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Blog Post 8

For my last blog post of the semester, I wanted to watch something for the first time. In the class, a lot of people talked about Portlandia, and how they enjoy it. I also remember a conversation about how out of the ordinary the characters are. The first episode really proved that very quickly. I was confused at first, and honestly, I still kind of am. I am confused how the two main actors, are different characters in each location around Portland. In the first scene they are a couple who wants to know if the chicken they are ordering for dinner had a nice life at the farm it was at. Later, they were a technology obsessed or the owners of a store who have to deal with a man that uses the restroom without making a purchase. These are all short clips of unique fictional Portland stereotypes.

The episode focuses on the bohemian couple that go to the farm of the chicken they are about to eat at dinner. The farmer of the place wants them to stay and be what they are “a husband or a wife, or a wife, or a wife, or a wife.” As the camera goes from each of the woman “workers” on the farm. This show pulls these very unique stereotypes, like this sister-wives situation, into the show and into Portlandia. This make-believe place is just filled with out of the box people.

Honestly, I really do not like the main actor of the show, Fred Armisen. I never really like his roles in SNL so I think that’s probably why I do not like the show very much. I could see how some people could enjoy it though. It just seems so random to me, I must not understand the jokes, or they just aren’t funny. I don’t think I will be watching much more of this show after this!

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Blog Post 7

Something I regularly watch is YouTube. I watch random beauty bloggers and makeup videos. Someone who is kind of popular on YouTube but I have not watched before is Tana Mongeau. I knew of her but just haven’t cared enough to watch. I knew she was funny, and somewhat “controversial.” A lot of her videos get demonetized because she will smoke on camera or talk about other drug related content.

Tana is a 21-year-old girl from Las Vegas, that now lives in LA and makes videos about her life. She has had a YouTube account for years and is very popular for her videos titled “Storytimes.” These are all very crazy, one in a million type of stories. I am not sure how she has lived all of these crazy things, but she tells them in great detail and end up being very funny. They cover a lot of different topics. I started with watching one called, “my PSYCHOTIC sugar daddy story. You aren’t ready.” So, this tells you the kind of person she is! She is very upfront and honest in her videos, which I liked. The story was literally insane, and she tells it in such clear detail. It’s a very long story, over an hour, that explains a date she had with a potential sugar daddy, who ended up being a very famous man in the music industry. She doesn’t name names, but the bill at the end of the night was $12,000 to say the least.

Other videos are named “I got arrested at Coachella”, “I almost died in an Uber”, “Vomited on People in a 5 star restaurant” and much, much more. I watched her for about 4 hours while I edited photos for my job, and I was really able to see how unique her channel was. I think she has made her own “style” of YouTubing that isn’t focused on the most watches. She is very honest and opens up her life to all of her fans.

I think its so cool and interesting how YouTube has given people a platform to share their stories and comedy to the world. Without it, I wouldn’t have gotten my hours of entertainment for the night!

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Blog Post 6

For this week’s blog post, I wanted to watch another episode of SNL. I feel like I do not watch a lot of comedy that has political or cultural context behind it, so for Unit 3 I thought it would be a good idea for me to see some more examples. I went through Hulu and found Jonah Hill’s episode from season 44, that aired on November 3rd, 2018. I picked this episode because I really enjoy Hill’s style of comedy and was interested to see it mix in with the type of comedy SNL focusses on.  

Jonah Hill’s opening monologue was very funny with the Five Timer’s Club. He, along with a few other famous stars, has hosted SNL 5 different times. Tina Fey comes in and brings Jonah into the club room, where Drew Barrymore and Candice Bergen are standing with their Five Timer’s Club jackets. They induct him into the club and make it official by giving him a tight sequin jacket. He ask’s “Is this like, uh, a women’s jacket?” Tina Fey says back to him, “its 2018, any jacket can be a woman’s jacket.” The crowd slaps. This was a very short line but reminds me of this unit’s focus of social change. Tina Fey seems to be a comedian that says things like this very often, being a part of the #MeToo Movement. I’m looking forward to watching more of her comedy for class this upcoming week.

One of the most funny skits was the first fake commercial of the episode, which was a political campaign for the election.  It was the Democrat’s reminding you to go out and vote on election day. The words they are saying are very positive that they think are going to win. They say things like “The blue wave is coming, and I’ve never been more confident” and “it’s a win we need, and a win we’re going to get. I am sure of it.” But the first woman was shaking her entire body with a forced smile, and the second man couldn’t even finishing saying “I am sure of it” without spilling his coffee and his voice cracking. The commercial goes on through about 5 or 6 other characters. A black woman comes on smiling and says, “White woman are going to do the right thing this time, right?” with a big smile. This made me laugh because that’s what I was hoping too! And probably a lot of people hoped and thought the same thing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode of SNL. Jonah Hill is a great actor and can fit into so many hilarious characters. I am also glad I got to see examples of comedy that focuses on more cultural, political, and social challenges in our society. Hopefully I can bring in something I watched into class discussion next week!

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Blog Post 5

Amy Schumer’s new comedy special, Growing, just came out on Netflix this week and my roommates were looking forward to watching it. I decided to sit down and give her another try. A main focus on this special is her pregnancy and marriage, which is something new since the last special I watched. Amy decides to use this special to open up about a few things in her life. One of which is how her husband is on the autism spectrum. Amy shares a story about how honest he always is with her. She said, “if I say to him "Does this look like shit?" he'll go "Yeah, you have a lot of other clothes, why don't you wear those?” The crowd laughs. I think Amy uses a lot more honestly in this special than the last. The last one was a little over the top with sexual content, and this one still has all of Amy’s upfront personality, but more relatable. She tells a funny joke about “hoping I am not the bridesmaid with the biggest arm”. I thought this was super funny because it is so relatable. She stood her body to the side like bridesmaids would in a picture and compared her arm to a turkey leg. I think every bridesmaid or woman can somehow relate to this feeling and hopefully laugh. Amy also is very honest about her arrest this past October. She got arrested in Washington D.C when she was protesting Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. She tells the story of how it happened and said her biggest worry about being arrested was not being able to get snacks when she was in the jail. So, when she saw the police coming, and knew she was going to be arrested soon, she started scarfing down snacks at a rapid pace. She even imitates herself intensely eating cookies, and it was really funny to watch. I have a feeling this story is probably not true, but she acted it out very realistically and I still thought it was a very funny story. I enjoyed this special and laughed a lot!

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Blog Post #4

After you said past Saturday’s SNL with John Melaney was one of the best in a awhile, I decided to watch it. I am not very familiar with him other than what you have shown us in class. I have liked everything you shown us so I was looking forward to watching. The first skit was a game show called “what’s the name?”. I thought it was so funny when the host says, “none of his friends have wives because they are a group of bachelors, that call themselves, the squad.” He paused after for awhile because the crowd really laughed at that one, and I even laughed out loud in bed watching. This joke pokes fun at those who seriously go around self-proclaiming their group at “the squad.” As I watched a few more skits, I thought it was funny that in every skit John was still in his suit. This seems like his classic character, no matter what. I still saw his personality behind the characters he played in each of the skits. His arm mannerisms are still in each skit. The first skit that he changed from this was the weird one where he tries to kill a bully from his childhood, Chad. He was wearing a scary mask which he took off to reveal a “school shooter” look. He was a very dark character and was successful to convey that. Pete Davidson was the victim in the skit who could basically only mutter the word “okay” with an expressionless face, even when John appears before him telling him he is going to kill him. I can see how some people would think this is funny, but I thought it was just weird. I have only seen a little bit of his act, but I find most of Pete Davidson’s comedy to be too blunt and too planned out. The next scene John goes back to his normal mannerisms. The Bodega Man skit was very funny once the oompa Loompa’s came out. This skit was a lot of random ridiculous things coming out of a disgusting bathroom in a Bodega store. I think SNL does a good job mixing the different types of comedy by having so many different skits. We have talked about in class how TV shows use family or the workplace as the main set up but SNL, gets very creative. In this episode alone there was a game show, a wedding, a newscast, a tv show, a commercial, a store and more. The rest of the episode was overall great and I always enjoy watching SNL. No matter what’s going on in the world, SNL does a great job to poke fun at it.

