Put this together before I heard that the twitter trolls released their community on Leslie Jones. But I suspect she might still have the last laugh.
Leslie Jones on Releasing Community
Read a Guardian interview with comedian Leslie Jones (www.theguardian.com/...) and this struck a chord:
"But her real frustration as a standup still performing regularly in clubs is what she sees as the failure of comedians. 'People don’t really understand how important comedians are, comedy is part of what we need in our life, like movies and art and water and air. We have to have the release of laughter, and when we do it as a community … Oh my God, have you ever been in a club and laughed at once on a joke? Do you know how long you feel that joy? That joy is contagious. That is not something that is a privilege, sweetheart. That is a need. And we’re not releasing community any more. Have you noticed? We’re not….
“'We’re sad, [the US is] the most depressed nation in the world and I blame comedians for that. I blame the industry for that, because it is so politically correct. Back in the day, everyone thought the king had the jester to entertain him. No he did not: he had the jester to entertain everybody else, because he’s about to raise taxes and it’s: ‘Off with your head, jester, if you don’t make people laugh about that.’ That’s a community release. You need that, that’s our job to do that. You got people dying, walking into clubs and shooting folks, with so much anger. We are not releasing laughter because we’re so busy trying to be serious, teaching each other instead of just living.'”
Norman Lear on Laughter as Listening
www.salon.com/...
Andrew O’Hehir: You have spent so much time trying to raise people’s consciousness and get them to talk to each other, when you were making TV shows and when you were working on political causes. Looking around now, at the world we have, I have to ask: Was it worth it? Did it work?
Norman Lear: It worked for me.
Andrew O’Hehir: I guess that’s all you can ask.
Norman Lear: It worked for me. When I hear people tell me how much they laughed with their dad, how much they laughed with their parents, and they don’t have that experience now. This is a memory that has kind of landed in my life in recent years and I love it. “We laughed as a family.” Comedy has a way of being a — when you’re getting a transfusion? It’s like an IV. You’re laughing and learning, laughing and hearing, laughing and listening to something you may or may not agree with. But you take it in laughter.
Andrew O’Hehir: Is it harder to get people to listen without the laughter? Is that what you’ve concluded?
Norman Lear: Well, they wouldn’t be laughing if they didn’t hear it. It’s just another way of assuring us that they’re listening.