In a National Rifle Association (NRA) TV ad from February of this year a man stands in front of a TV screen that airs a series of clips. Among them is a shot of John Oliver saying the words “National ...

Black American novelists, filmmakers and other writers are using comedy to reveal — and combat — our era’s disturbing political realities. By Adam Bradley LAST SPRING, DURING the Broadway revival of ...

Offensive games are touchy subjects, and the concept of "offense" itself is a tricky, fluid thing. What offends one person doesn't offend another, and occasionally offense can be used as a tool for ...

More than a million people — including a camera-friendly rack of world leaders — took to the streets of Paris last weekend to march in support of free expression in the wake of the killing of ...

In two recent posts, I touched on both nonverbal and verbal types of formal humor. In this one, I continue our review of the latter category by discussing two styles of humor seen quite regularly in ...

Contra Theodor Adorno, it is mercifully untrue that the writing of poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. Nevertheless, modes of artistic expression do rise and fall as history shuffles from one corridor ...

“I was just kidding,” is probably one of the most common refrains uttered when someone gets busted. Even President Donald Trump tried to back out of his infamous “pussy grabbing” comment saying it had ...

In his interview with Bill Moyers, Salman Rushdie talked about the recent strife brought about by the publication of cartoons seen by many Muslims as deeply offensive. Rushdie said: "What kind of god ...

With shows like “The Chair,” a fresh group of storytellers are using college life to explore — and lampoon — privilege and identity. A photo collage created with images from “The Chair” (2021) as part ...

Editor’s note: Our friend Danna Young is a scholar of, among other things, the intersection of entertainment and information — particularly humor’s use within the political landscape and the ways in ...