Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Thats not funny!
If that famous joke about political correctness can seem mouldy now, its because humour depends on social context; what works for one generation can seem pitifully dated to the next.
That is why TV comedy is an entirely different genre today. As audience taste shifts, the genre has moved from slapstick or sleazy jokes to situational and cerebral humour. Once, the simple gags of Charlie Chaplin and I Love Lucy were enough for belly laughs. But todays millennials have a more sophisticated sensibility.
New sitcoms speak to a more self-aware and socially conscious audience. Because of the chances of getting called out online for careless stereotypes or insensitivities, and also because a new generation of writers is more clued in to diversity, TV shows are now more inclusive and layered than ever before.
One of the genres thats thriving today is late night news-comedy. Even as news television has become more trivial and rancorous, young people are turning to TV and online satire to stay on top of the news.
This shift happened a couple of decades ago in the US, especially in the Bush era: comedy got political as politics became more of a spectacle than before on ideological television platforms.
Comedy news shows strike a chord with young
The Daily Show, Jon Stewarts original concept, which began in 1996, parodied the cable news format. The dereliction of duty by conventional TV news was the reason comedy news shows became so popular. They also struck a chord with cynical young people, confirmed their sense that the people in charge were laughable.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2014 showed that 12% of online Americans cited The Daily Show as a place they got their news. This audience share was on par with that of USA Today (12%) and The Huffington Post (13%) among 36 different news outlets that were part of the survey. That share is probably higher today as The Daily Show now hosted by Trevor Noah, Last Week Tonight by John Oliver, The Late Show by Stephen Colbert and others offer witty cRead More – Source
