, The Laughter Effect

California is a paradox — on the one hand, a physically beautiful landscape and great wealth, but on the other, poverty and environmental challenges. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, California is both the wealthiest state and simultaneously holds the highest poverty rate in the nation at 20.6 percent. Roughly a quarter of Californians live in poverty. Nine million California residents live vastly different economic and environmental realities.

A recent example of this duality involves the former Exide Technologies Battery Recycling Facility, located in Vernon, California. For decades the Vernon plant melted down old car batteries and released harmful toxic chemicals into the air, including lead, benzene, and 1,3-butadiene, according to a report from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Thirty-three years after the creation of the plant, the state has found and reported elevated lead levels in the soil of thousands of residential properties near the plant. An estimated 100,000 people are reportedly impacted. Presently, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control plans to begin removing lead-tainted soil from 2,500 residential properties. The cleanup, which spans seven Los Angeles neighborhoods, has been referred to as the largest of its kind in California history. Exide agreed to close the facility permanently in March 2015 to avoid federal criminal charges.

Americans are not agnostic about the need for clean-up in the face of environmental contamination, however. A 2016 Pew Research Center survey found that an estimated three-quarters of U.S. adults (74%) believe “the country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.” And yet, illuminating serious environmental justice issues is both complicated and intimidating. Unusual creative approaches can be useful to combat information inertia in the face of consistent environmental messaging that falls in the “doom and gloom” camp. In fact, a 2010 Gallup poll study found that negative, fear-based messaging about environmental issues may cause people to just tune out.

Enter comedy. Comedy has been shown to attract attention, spark conversation, break down barriers, encourage sharing and provide a mental release. But, are comedians willing to take on the task of communicating about issues as dire as environmental contamination?

Comedy: Truth-telling Sheathed in Humor

To employ creative strategy to encourage people to pay attention and even take action, in January and February 2016, the environmental advocacy nonprofit organization, NextGen America, premiered a five-episode documentary web-series titled “Spotlight California.”

Launched during the state’s fifth year of water drought, “Spotlight California” follows Californian comedian and filmmaker, Kiran Deol, as she travels across the state investigating the “California We Don’t See On Postcards.” Deol cleverly utilizes humor and wit to broach the sticky subject that not everyone is living the California Dream of sunshine and surfing. Finding refuge in moments of levity along the way, the filmmaker takes us on a California road trip that will not soon be forgotten.

The series includes five 9-minute episodes:

In Episode 1 (“Heart of The Drought”) Deol goes to Central Valley and meets Californians who have run out of water. In an attempt to convey how desperate the town of Porterville, California, felt, Deol deftly jokes at the beginning of the episode that the area has a “Mad Max” atmosphere.

In Episode 2 ( “Water & Oil”) Deol visits the Cawelo Water District where the drought is causing farmers to use water produced in the oil drilling process to irrigate their farm crops. There are two humorous and memorable moments: an undercover scene that underscores the seriousness of investigating the chemical components in the water; and a private wine tasting event that challenges Californians to taste wine made with grapes irrigated from recycled oil water.

In Episode 3 (“In Our Air”) Deol heads home to Los Angeles to investigate the hidden costs of air pollution. In two comedic scenes, Deol engages in a role-playing scenario where she impersonates an oil company to spotlight glaring racial inequality; and she throws a free guacamole party on the bus to encourage residents to ride mass transit in order to reduce carbon emission pollution from automobiles.

In Episode 4 (“At The Pump”) Deol tries to uncover potential gas price manipulation. In a hilarious game that highlights the issue of transparency, Deol listens in on a quarterly investor call, which is open to the public, to then help deconstruct industry jargon about record profits.

And in Episode 5 (“In The Future”) Deol heads north to Sacramento to discover what’s working for the state despite millions of dollars in resistance from the oil and gas industry.

To get a better sense of the creative forces behind the documentary and how comedy was leveraged for environmental justice, we spoke with Ali Hart in California, who served as an executive producer on the project.

Interview with Ali Hart, executive producer, on “Spotlight California”.

Laughter Effect:
How did you find yourself in this niche intersection of comedy and environmental activism?

Ali Hart:
Well, my graduate degree is an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School, so I came to humor around environmentalism and sustainability because I realized in school the reason we were so behind on these issues was that the message had been doom and gloom for so long. I really felt there needed to be a rebranding of how we talk about environmental issues mostly because these issues affect everyone. And yet, with the current rhetoric, there was such a battle with climate change. I decided then. My personal motivation was to bring more humor into environmental communications to try and have some impact.

