Is it Really That Funny?

I would have to agree with Alain de Botton on his opinion stating that the "chief aim of humorists is not merely to entertain, but to convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly", purely because, not all humor is satirical, or comes at the expense of another. 

I believe that a humorist, is nonetheless but a comedian, seeing that they both aim to entertain. 

Here is where I agree:

        A lot of humor in our lives does come at the expense of others, and the example that immediately comes to mind is the classic cartoon, Tom and Jerry. The show Tom and Jerry was a kids television show in the early 1940s. It was harmless laughing and entertainment for those that didn't realize what some of the segments of the show were actually referring to. 

I mean, how was a six-year old kid supposed to know that blackface was offensive to black people, or that blackface was meant to mock black people at the time? Not that it is ironic, but of course it was seen as comedic during the time, especially since America wasn't really in favor of Blacks... So instead they mock them. But it's just supposed to be funny that all of them get splashed with black sludge, and their facial expressions reveal just how displeased they are, that they are Black. 

Or how about how we never see Mammy Two Shoe's face, she's always cleaning, and just so happens to be dressed like a maid? 

In this case, a humorists aim was not just to entertain, but to "convey with impunity" (Botton). Of course there was no consequence, due to the fact that it was "just a joke". 

Society allows humorist and comedians to say things just because it's for entertainment purposes, but it completely excludes the fact that comedy can be hurtful and offensive. 

Growing up (A Satire)

"Literally and truly" (Question 2), when you grow up, it's gonna suck; you're going to want the things you can't have, and want to know the things you're not ready for; and when you're upset because your mother tells you you're not ready for the 82nd time in a row, it won't click until the 83rd. Going to school will either become easier or harder; tons of school work will pile up to the ceiling, and the amount of books stacked up on the floor will become taller, until maybe the second semester to where you can return half of them. 
And that's only part of it.
See, as you continue to grow, and morph into adulthood, the things you weren't ready to hear, are heard everyday, and interpreted in a new way. The excruciating idea of a desk job doesn't sound so bad anymore, because the college degrees that were accumulated on the journey to adulthood would've scored just about any job, and  money becomes way more of a reigning figure. It'll begin to dictate how much fun someone can have, or the type of life you can have. "The wiseacres will [probably]" (Question 2) tell you how to be you, and make growing even harder than it already is, like it wasn't already a sitting in traffic type of experience. 

A Trophy Father's Trophy Son

The love my father expressed to me was explicit but never really penetrated the layer of hurt I had built after my parents divorce. My parents are super mushy-gushy, but I never actually let myself receive the love that was equally reciprocated by both of my extremely loving parents. 

For starters, my father. 

I loved my Dad. That was my best friend, and I was his little girl. But his little girl had gotten her heart broken after her two favorite people decided they couldn't live together anymore. 

It was great after that, he'd pick my sister and I up every other weekend to visit, color with us, let me paint boxes, and even bought me Hannah Montana everything on my eighth birthday; man I loved Hannah Montana. But as time went on, I saw him less, he called less, and his little girl had grown out and grown up. 

"That was the way I had felt for a number of years during my [childhood]" (Manning 144). Time would fly and our relationship simply felt materialistic. Asking me if I'd needed anything when it came to school, or my life at home, but truthfully I just needed him. That was the way he showed his love for me. 

[at the time]. 

As a child, Our trips to Blockbuster, and through the passageway (the backstreet to his apartment... a short cut), they meant so much to me and I felt loved, even when he told me he loved him. Eggo waffles and the time we spent on the couch were the most memorable.  

More time passed, and the heart that broke healed. I loved my dad, and I knew he loved me. It's just that rough patches are rough for a reason... 

He even flew all the way back from living in California to be with his family. Our relationship was better. Could even say it felt new.      

The New Normal.

Today's media portrayal of those with disabilities is rather skewed in my opinion. I happen to notice this in the movie The Fault in our Stars, a novel written by John Green. A blind boy, a women with cancer, and another boy with cancer and a prosthetic leg.  
Even those with disabilities that do not affect their physical appearance are treated differently. 
The people that do the same things that we do in our everyday lives are almost singled out and treated like they are just their disability.
Doesn't sound like fun. 
Nancy Mairs, a women with Multiple Sclerosis, explains that having a disability "doesn't devour [you] wholly" (Mairs). Anyone with a disability does not become their disability, but the media continue to treat people that are not normal or natural like there is something wrong with them. They live and breathe as we do, so why treat them like they don't?
Having a disability is normal, and it is unfortunate that in this world there is only one normal. The media does a great deal of isolating those that are both different physically, and mentally. The only way to change that is to shape the media in our likeness. 

