About a week ago I brought a movie called “Bruno”. It was a sequel so I knew the kind of movie I was bringing home (even though later on I discovered that I had underestimated everything about it).After watching the movie I broke the CD and tore the cover as i did not want to be caught with it and apparently everything went alright (in terms of getting rid of the remains!) but than I had to face something rather unexpected.
TOTAL GROSSES (bruno)
Domestic: $60,054,530 43.7%
+ Foreign: $77,329,526 56.3%
= Worldwide: $137,384,056 100%
TOTAL GROSSES (borat)
Domestic: $128,505,958 49.1%
+ Foreign: $133,066,786 50.9%
= Worldwide: $261,572,744 100%
(Source:Box Office Mojo)
I started analyzing my own behavior during this whole incident. I did not select the movie by chance as I had seen the first part of it called “Borat”. Movies like Borat and Bruno are two of the many which I have seen and without exception have always enjoyed .Usually such humor is based upon
Violence
Odd relationships (either gender based or illegal/immoral relationships)
Exposure of what nature demands to be hidden
Anything which societies prohibit or restrict
I have always enjoyed watching such humor even when I do not appreciate same themes in serious Dramas. Considering commercial success of T.V shows like South Park, Family Guy, Gerry Springer show or Movies like the ones mentioned above, mass appeal for such themes is obvious but the question is why explicit themes are publicly accepted when presented through humor?
There can be number of explanations for this behavior
1: We (as a society) are tempted by such themes but do not admit and when these are presented in humor than we can justify our association by saying “Oh it’s nothing serious!”
2:We (as a society) actually do not consider such themes seriously and that is why we find them really funny as these are the things which we could never imagine
3:We desire to seek pleasure while being disobedient and rebellious from the rules taught to us by the elders and the society so we enjoy watching what we can not do ourselves as most of us for most of the time lack energy to be disobedient and being rebellious.
4:For us everything (directly or indirectly) has to be justified or approved by religion so when we watch foreign shows and movies than we justify by saying “Oh its not about us we are just watching THE OTHERS!”
What is your opinion about mass appeal for Humor based upon explicit themes?
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sir my personal opinion is that there is far too much dipression in this world and to get away from all that and to divert thier attention they are attracted by this explicit humour , which we all seem to enjoy and the human nature is such that anything we are prohibited from doing we alwys have the temptation to go ahead and do what we are told not todo .......... dats my view
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