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Blog Post #3

After you told me about Maria Bamford’s show on Netflix called Lady Dynamite, I decided to try watching it. I really fell in love with the show and Maria. I just finished the first season and I am really looking forward to watching season 2. The show is so weird and honest, which made me relate to it very well. The show follows Maria’s own life and mental health issues closely. She was hospitalized 3 times over a 5-year period, which she shows in the show by moving around from the past, present and future. Each episode is usually a different dilemma Maria runs into and how her depression and bipolar deal with the situations. She is a very kooky personality that does things very out of the ordinary, like get engaged after one date or scream randomly in public. I think the strength of the show is that everything is completely ridiculous but focusses on something very serious like bipolar and suicide. She will sing things like, “If I clench my fists at odd intervals, the darknesses within me won’t force me to do anything inappropriately violent or sexual at dinner parties!” This sounds ridiculous that someone would need to do this to control themselves, but bipolar 2 is very hard to control and she tells the viewers this in a funny way. I laugh at the jokes like this but also can relate to them, and I think that’s why I really love her. While writing this right now, I looked up on Google an interview with Maria about the show. She says, “what I hope people get from it is that by losing everything, it’s possible to become something better.” I think this is a great message that I clearly get from watching her show. As someone with bipolar 2, I think her resilience is inspiring. She acknowledges her metal health diagnosis but does not let them control her life in a negative way. She uses it to check up on herself and makes sure the people who support her are aware of it as well. I am glad you told me about this show and a lot of my friends are already falling in love with Maria as well! I still haven’t watched any of her stand-up, so I am excited to see how I react to that compared to her TV show. I will probably write about that next week or maybe for my unit 2 paper.

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Week 2 Blog Post:

For my second blog post, I wanted to watch a comedy special. I have mostly only watched male stand-up performances, so I googled “best female comedy specials on HBO” to find something new. One of the specials that came up was Amy Schumer Live at the Apollo. I chose to watch Amy Schumer because I have only seen her play very funny characters in movies. I was interested and excited to hear her own personal comedy style. One of the first jokes that stood out to me was when she started talking about being the main actress in the movie she wrote. She was expecting a “pretty skinny” actress was going to play the main role, but they wanted her to. She went into detail about how she pictured herself sitting on set with her hair in a bun looking like a gnome, yelling out things like “the line was “pussy!” This was funny because she was shocked, it was going against her norms, so we also thought it was funny listening along with her thoughts.

As the special went on, she talked about things like having 36 drinks per weeks and eating more than 3 lunches in a day. A lot of her humor comes from self-deprecating humor about her weight. One thing she said that made me laugh was, “I came out of the womb at 150, screamin’ momma where’s the lasagna.” This refers to her being born very overweight as I child and always wanting to eat. Her weight is not the only thing she continues to be very honest about in this special. She talks in exaggerated detail about her sex life, medical history, body image, and much more.

My overall impression: I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. I thought some of the jokes that related to her weight, were not that funny. I also thought the entire set was too sexual, and I couldn’t relate to it as much. I think her sense of humor plays perfectly to her age, lower 30’s, and being single. At one point in this special she says that people refer to her as a “Sex Comic.” So I guess that’s my fault for not knowing that. She still was very funny and the story’s and situations that I could relate to made mu laugh a lot.

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Week 1 Blog Post:

After starting this class and hearing a lot of people talk about Parks and Recreation, I decided I wanted to start watching it. I have never seen an episode, so I was curious how good it was. I have watched The Office before, and I know they have a similar mockumentary style. This gives for a lot of satire toward office life and relationships between employees. As I am writing now, I have just finished the first season. The first season of Parks and Rec focuses on a large pit in the town of Pawnee being turned into a park by Leslie Knope. Leslie is an overly ambitious and mostly clueless official in the Pawnee government, in charge of Parks and Recreation. She works in an office full of other over the top personalities, like Ron Swanson, Tom Haverford and more. She has a huge passion for her job and expects everyone else in the office and the town of Pawnee to be as invested as she is. The continuous cluelessness that Leslie has is very funny to me. The beginning of the season starts off with Leslie promising to build a park in the pit at a city meeting. Almost everyone is against her on building this park, but she never takes no for an answer. In the third episode, “The Reporter”, a reporter named Shauna has come to interview Leslie and her sub-committee for building the park. Leslie starts the episode by telling everyone to “stay on message” once the reporter gets there. Quickly the interview goes south when Leslie is overly uncomfortable which forces the reporter to talk to Andy Dwyer, who fell into the pit and broke both of his legs. While talking to Andy, he reveals that he was drunk when he fell into the pit, which no one knew. This off message and something they would not want the reporter to know. Leslies facial expressions during this were hilarious to me. Well, they are always very funny to me. Throughout the rest of the episode Leslie cannot act normally because she knows the reporter and Mark have slept together. Leslies answer to why she was acting weird with her was “she ate an old burrito”. Random ideas like this that pop into her head are very comical to me. She is definitely my favorite character on the show, and I am very excited to keep watching this show!