Nappy is Cool too.

The distortion of  the views that people have towards Black women are very prominent when Beneatha chooses to cut her hair off. The narrator describes it as "close-cropped and unstraightened"(Hansberry 80), meaning her hair was short and somewhat curly. Ruth, completely baffled, makes it seem as if it is not normal to have hair like Beneatha's; She made it seem as if Beneatha is not socially acceptable to have hair as she does. Saying "You expect this boy to go out with you with your head all nappy" (Hansberry 80)?  Nappy literally meaning "Afro-textured hair", but, why does nappy have to be a bad thing? George goes say that Beneatha looks "eccentric"(Hansberry 80), saying that she and her hair look abnormal and uncommon, but in a shameful way. 
Africans naturally have curly, kiny, and ziggly types of hair. So to go from having naturally curly hair, to the hair that sprouts from your roots..."naturally"  to be "eccentric" is quite a theory. "How can something that's natural be eccentric"(80)?
(like, there's an entire scale and everything) 
Of course during the 50s and the 60s, Black women were known to have pressed/straightened hair. I know that as both time and society have evolved, Black hair and its societal standards will evolve too, as they have. 

Here's where it gets interesting...

At the start of slavery, to possess Euro-centric features was acceptable, and Black women began to abandon their cornrows, and their fro's to transition into a new do' that wasn't curly, or that did not resemble their original heritage. Which began the assimilation into White or European culture- Which is also exactly what Beneatha is challenging in this altercation between George and Ruth. 

                             

Just a Grape

As I was doing the reading for A Raisin in the Sun, I've come to terms with the type of character Ruth is so far. 
She's kinda hopeless, a bit of a worrier, and is always prepared for the worst case scenario...
She's almost- Rude, to an extent to where there is nothing to be happy about in the life she lives. All of her decisions, all of her emotions seem to be dictated by the monetary issues in her home. Her husband, Walter, notices as they converse over his breakfast.  

He even makes the wide generalization that it is all colored women that behave this way... Which is a pretty large assumption, seeing that you'd have to know all Black women in order for what he said to be valid. 

Beneatha, she doesn't believe in God;Which is fine. I guess I was really just a little uneasy to her mother's reaction because she slapped her. Then tried to justify her response by saying "What you did was childish-- So you got treated like a child"(Hansberry 52). 
I think I can go as far as to say that's pretty much belittling her opinion, but I know things were different during this time. 

- Something to think about...

A little Party Never Killed Nobody...

Which ironically it kind of did. 
"I think he half-expected her to walk into one of his parties...Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found." (Fitzgerald 79). 
In this passage, Gatsby goes the immeasurable lengths just to rekindle his love with the married Daisy Fay Buchanan.  
Seeing that Gatsby threw all of his extravagant gatherings as a gesture of his love to lure Daisy back to him. Spending mass amounts of money on parties he'd hope she'd walk into was a bit of a stretch in my opinion. In the novel, he throws two parties, the one he invites Nick to, to where he coincidentally runs into Ms. Baker,  and the second one, to almost celebrate the newly found union between Daisy and Gatsby. Daisy, stringing him along, doesn't seem to care about his grand gestures, while her own husband engages in an affair with his mistress. What Gatsby was doing was half-sweet, and obsessive.  He even "bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay" (Fitzgerald78),  but, clearly love is blindness when it comes to Gatsby concluding the story with his own death and the mere fact that Daisy never musters up the courage to leave her husband for the man she truly loved.  
 Such a tragedy it seems because  it all were for nothing. Gatsby's actions exceed any ideal of love that any other man could match. 
This entire novel is a doomed love triangle that ends in the death's of Tom's mistress, Myrtle, and Daisy's lover, Gatsby. The people in the crossfire, Nick and Jordan, help them cheat on each other which shows just how dysfunctional their friendships are, and where their loyalties lie.  How heartbreaking it was, showing not the least bit of remorse for what Daisy had done(killing a person and a relationship), and then she fled to avoid dealing with the cleanup. 
She went back to him, and he went back to black.