Laughter Effect:
In your opinion, what is the best way to leverage comedy for social issues?

Ali Hart:
As someone that gets a lot of advocacy emails, I hate subject lines that use my full name and say things like, “Alexandra, we must act now!” I feel like screaming, “Don’t yell at me in my inbox!” I don’t need to be told from my inbox what I need to be doing. It seems like everybody wants me to be doing something. On the flip side, when something is funny, I really appreciate it. It gives me positive emotions with that brand — it’s just what humor does. That’s why super bowl ads are so popular. Why can’t that tactic be applied to social issues?

Laughter Effect:
Does humor break down barriers?

Ali Hart:
Yes. It’s a mix of: are you making the right joke and it’s about finding the right angle on the issue to make the joke about. Where the comedy is going to come from is really important because it will not be funny in the wrong place. For example, episode 4 was a hard episode because it was so complex and about gas manipulation. There wasn’t an emotional and personal hook, yet everyone is pretty much affected by gas prices. In the end, Kiran used humor to show how the oil companies were speaking “oil company speak” during their investor calls and finding ridiculous ways to gloat about a profitable year, fully aware journalists were listening in on the call.

Laughter Effect:
What compelled you to accept this project?

Ali Hart:
The project was a pretty unique challenge to come from a political organization or any kind of non-profit — it’s just not typical. I think it’s pretty admirable to create a web series that was investigative-documentary style but had this humor element. What was even more exciting was that I was given creative freedom to play with that intersection over a longer format, while addressing different environmental issues.

Laughter Effect:
How did Kiran Deol become involved in the project?

Ali Hart:
Tom Steyer with NextGen, reached out to Kiran because he was a fan of her work. And, she had already done a documentary herself, which was critically acclaimed. Once we were on set, it was amazing to see how she knew how to direct the interviews on top of looking for the jokes, which are pretty impressive skills and it’s not something every comedian can do. It’s a reminder that you really need to work with comedians who have the right sensibility for whatever it is that you are asking them to do.

Laughter Effect:
What unique skills can a comedian bring to a project?

Ali Hart:
The neat thing about Kiran was that she was learning along with the audience, which I think comes through and it’s part of the magic she brought to the project. Kiran pushed the envelope a lot with the interviews, which sometimes lead to tension and sometimes lead to unexpected funny moments. It wasn’t all serious. But the end product was worth the discomfort because she ended up getting some real gems out of that tension. That was a good lesson for me in terms of letting the creative energy just do what it is going to do. I think a lot of comedians feed off the awkwardness and getting people to a place where they have hit something. It is almost a success marker for some comedians, because that means they’ve taken you somewhere you don’t want to go. I think it is an interesting reality of comedy where the idea is that you have your guard down and you’re open and you’re excited to laugh and then you end up in a place where you’re like oh, I don’t know if I want to be here, but I am here now and I have to deal with it. I think that is a beautiful aspect of comedy.

Laughter Effect:
What were the goals of the project?

Ali Hart:
Using humor, we wanted a way to bridge into a new audience and give people a way to look at these stories in a way they hadn’t seen before. It was really about experimenting with these different ways to talk about these tough issues. Questions like: who is this for; what is the purpose; and, who are we trying to reach were top of mind. That is where it gets really challenging but exciting.

Laughter Effect:
In hindsight, what was the most challenging aspect of the project?

Ali Hart:
Deciding what is funny is pretty tough. Part of the problem is that we all find different things funny. I mean, how do you define funny? I think it’s about figuring out a way to understand what world your audience lives in and what they feel are the forces that are upsetting their reality and then figuring out a way to play with that. The joke is on that element. I think there is something about trying to figure out what that tension is and what they are reacting to and then figuring out how to get in there and show them the hypocrisy or absurdity of that situation in a way that actually resonates. Trying to figure this nuance out is a really hard thing to do.

Laughter Effect:
What are your thoughts on metrics?

Ali Hart:
I’ve been working in the entertainment impact space for my entire career, and there’s always been such an emphasis on measuring impact. I’ve come full circle on this and I think, hey, let’s tell a good story and hope that people listen. Some of this stuff you just can’t measure. Personally, I don’t just see one thing and become obsessed with it. I think it is unrealistic to expect that I’m going to put out a video and make all this social change with it. That is not how people work. If there is a call to action that makes sense and can actually move the needle, then that’s awesome, but I am not hung up on that anymore as the means to an end.

Laughter Effect:
Do you think ultimately that comedy will change people’s minds or attitudes when it comes to difficult social justice issues?

