On The Media #2

I listened to the broadcast titled After 9/11, Nothing Was Funny. It was a recap of interviews with comedians Will Ferrel and Marc Maron, following the events of 9/11 asking about the future of humor after the tragedy in New York.

Now, ten days after the fifteenth anniversary of September 11, this brought back some interesting memories and feelings.

I had watched the fall of the Twin Towers on television and I remember wondering if it was appropriate to find humor in anything, because how could I laugh, when thousands of people had died and the security of our country was in question?

When I look back at those feelings and realize that at some point, I had realized that it was okay to laugh at things, because humor, at its core, comes from happiness and often times laughter can dissipate even the darkest of moods.

That said, I think we as a society never gave much thought about what was considered comedy prior to 9/11. It seems that nothing was really off limits at the time and after that day, there are definitely things that are not cool to joke about.

One has to wonder why it took such a devastating thing to make Americans take a step back and think about whether or not a certain joke is funny.