Community Checkup

This is an interesting article in the NY Times. I love “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and think the show deals with race in a fresh, funny, and unique way. The most recent season with “the Blacks” is particularly good. The show doesn’t just make fun of blacks (although there is plenty of that); it also pokes fun at “do-good” whites who pat themselves on the back for helping “poor” black folk and engaging in PC politics (you can even see it represented in this picture). No other group is safe on this show either– from gays, to the disabled, to the elderly, and just about every religious persuasion.

The article raises an interesting question of what makes some formulas for this kind of comedy successful and others not. Hmmm… Would “Curb Your Enthusiasm” be as successful is it were one-sided in who it poked fun at? I think not. I think part of its appeal has to do with how it ridicules the universal phenomenon of how seriously we take ourselves.

[Source: NYT]