Ali Hart:
I hope so, I mean that is the whole foundation as to why I’m doing what I am doing. What happens is over time there are many touch points on an issue and that hearing things from a different perspective over time is how most people eventually shift. In the end, maybe it’s about just telling a really good story that touches people and helps shift hearts and minds over time. I think making good content is the important part to me and telling stories in an interesting and meaningful way is what matters most.

“I love California, but there are some really weird things about the state,” says Hart. She stated that her primary goal along with Deol was to, “keep our eyes open” with the project and to explore some of the things they didn’t know about the Golden State. In the end, Hart asked herself, “how do we celebrate California in a way that just says, ‘hey, we need to work on this stuff guys.’”

Documentary Web Series, “Spotlight California” Uses Comedy to Highlight Environmental Injustices was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Chris Palmer and Kent Wagner

These are trying times for environmentalists. Regulations are being gutted, fossil fuels are making a worrying comeback, and this is prompting environmental filmmakers like us to ask one another, what we can do to further engage audiences to care about the issues?

One thing certainly would be to tell better stories with more compelling characters. But what else? One underutilized resource is humor. Environmentalists are perceived to be a pessimistic and dour group and so humor, can be an unexpected yet impactful means. To encourage the use of more humor in our struggle to protect the Earth, , the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University created the annual Eco-Comedy Video Competition in 2007. Soon after, The Nature Conservancy came onboard as the co-sponsor of the event.

The competition asks producers and directors to create original short films (less than three minutes long), that communicate a clear and funny message around a theme of conservation and environmental protection. The contest is open to anyone who has a flair for producing videos and each year entries pour in from around the world. The winners are announced during the annual DC Environmental Film Festival every March and the grand prize winner walks away with a $2,000 prize from the Center for Environmental Filmmaking.

One of us (Chris Palmer) knows something about being funny because he spent five years as a stand-up comic performing in the DC area once or twice a week at local comedy clubs. He firmly believes that humor is one of the most powerful tools available to filmmakers. Making viewers laugh is an effective way to grab their attention and hopefully hold on to it long enough to get an important message across. And getting that message across has never been more important.

Comedy is a great vehicle for encouraging conservation, especially when things are looking so serious. Certainly, there’s a lot to be serious about, but zealousness can turn people off. Sometimes levity is just what the doctor ordered. It may also help reach people prone to confirmation bias, who would otherwise remain closed off to any messages not already aligned with their position.

When we read humorless, serious arguments, we tend to be skeptical and read with our defenses up. But when we’re laughing, we relax and become receptive to new ideas. The use of humor increases the like-ability of the message source, which can have an immediate effect on the palatability of the message. It can bring down the natural defenses audiences may have around controversial issues and encourage them to consider a fresh point of view. It may also come with other long-term benefits, especially in the way people perceive the brand or issue being represented.

Take, for instance, a funny web video Greenpeace made a few years ago (Ken Finds Some Hard Truths About Barbie), which attacks Mattel’s use of virgin paper from Indonesian rainforests in the packaging of its Barbie dolls. The video was a huge success. Mattel received more than 500,000 emails protesting their choice of packaging. Poor Barbie’s overloaded Facebook page eventually had to be shut down. The result was that Mattel, the largest toy company in the world, announced it would stop using environmentally-damaging packaging. A win for Greenpeace and the world, and the video was hilarious to boot.

However, beware, when you do use humor, you must use it effectively. It should be funny, but it should also make a point. Filmmakers would do well to avoid being too preachy, and instead should strive to be engaging and light. An intelligent tone can encourage viewers to relate to the message at a deeper level.

We must be sure to combine our use of humor with a strong conservation message. The humor grabs people’s attention, increases sharing, and starts conversations. And if a well-conceived message is incorporated, and that message is clear, then it stands a far greater chance of being heard and ultimately, being accepted.

Comedy has so much potential, and as advocates for our planet, environmental filmmakers must learn to harness this potential to do good. Humor alone may not change behavior, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it — it just means we need to use it as part of a broader message. In the words of Caty Borum Chattoo, director of American University’s Center for Media & Social Impact, “Laughter opens our ears and our hearts — and once people are listening, who knows what they might be inspired to do?”

Professor Chris Palmer is director of American University’s Center for Environmental Filmmaking and author of four books, including Raising Your Kids to Succeed, Confessions of a Wildlife Filmmaker, and Now What, Grad? Your Path to Success After College. Kent Wagner is a filmmaker, photographer, and MFA candidate at American University.

Comedy for Conservation was originally published in The Laughter Effect on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.