comedy

Comedy is the release of emotion that makes fun of sacred institutions. Comedy is shamless and important. Greek comedy deals with community, believeing the individual to be unimportant compared to the group they make up as a whole. Today comedy is different from the comedy written by Aristophanes which we call 'old comedy.' Old comedy is revolting, disgusting, hilarious, and deals with death and rebirth. New comedy accounts for 99% of comedy. It has a common plot where the boy wants a girl but cannot get her, but captures her heart in the end. Today it is rare to see old comedy. One example of old comedy in today's world is a recently-made movie called "Little Miss Sunshine."
Today I think comedy oversteps it's boundaries. Instead of being funny, it is instead crude, and often times goes too far. An example of this is the movie Borat. Sacha Cohen goes to great lengths throughout this movie to offend a number of people. Although I have not seen the movie, I refuse to do so because it sounds so degrading and senseless to me. There is a difference between humor and crap, and I believe that Borat is more along the lines of useless material that people waste their time viewing.
I'm sure many people enjoyed Borat but i'm simply not a fan.
I suppose that is another way to view comedy. It doesn't neccesarily need to accommodate everyone. Instead, certain groups can take the material they are presented with and view it from different aspects depending on their backgrounds and the culture they are emersed in. What one person finds hilarious another will find appalling.
In the comedy Zoolander, Ben Stiller plays a male model who is dumb as a brick. Through depicting the life of 'Derek Zoolander,' the audience gets to laugh at models who play a small role in society. Models are always in the back of the public eye and people secretely scorn them for failing to be the brightest crayons in the box. This movie makes it okay to laugh uncontrollably at the frail state male models are in at all times.