Is this funny? Do you have to like the comedian in order for this to be funny? Do you have to dislike Glenn Beck for this to be funny?
"Glenn Beck's antics have always proved to be great fodder for the "Daily Show." Lewis Black took it a step further with an entire segment mocking the Fox News host for his tendency to make everything Nazi-related."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/lewis-black-glenn-beck-ha_n_574659.html
I think this is hillarious, but I do think Glenn Beck is mostly off his rocker. After reading chapter one I would say that as long as you don't really really like Glen Beck you would find this funny. If you really like him you may still be able to classify the clip as a 'humorous clip' but would not find it funny yourself.
The book mentioned that humor is a positive emotion brought about by recognition of playful incongruity. This clip is funny to me because it shows Glen Beck making increasingly more obscure analogies between socio/political activities and the Nazi Holocaust. If you thought the clips were taken grossly out of context however, or generally accepted the analogies that Beck makes, you would not percieve playful incongruity but serious political commentary and so this would not cause the emotional response typically associated with humor.
well i both like Lewis Black and dislike Glen Beck so I may be a tad biased. But political, personal, or whatever views aside Black did a clever bit with some clever editing. I think it would be funny even as a Beck supporter as long as you could open your mind to the humor. I think people fear that if they laugh at a person who has some kind of authority or insight into their life they discredit them completely. No one is perfect and laughing at your idols is like laughing at yourself, you gotta do it.
Hyperboles about contemporary politics, yeah that's fresh Lewis Black. Maybe that's why he can't keep a show on late night Comedy Central. Everyone knows Glen Beck is a cook, I think John Daly does enough Tivo'ing of Fox News for everybody.
But like mrpaige said, the incongruity of the clips of Glen Beck speaking and various Nazi clips are really funny. They touch at the relation between our world now and the serious implications of the terrible situations in Nazi Germany. So kudos to that!
I have never seen this show on Comedy Central so I don't have any background of the comedian, but I didn't dislike him. I found his twitchy and stiff mannerisms to be a little distracting, but other than that I thought his jabs at Beck were pretty humorous. Similarly, I do not really know much about Beck or watch him enough to have an opinion on what his antics may be. Therefore, it is not necessary to dislike or like either one of these people because I still found this video to be decently humorous. This seemed to be relevant to the Incongruity Theory because there is a certain level of political cognition and intellect necessary in order to understand this fake newscast and find the humor that is in it. This does not really require a whole lot of a social element in understanding the humor and that is why I feel it is related best to the Incongruity Theory.