I'm sure there is not much comedy in it for the cat. It probably pisses them off. To understand the comedy of the situation, the cat would have to understand the context. Here is the context: you have a 59 year old gross human male on a bus (or was it a locker room) claiming the privilege and entitlement (due to his status as some sort of minor celebrity) to grab some pussy. That is the context. The comedy of the situation is that 12 years later the same person is on verge of being elected by millions of humans in a certain country to lead them. Comedy implies the simultaneous entertainment of two conflicting (or paradoxical) propositions in the mind. Here, the paradoxical propositions of the situation are the unlikely combination of the minor reality TV celebrity and the "serious" politician.
I'm not so sure than even if the cat was educated on the context of the Donald Trump situation, he or she would find it amusing.
The other interesting thing about comedy is that comedy is the only art I can think of that is a "live" art for the most part. I mean Van Gogh can die in obscurity only to find that long after he died, he is an international celebrity. The same would go for Herman Melville and a host of other novelists. But I can't think of any obscure comedian whose death later brought wider recognition. When Donald Trump dies I'm not sure that at some time in the future the cats will think him any funnier. But I could be wrong.
When I was growing up I remember a priest starting every sermon with a joke. I think he believed that comedy was a way of "opening" people up so they would be more receptive to his messages of hope, forgiveness, and love. Which make sense, because to resonate with comedy, as I discussed above, your mind would have to expand to include some perhaps conflicting ideas at the same time. In any event, we all thought the priest was a hoot. He was well liked, and he never tried to pull our tail or any of our other body parts. And we all know that since then, priests have been implicated in grabbing or pulling many body parts of their parishioners.
The cousin of comedy is irony. Take Bishop Paprocki of the Springfield Catholic Diocese. He recently advised his Springfield Catholic parishioners that it may be best not to vote in the coming election:
Is such a position comedic? I mean, if you are faced with a difficult decision, is funny if you decide to stick your head in the sand and not vote and withdraw from the political process? Whether Paprocki is trying to be funny or not, I suppose at some level it is an understandable position for a bishop to take. Bishop Paprocki is in an unelected (and some would say largely unaccountable) position with lifetime tenure. So it might be understandable that he would encourage voters to stick their heads in the sand and not concern themselves with political issues either in the church or otherwise as voter accountability, god forbid, if it spread to the church, could conceivably usurp the more or less totalitarian nature of the clergy.
I'm still struggling with whether Paprocki is trying to be funny or ironic. I suppose you can make the case for irony because of the widespread pedophile scandal within the Catholic church. Bishops like Paprocki have been accused to hiding their heads in the sand and not addressing the problem. Consider what the LA Times reported about Paprocki:
"Paprocki, who has a law degree and church license in canon law, gave a sermon Oct. 15 for the Red Mass, a gathering of lawyers and jurists, in Grand Rapids, Mich. The bishop scorned the church's escalating financial losses to victims of predatory priests. "The church is under attack," Paprocki declared, comparing the civil litigation to Henry VIII's seizure of "church property and kill[ing] those who did not accept his notion of the supremacy of the crown."
Displaying the callousness that has cursed so many Catholic bishops for so long, Paprocki insulted the victims of the scandals, as well as the attorneys and judges in their cases, with these words: "We must use our religious discernment to recognize that the principal force behind these attacks is none other than the devil."
Maybe what Paprocki is advocating is not irony or comedy, but he is making some sort of dark joke with his inconsistent positions. A good dark joke highlights the serious of the situation and its gravitas while at the same time reminding you that it's just a joke. Ok, I get it now, but I still don't think the Bishop is very funny. Maybe in time, after he dies, people will not view him as a reactionary or an anachronism (though I think they most certainly will), but will appreciate his humor more than I do, but I doubt it.
I wonder if Robert DeNiro would want to punch the good Bishop in the face as well?
I wonder if Robert DeNiro would want to punch the good Bishop in the face as well?
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