The impact of comedy and comedians on culture and society.
We all love a good laugh, and our comedians have been bringing that to us for centuries, going all the way back to ancient Greece. But they do more than provide some chuckles — they are the conscience of a society, and so they achieve prominence well beyond their roles as simple entertainers. The best ones, such as Will Rogers, W.C. Fields, (and we could probably include Mark Twain in here) in the past, and more recently to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are looked to as important social commentators. They tell us things about ourselves and our society that no one speaks but we all need to hear. And they give us insight about what we feel and believe but sometimes can’t or won’t admit to ourselves.
Listen to the interesting discussion Peter Goldsmith and Bill Wood have put together on this topic:
