Oh for gods' sakes

[serai]

Is there anyone around here besides me who still has a sense of humor about things like PUNKd?

It's a JOKE. Nobody GETS HURT. All that happens is some people THINK something happened that DIDN'T. And then they FIND OUT. That's it, people!


When I was a kid, there was a show called Candid Camera. It was essentially the same thing, except that the "victims" were ordinary people, not celebrities, and the show had a microscopic budget compared to PUNKd. There were no houses blowing up. Instead, what you got were people reacting to talking mailboxes, or choreographed crowds that wouldn't let them pass, or things like that. It was funny then, and it's funny now.

Christ in a sidecar. The world is getting grimmer and more horrid every day. Where's the harm in fooling somebody and then letting them know they've been fooled? It's incredible how thin-skinned people have gotten, and how unwilling to take a joke. Especially when it isn't even on them!!


*goes back to watch promo again* I sure hope somebody captures the whole segment. I'd really love to see this!

Comments

[ladysunrope.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with trilliah on this one -and I'm no protective fangirl either. I love to see practical jokes based on foibles that people have so personally I felt the original Candid Camera was fun. I remember the UK one having a gag where an amount of money was glued to the pavement underneath a ladder and it was hilarious watching people try to reach it without walking under the ladder. You could see the mental fight they had between the urge for the money and the superstition most of them felt. The audience often felt some sort of connection with what was going on -they could think that they too might react that way given those circumstances and there was some sympathy towards the victim. Ok, maybe the UK version was a kinder, gentler one than the US version, I don't know.

Then somehow along the way of these things, the humour became crueller. It is more based on making a situation so real that people believe implicitly because they trust the figures involved, or what they see or the friends that have so kindly set them up. The audience is encouraged to see their trust as somehow flawed and to see their genuine reactions of the moment as something amusing. I don't find a genuine belief in something so apparently real and often distressing as amusing even if I know its a set up. I'm not wired that way to see it as amusing. Others are and that's ok as long as the person being set up is agreeable to it being shown. Elijah was, so fine. All I know is, I won't be watching it because it doesn't float my boat, no matter who it is. It's no reflection on my own sense of humour or yours either because we all have our different responses to what makes us laugh.